Description:Many letters in Sir John’s papers relate to the management of the Leveson-Gower estates. Sir John’s papers include correspondence from various agents working on his Staffordshire and Shropshire estates, such as George Cookes, and also from Reverend George Plaxton, the estate’s Chief Agent, who had served Sir John’s father and grandfather in the same capacity. The letters sent to Sir John by his estate agents tell us about the professional relationship between Sir John as the estate owner and the men employed to manage his estates. The letters discussing estate business show the type of work and responsibilities involved in owning and managing extensive estates in the first half of the eighteenth century.
A letter to Sir John from an agent named Mr. Taylor describes George Cookes as ‘very sensable and very willing to comply to anything that your Lordshipp shall propose’. Indeed, the letters which Cookes wrote to Sir John frequently request his ‘Lordships orders’, indicating that he acted under the direction of Sir John as the estate owner. This suggests that Sir John played an active role in the management of his estates through the agents which he employed.
Cookes’s letters relate to estate business, such as the timber sales at Lilleshall Park. He notes in one letter ‘I have sent to Mr Plaxton a value of Lilleshall park timber both as to quantity and quality’. As an estate agent, Cookes was required to report back to Reverend George Plaxton (1647/8-1720), the Chief Estate Agent on the Leveson-Gower estates. His letters relating to the sale of Lilleshall Park timber show that resources on the Leveson-Gower estates were cultivated and sold to produce income for the estate.
Another letter from Cookes refers to incidents involving tenants on the Staffordshire estates and their property leases. Cookes informs Sir John of ‘one inconvenience’ in ‘Burton’ relating to ‘the three Acres in the towne feild the pries whereof is 45 li’. Cookes informs Sir John that the tenants ‘alledge’ that it ‘is disputable whether it belongs to Mr James Burslems leases or a by Jack Frommy Lord Pagett’. Cookes explains that owing to this dispute he was unable to take payment for the land, noting ‘I have taken a note for it to bee paid as soon as a good title cann bee produced for which I will search amongst the old deeds’.
Cookes’s responsibilities involved overseeing the cultivation of the land on Sir John’s estates and also the welfare of the tenants who held leases on Sir John’s properties in Staffordshire and Shropshire. In one letter Cookes refers to a meeting with the ‘Tittensor Freeholders’. In another letter he informs Sir John that ‘too leases are fallen in Shropshire', in Lilleshall and Crudgington. Cookes’s letters suggest that disputes over leases occupied much of his working time on Sir John’s estates. In the same letter Cookes notes ‘the old Miller at Lilleshall will not continue his holding unless hee bee abated 2 li per annum’.