John Wilmer Field

John Wilmer Field was born in 1775, eldest son of Joshua Field the Lord of the Manor of Heaton, resident at Heaton Hall. John took an BA at Oxford and was an Officer in the Royal Horse Guards, the Blues. He inherited the Manors of Heaton, Upper Helmsley, and others when his father died in 1819. When Dr Cyril Jackson, Lord of the Manor of Shipley died, John Wilmer Field purchased the Lordship from his executors.

He married Anne Wharton-Myddleton in 1812 and they had two daughters Mary, born 1813 and Delia born 1814. Anne died in 1815. When a church for Shipley was granted by the Commissioners, John Wilmer Field granted the 1 acre of land for the building. In 1829 he married Isabella Helen, daughter of Captain Slater R.N., but had no further children.

John Wilmer Field died in London in 1832 and is buried in a vault under the chancel of St Paul’s, Shipley – the only person to be buried within the church. Both daughters married well. Mary, who was heir to Shipley and Heaton, wed Lord Oxmantown, who became Earl of Rosse on the death of his elder brother; hence Mary became Countess of Rosse and the considerable lands in Shipley and Heaton passed into the Rosse family. The two daughters had this monument erected in 1838.