Family Trees

Some of the following family trees are shown as PAF (Personal Ancestry Files) in the Family Trees section of this website. Others will be added in due course. If you have any queries about any particular Hulley family, please email me for further details.

Hulley family of The One House, Rainow near Macclesfield, Cheshire

This was a very old established family in the area with their ancestors going back to at least 1441. They lived in the same house for 420 years; it was knocked down in 1939 and only few of the remains (including the entrance gates) can still be seen. The name appeared as Hulley at this time, but later changed to Howley and Hooley before reverting back to Hulley. An Adam de Hulley is listed in one of the Court Rolls of Macclesfield dated 1369 (Adam de Hollay in 1362, Adam de Hull in 1358). There were also five Hulleys/Hooleys who were mayors of Macclesfield between 1709 and 1795. These were a branch of the main One House tree and lived in Macclesfield Town and Park.

My book entitled "The History and Hulley families of the One House, Rainow" gives the full story of the house and family. This is available to purchase - see the Longview Publishing section.

Hully family of NE Lancashire/NW Yorkshire/SE Westmorland

This was a large family of farmers/cattle dealers and eventually butchers in the Kendal/Orton district. Their locations also included Bentham, Clapham (Yorks) and Tatham Fells in Lancs. The family may have spread down the Yorkshire valley to the Craven district of Yorkshire. Their tree currently starts at 1627 with further (unconnected as yet) entries for 1559 - 1568. Moses and Francis were repetitive names in this family. Branches of this family have been found in the Manchester area in the late 19th century.

Hulley family of Frodsham, Cheshire

This family had three generations of surgeons/physicians/doctors and is a possible off-shoot of the Macclesfield line by the marriage of a James (b. before 1742) to Betty Ridley at Prestbury in 1773. The most interesting person from this family was Robert Churchman Hulley. He was born in 1809, trained as a physician (i.e. doctor) in Glasgow in 1830-35, following his grandfather, father and brother, and set up practise in Manchester. He sought to be declared insolvent in 1851 through ill-health, bad debts, gambling and railway share speculation and died penniless in Australia in 1862. He was related to the Hulleys of Liverpool (c. 1850-70) and to Georgiana Hulley (see Wills section). Another interesting member of this family was John Hulley of Liverpool, born 1833 brother of Robert Churchman Hulley. John was a devotee of the philosophy of muscular Christianity. He was a co-founder of the National Olympian Assocation based in Liverpool in 1865, and their first Festival for amateur athletes was held in 1866 at Crystal Palace in front of 10,000 spectators. John Hulley went on to establish the first public Gymnasium in Liverpool in 1867 where he was the self-styled Gymniarch. He married Georgina Bolton, the daughter of a wealthy iron manufacturer from South Wales in 1869, but died at the early age of 42 from emphysema and bronchitis.

Hulley family of Radcliffe, Lancashire (my ancestors)

This has been taken back to c. 1650 in Dukinfield and Ashton under Lyne with the family moving to Ringley and Unsworth before settling in Radcliffe. Their occupations were mainly weavers and other cotton trade employment. There may be a connection with the Hulleys of Saddleworth, whose tree goes back to 1720 at the present time. Some Hulleys from this district emigrated to the USA in the 1800's; an unusual Christian name - Elkanah - has been found in the Ashton under Lyne district as well as in USA. The earliest entries in the Ashton registers (1590-1635) for Hulley/Howley/Hooley are those from Dukinfield; because Dukinfield was formerly a part of the Macclesfield Hundred, this line is almost certainly an off-shoot of the Macclesfield family, or vice versa. There is already a link with a Will of Miles Howley of Adlington 1668 (William Howley Clothier was his Executor) and more research will probably confirm the link before this date. Each family grouping of Macclesfield and Dukinfield has common first names, e.g. Lawrence and John; this points to a definite link, but one that cannot be proved at the present time.

Hulley family of South Yorkshire

This is one of a number of families from this area, which included Sheffield, Rotherham and Ecclesfield. The name is also written as Ulley and Halley in this area. (See Wills for other spellings in Yorkshire). The tree starts at around 1550 and includes one of the first Hulley emigrants to South Africa - Richard and Ann in 1820. See the Family Trees, South Africa section for details of Richard's family tree.

Hulley family of Derbyshire

A few pieces of information are available on this line, whose main areas in the 18th and 19th Century were Bakewell, Baslow, Great Longstone and Edensor. Their tree starts at c. 1770, with other IGI entries going back to 1640 at Great Longstone with the christening of Georgius, son of Thomae Hulley. The name is also spelt HULLY in this county. One line of the Derbyshire Hulleys has been found in the West Midlands (Dudley/Tipton) in 1840 and another one turns up in Manchester in 1850. The pedigree for the Hulley family of Baslow who are well-known coach proprietors in the county, is also available.

Hulley family of Stockport, London, Great Yarmouth and South Wales

This was a very widely travelled branch of the family! The origins of this line are from Dukinfield and Ashton under Lyne where Robert Hulley was baptised in 1705. He was the brother of my G7 grandfather Arthur. Robert married a Stockport girl Mary Leigh in 1735 and was a butcher there. He was fined by Manchester Court Leet in 1738 - 42 for either selling beef after ten o' clock at night or for selling unsuitable meat. They had 10 children including Robert (1737) who married Sarah ? c. 1760. They had 7 children including Robert (1781) who later became the licensee of the Boar's Head public house in Market Place, Stockport, and James (1768). James married Keziah Spencer in 1793. They had several children including Thomas Spencer (1796). I have established from census returns and other records that Thomas probably went to London to be trained as an architect because he married Mary Anne Slade and their first child (named Keziah Spencer after her grandmother and father's second name) was born in Islington in 1822.

The family moved to Reading c. 1831 and then to Great Yarmouth in 1834, where Thomas practised as an estate agent and architect for 35 years until his death in 1869. Thomas and Mary Anne had 11 children, 3 of whom were originally registered as Quakers (1834 -1841) before being baptised into the Roman Catholic faith in Great Yarmouth in c. 1846. This family was very talented in the music profession, with children William Henry and Mary both professors of music. William H. went on to become the organist at St Marys RC church in Great Yarmouth and music tutor as was his sister Mary. William H. married in 1852 and had 8 children, one of whom William Frederick (1854) married in 1876 and moved to Swansea, where he had 7 children. His eldest son Ernest J (1879) formed a musical ensemble (with his children and wife) in the south Wales area and played at the local music halls during the 1920s and 30s.

An off-shoot of this family has turned up in Tasmania after being sentenced to transportation in 1825. Keziah and James Hulley of Stockport were convicted of stealing hats and were given 7 years' transportation. Keziah died after being in Australia for a few years and James's ancestors are still there - somewhere!

Hulley migrants to America

The main group under this category are George and Hannah Hulley (née Whitehead) and family who emigrated to America in 1832. The family originally came from Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire and are my direct relations. George was 58 years old at the time and he, his wife and their six boys flat-boated down the Ohio River to start a new life as a farmer in the then pioneer Switzerland County, Indiana. Their ancestors include Elkanah Hulley, one-time mayor of Marion, Indiana, and Dr. Lincoln Hulley 30 years president of John B. Stetson University, De Land, Florida. Many of their descendants still live in America today. See the Family Trees, America section for more details.

Hulley family of London and Bath

This was another gifted family. Harry Hulley born in 1759 in London, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783, 1784 and 1785 whilst he lived in Hackney, north east London. He is listed in National Dictionaries and Directories of painters from 1783 to 1830. His older brother Thomas was a silk merchant in London and the family may have had Macclesfield connections through this trade, the town being the centre of the Cheshire silk industry of the day. Harry's son Thomas also followed his father into painting and was listed in the Bath Directory from 1819 to 1846 as an artist or gentleman.

Hulley migrants to South Africa

This line was led by Richard Hulley, formerly of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, who emigrated to South Africa in 1820. There are now hundreds of his ancestors living there and his family tree is reproduced partly under the Yorkshire section and partly under South Africa.

A male heir of the Hulley family of the One House, Rainow also emigrated to South Africa in the late 19th century and married into the gentry there. No trace of this line has been found up to now.

Other groups of Hulleys

My records show that these include Birmingham, the Isle of Wight (Ulley), Bilton, west of York and Canada where my great uncle Franklin settled in the early 20th century before being killed on active service in World War 1. In-depth research has still to be undertaken on these groups.

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