Genealogy & Family History
Edward John Heseltine
Notes & Queries
By 1828 Edward John Heseltine was manager of the Sheffield & Rotherham Joint Stock Banking Co, on High St, Rotherham. The family lived above the bank, and many years later, one of Heseltine's Junior clerks recalled how Heseltine sunned himself daily in fine weather, 'with his blue coat and gilt buttons, a chevalier of the old school'.
Heseltine was one of Rotherham's leading citizens, and in 1838 became Director of the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway. He had a hobby of collecting armor.
As a bank manager, he had a good deal of discretion in making loans from his branch, and when his directors in 1850 warned him he was making loans with insufficient security, he ignored their advice. By 1853 his health was failing and he seemed confused. It was suggested he take retirement and was promised an annual pension of £200 which would be about half his salary. He retired at the end of the year and with his wife visited various health resorts.
Almost as soon as he had left the bank, the new manager discovered large account deficits and as a result, Heseltine's pension was withdrawn.
The bank hired a private detective and he was traced to Torquay, Plymouth and Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. He promised to return to Rotherham to explain, but with the threat of legal action, he removed himself and his wife to Le Havre where he died. One account records his death as September 15, 1855, and another as June 21, 1862.
It was never determined the total deficiency or the reasons, but it is thought the sum amounted to over £4000. There was no indication that he benefitted from the irregularities.
Heseltine's family included a son and four daughters:
- Frederick
- Rose (1820–1917)
- Isabella born about 1824
Isabella married Joseph Bland and they lived on Moorgate Grove, Rotherham. They had a daughter Florence Nightingale Bland. When Florence was about eight, both her parents had died and she went to live at Waltham with Anthony and Rose Trollope. Florence became his secretary and was his travelling companion on his last trip to Ireland in 1882. The greater part of his manuscripts in the last 5 years of his life were in Florence's hand.
Edward Heseltine and his family were holidaying in Kingstown, a seaside resort outside Dublin in the summer of 1842, and this is where the family met Anthony Trollope, the novelist, who was in Ireland as a post-office surveyor..
Rose Heseltine married Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) on 11 June 1844, in the parish church at Rotherham. On announcing the wedding, the local newspaper described him as the 'son of a celebrated authoress'.
They had two sons, Henry Merivale and Frederick James A., the first born on 13th March, 1846 at Clonmel and the second on 27th September, 1847. Anthony Trollope died 6 December, 1882.
Rose died 25 May 1917 at Stroud aged 96.
©2004