Attorney at Law. Employed as an agent by Sir Thomas Wentworth Blackett Bt. of Bretton Hall. Skelton is believed to have drawn up Sir Thomas’s second and final will of 29 May 1792 which provided for the inheritance of his daughter Diana and her husband Col. T.R. Beaumont. He may also have prepared Sir Thomas’s earlier will under which the principal beneficiary was to be one of Sir Thomas’s illegitimate sons, a minor at the time. After Sir Thomas’s death Skelton continued in the employ of the Beaumonts and was heavily involved in the management of their Yorkshire estate and business affairs until 1796 when his employment was terminated. The Beaumonts were keen to expand their estates around Bretton and Skelton was notably involved on their behalf in the purchase of the Cotton estates in Haigh, Kexborough and Barugh following a bankruptcy in 1794.
During the time of his employment by the Beaumonts Mark Skelton lived at Birthwaite Hall, Darton near Wakefield.
Michael Powell
See also
S.J. Wright, ‘The Beaumonts and a Bureaucracy: A West Yorkshire Estate in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century.’ Wakefield Historical Publications (2001)
