Robert Tatton

Robert Tatton (1606 – 19 August 1669) was the High Sheriff of Chester between 1645 and 1646. A supporter of King Charles I in the English Civil War, Robert is perhaps best known for the ultimately unsuccessful defence of his family home, Wythenshawe Hall, during its three-month siege by a Parliamentary force in the winter of 1643/44.

Robert was fined heavily by Parliament for fighting on the side of the king, but he was subsequently rewarded for his loyalty by Charles II following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. He and his wife Anne had six children the eldest of whom, William, inherited Robert's Wythenshawe estate after his father's death in 1669.

Robert's father, William Tatton, drowned in the River Mersey when Robert was 10 years old. As the only male heir Robert inherited his father's estate in Wythenshawe, but as a minor he was made a ward of the king, Charles I, until he came of age. On 9 January 1628, Robert married Anne Brereton, the third daughter of William Brereton of Ashley. The couple went on to have four sons and two daughters.

Robert's father-in-law William Brereton was a close relative of his namesake Sir William Brereton, who the year after Robert's marriage was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary troops in Cheshire following the outbreak of the English Civil War. The first pitched battle of the war was fought at Edgehill on 23 October 1642, and Robert decided to join the Royalist side.

Towards the end of 1643 the commander of the local Parliamentary forces in Cheshire, Colonel Robert Duckenfield, was ordered to seize Wythenshawe Hall and to remove anything of value that could be found. Forewarned, Robert Tatton recruited a group of more than 50 defenders from among his staff and Royalist friends. After ransacking the nearby village of Northenden the Roundheads arrived at Wythenshawe Hall on 21 November 1643, but they did not find the task of taking it as easy as they had imagined. At one point during the siege the attackers almost took possession of the house in a struggle during which six of the defenders were killed. The Parliamentarians refused a truce to allow the bodies to be taken to the local church for proper services to be held, necessitating their burial in the garden behind the house. One of those killed was the fiancé of Mary Webb, a young woman who had been brought up by the Tattons and had remained in the house with the defenders. Towards the end of the siege Mary saw the man who had led the attack, Duckinfield's second-in-command Captain Adams, sitting on a wall near the house. Borrowing a musket from one of the defenders, she shot him dead.

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