St. Bridget's Church, Moresby 

stands just to the north of Whitehaven on a clifftop overlooking the sea and on the site of a Roman Fortress.  From the  graveyard on a clear day there are views of the Isle of Man to the west and, further north, across the Solway Firth of the hills of Scotland.  In that graveyard are three similar gravestones grouped together, the middle of which has the following inscription:

What do we know of Thomas and Elizabeth?  I have been unable to find Thomas's birth or baptism, (although some online "family trees" also show him and say he was born in Lanarkshire in 1739, but I suspect this is only because that baptism is the only one they could find that matches his calculated birth year - which is not evidence that it was actually him).  We do have Elizabeth's father's Will, which gives his name as John Wildridge and in which he left his land to his daughter, and his wife Elizabeth was buried at St. Bees in 1766, so these are her parents.   The first record we have of them together (thus far) is of their marriage, by Licence, on 9th January 1768 in St.James' Church, Whitehaven.  Thomas's occupation on the licence is shown as "Gardiner", and he signed his name with an ornate, well practiced signature, as he did on the Marriage Register, suggesting that he could write and thus read.  

The occupation "Gardiner" is interesting.  The BBC Newsreader Sophie Raworth was featured in the programme "Who Do You Think You Are" in 2017 / 2018 and she had gardener ancestors in the same period in the North East of England, although they were, at least in part, in the direct employ of landowners.  The conversation she had with the "expert" on this subject went:

"Being a gardener was a very prestigious activity."

SR  "It was a prestigious activity?"

Oh, absolutely. It's not just somebody pulling a few weeds, he's actually somebody who is probably the equivalent of the butler on the outside staff."

SR  "Why was that?"

"Because the garden is where your wealth is shown off.  And when you come through the front gates, that's the first impression that people are going to have of you and your standing in society....." 

Whether Thomas worked for the local landed gentry we do not know, but we do know that his wife's father, John Wildridge, owned several parcels of land in Moor Row, and that on his death Elizabeth, Thomas's wife, inherited it.

Both Lamplugh and Moor Row would have been bleak spots at this time, certainly in the winter.  Lamplugh was a large straggling parish, then as now with no real centre.  Stockhow Hall was and is closer to Ennerdale Bridge, being right at the southern end of Lamplugh parish.  Although Moor Row would later become a centre for iron mining and greatly expanded in the nineteenth century (see below), in the later eighteenth century would have been merely scattered farms and farmhouses, as indeed was Lamplugh.  It seems though that the Dalziel family moved readily between the two places as both Thomas and Elizabeth died at Moor Row, both in 1818, whilst their son John appears to have taken over Stockhow Hall at that time, and his children were baptized in Lamplugh.

Unfortunately no trace yet has been found of a Will, for either Thomas or for Elizabeth, unfortunate because if Wills existed they might be expected to list their living children.  Thomas owned land, which suggests that the family were "respectable" and, it would seem, comparatively wealthy.  They had gravestones, which would not have been the case had they been from the labouring class.  It is highly unlikely that they, or at least Thomas, would not have left a will, but the most likely repositories do not have him listed.

Thomas' Estate certainly passed to at least his two older sons as the eldest, John,  took over Stockhow Hall and their second son Anthony either inherited or was gifted some or all of the land in Moor Row, and in due course obtained a licence to mine there.

Mining of Iron Ore and Hemetite became a substantial industry in the west of Cumberland from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and the Montreal mine at Moor Row was one of the larger ones, producing up to 250,000 tons of iron ore a year.  The village of Moor Row grew significantly and at some point the main street was named Dalzell Street, apparently names after Thomas Henry Dalzell³, son of Anthony Dalzell (see below) and grandson of Thomas and Elizabeth Dalzell, who would not would not have recognised the place only 40 or 50 years after their deaths.

Of William and Elizabeth's children, although elder son John appears in early trade directories as a farmer at Stockhow Hall, the most information still available relates to their second son Anthony.  He attended the University of Aberdeen and was ordained first as a deacon, then as a priest in 1795 and 1796 respectively before in 1804 becoming Perpetual Curate (effectively vicar) of the parish of Clifton, just to the north of Lamplugh and west of Cockermouth, a position he held until his death in 1850.  He was also the proprietor of a school in nearby Workington.  His name appears on various documents - he seems to have been asked to act as Executor for a number of Wills and of course married, baptised and buried the people of his parish. Details of his career are listed in the online Clergy Database ⁴

Which brings us to the detail given on the other two gravestones at Moresby, or perhaps memorial stones would be more accurate for most of those listed on them as they are not buried there.  The picture below shows the closeness of the sea, and on a clear day the Isle of man would be visible in the distance, but the full text on the stones is impossible to decipher in the photo.  It can be read though by expanding the section below, from which it will be seen that several members of the family were pillars of the local, and indeed national, community.  One wonders what Thomas and Elizabeth would have made of the fact that one of their descendents would become the Member of Parliament for the constituency in which they had started the Dalzell dynasty, less than a hundred years after their deaths.