Luptons and Mill Green

In 1818 John Lupton was born at Pool-in-Wharfedale to Jane and William Lupton, who were originally from Conistone. The family moved to Bradford in 1826. On leaving school John built up a small leather finishing and cart making business and by 1851 he employed 15 men and boys and was an exhibitor at the Great Exhibition with his “specimens of cemented leather strapping, used for driving belts in weaving and spinning”.

There is no record of what became of the leather finishing business but by the end of 1851 John was the innkeeper of the Bowling Green Hotel on Bridge Street, a prominent coaching inn built in 1750. In 1868 the inn was sold to make way for the Bradford Mechanics Institute and John focussed on the wines and spirts distribution business he had started to build up.

John Lupton and his wife Hannah had only one child together, William Charles, who was born in 1849. Hannah also had a son named George from a previous marriage to Henry Couson. William received his education at Streeton Hall, which is near Keighley, and then in Asnières-sur-Seine near Paris.

Upon his return to Bradford, William was initially placed with a local firm of solicitors with the intention of pursuing a career in law, like his half-brother George before him. However, this plan did not last long and William left to join his father’s growing wine and spirits business, John Lupton & Son.

In 1876 at the age of 27 William married Sarah Woodhead Bentley. They had six children: John, who only survived a month, Arthur William, Alice Marion, Reginald, Gordon, and Olive. William’s mother, Hannah, died in 1877 around the same time her first grandson was born.

The family wine and spirits business quickly developed a large wholesale trade, acquiring a number of similar businesses in Bradford including W.H. Holloway, S. W. Newby, Chesney & Co and John Murray; and in Leeds, Boyd & Haworth. John a Lupton & Son became a royal warrant holder to King Edward VII and continued to be royal appointees until the end of King George V’s reign. 

By the 1890s William and his father had become wealthy and were in a position to buy several properties in Weeton, just a few miles from where John was born at Pool. William and Sarah acquired Woodgate House in 1892 and by 1899 they had also acquired the adjacent watermill (Mill Green), the miller’s cottage, Weeton Grange and the surrounding farmland. In June 1893, John, passed away at Woodgate, aged 75.

In October 1899, William was elected to represent the Exchange Ward in Bradford and became the Lord Mayor the same year. He was a Freemason, like his father. His lodge met at the Midland Hotel opposite John Lupton & Son’s offices on Cheapside. Throughout his life he devoted time and money to enumerable charitable and civic works, many of which survive in modern form. Most notably he supported the Bradford Royal Infirmary, and through this association he began organising day trips to Woodgate for hospital staff. 

William died at the age of 68 in February 1918 in Bradford. His wife, Sarah, passed away at Woodgate in 1934 at the age of 78. William and Sarah’s second son, Arthur William, served as a second lieutenant in The Prince of Wales’s Own West Yorkshire Regiment during the Second Boer War. He was also a top class cricketer and first played for Yorkshire in 1908. In January 1909, he married Kate Fosdick at St John’s, Leeds Parish Church. Their son, William Anthony (Tony) Lupton, was born in October 1910.

During World War I, Arthur was a major with the Yorkshires on the western front. He survived the war and left the army in 1920 to take over the family business. He also returned to first class cricket as an amateur and became captain for Yorkshire in the 1925 season at the age of 46. Yorkshire won the County Championship that year, and he led the side to second place in 1926 and third in 1927. Arthur, Kate and their son lived in Carlton Manor, Carlton.

Tony married Barbara Esta Blackburn in1935 and the couple moved into Weeton Grange. Tony joined The Royal Regiment of Artillery. They had three children, Christopher, Madeline and William. Tony’s aunt Olive was living at Woodgate House until she died suddenly in 1942. After Tony’s father passed away in 1944 his mother Kate moved into Weeton Grange and Tony and Barbera and their three children moved into Woodgate House. After the war Tony became head of John Lupton & Son. Kate continued living at Weeton Grange until she died in May 1961, aged 82.  By the 1960s competition from supermarkets had started to have a significant impact on the independent wine and spirits trade. John Lupton & Sons closed in 1967 and Tony retired.

In 1967, Tony and Barbara converted Mill Green for their own use and sold off Woodgate House. Tony passed away in May 1999 and Barbara died just eight months later. They are buried at St Barnabas’ Church, Weeton.

Mill Green was bought by Craig and Jean Wilson in 1999.