Agatha Tyldesley was the daughter of Thomas Tyldesley 1657-1715 by his second wife Agatha Winckley. She is mentioned in the Tyldesley Diary 1712-1714, which was published by Joseph Gillow and Anthony Hewitson in 1873. However, the 1873 edition of the diary did not include the later notes in a different hand which appear in the manuscript.
It seems clear that these are notes by Agatha Winckley—widowed by the death of Thomas Tyldesley in 1715. For example, in March 1724, Agatha records a visit from her daughter:
Aggey came from Sunderland
On Munday the March fair day
It was the beast faire
passion week
Sunderland is likely to be Sunderland Point, Overton—north along the coast from Fox Hall.
Agatha Tyldesley married John Bleasdell, who later died in a hunting accident on Ribbleton Moor. She had one son, also John Bleasdell. From this son there are many descendants including a major branch of the Bleasdell family in Canada.
Gillow and Hewitson [FN1] recount a Bleasdell family tradition that it is after the death of her husband that Agatha Tyldesley renounced the Roman Catholic faith:
Agatha married John Bleasdell, a Roman Catholic, who was killed by a fall from his horse while hunting on Ribbleton Moor. There is a tradition in the Bleasdell family that after her husband's death, she was in the habit of resorting to Broughton Church-yard, with her only son, to visit his grave, and that whilst sitting amongst the tombs during the time of service, she was attracted by the music and services within the Church. At first, says the tradition, she paid no attention to these services, then she listened at the windows, afterwards at the porch, and eventually she went into the Church, and embraced the Reformed Faith. The consequence of this step was, all her father's friends and relations, with the exception of her sister, were alienated from her. After her father's death, Winifred, who was never married, resided with her sister Agatha until her marriage, at Myerscough Planks, a small enclosure of land, with cottage and garden, a remnant of the Diarist's estate. This small estate (on the Preston side of the Ree-Buck Inn) was sold by the executors of the late James Bleasdell (the son of John Bleasdell, the grandson of the Diarist), whose son, the Rev. William Bleasdell [FN2], of the Rectory, Trenton, Canada, is the present representative of the family.
1. The Tyldesley Diary 1712-1714, Joseph Gillow and Anthony Hewitson, 1873 at page 87
2. After whom the Bleasdell Boulder was named
