Exhibition: The History of Walton Hall

Owners of Walton Hall: The Beales 

Charles Beale (1631-1705)

Charles was the youngest of the Beales’ sons to reach adulthood. He moved to London and became a cloth merchant and was also a keen amateur painter with an interest in the chemistry of colour. He also found employment working for the Board of Green Cloth - a board of officials responsible for auditing the accounts of the Royal Household, making their travel arrangements and sitting on a court of justice working within the extent of the palace.

 

In 1652 Charles married Mary Cradock (1633-1699), a portrait painter who was part of a small group of female artists working in London. Mary continued with her career after her marriage, becoming a professional portrait painter by 1670. She also produced paintings of members of her family including her husband Charles and son Bartholomew. Two of Mary's portraits are shown on this page - the first is of Charles painted in 1660 and the second is of Charles, Mary and their son Bartholomew in 1664. 

 

Charles Beale supported his wife by organising commissions and even preparing her paints. Her work, including the techniques and materials she used, her business transactions and names of her sitters, were recorded in some detail over several years by Charles in diaries, now held at the National Portrait Gallery and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Throughout their marriage, Mary and Charles worked together as equals and as business partners, an uncommon arrangement at the time. Mary was greatly influenced by the court artist Sir Peter Lely. According to notes written by Charles Beale, Lely would visit the Beale home occasionally to observe Mary paint and praise her work. Today her paintings are mainly displayed at Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds and the Museum of the Home in London.

 

Theodore Beale*(?-1652)

Katherine Beale’s brother Theodore was Rector of Walton from around 1644 until his death in 1652. He was installed there by his brother-in-law Bartholomew after being ejected from his parish in Suffolk. 

 

According to Helen Draper in her work ‘Mary Beale (1633-1699) and her ‘paynting roome’ in Restoration London’ (2020) the reason for this was as follows: “…Charles Beale’s maternal uncle Theodore, the Anglican rector of Ashbocking in Suffolk, supported the king and demonstrated his affiliation by nailing the royal arms to a wall in his church. The escutcheon, which can still be seen, was placed so high in the nave that Parliamentary soldiers could not remove it. Theodore Beale was called before the Suffolk Committee for Scandalous Ministers to face twenty-seven charges based on accusations made in ten witness testimonies given by his parishioners and outsiders. Among other things, Beale was accused of criticising Parliament and its war against Charles I; of not administering the Presbyterian Covenant properly to his parishioners and simultaneously preaching against predestination; and of being a ‘Solemne Cringer and bower toward the East end of the Chancell’.”

 

The fact that Bartholomew Beale, a puritan, arranged to have Theodore, a royalist, installed as Rector of Walton, would appear to demonstrate that he put family before politics at a time when so many families were ripped apart by the English Civil War.

 

*It should be noted that Theodore Beale is also variously listed as Bartholomew’s brother (ref: 'Landed Families of Britain and Ireland' by Nicholas Kingsley) or his son (ref: 'A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland' published in 1846). The latter account also reports that Theodore died in prison after his ejection from Ashbocking. The Theodore Beale who was Rector of Walton was buried there on 23 December 1652.