The Middleton family is an English family that has been related to the British royal family by marriage since the wedding of Catherine Middleton to Prince William in April 2011, when she became the Duchess of Cambridge. The couple have three children: George, Charlotte and Louis. Tracing their origins back to the Tudor era, the Middleton family of Yorkshire of the late 18th century were recorded as owning property of the Rectory Manor of Wakefield with the land passing down to solicitor William Middleton who established the family law firm in Leeds which spanned five generations. Some members of the firm inherited woollen mills after the First World War. By the turn of the 20th century, the Middleton family had married into the British nobility and, by the 1920s, the family were playing host to the British royal family.
History Gledhow Grange-Hawkhills Estate
By the late Georgian era, the Middleton family were established in the West Riding of Yorkshire as cultural and civic figures, particularly in the legal profession. The law firm Messrs Middleton & Sons was founded in Leeds in 1834 by gentleman farmer and solicitor William Middleton, Esq. (1807–1884) of Gledhow Grange-Hawkhills Estate. One of his sons, solicitor Arthur Middleton (1846–1907), inherited Hawkhills from his father. In 1879, Arthur married Jessie Marie Dubs (1858–1950), daughter of Henry Dübs (Founder of Locomotive works Dübs & Co. in Glasgow). In 1902, Arthur bought Moorfield Lodge and its adjoining Moor Grange. Both were sold to the University of Leeds in 1950, becoming Tetley Hall of Residence.
Gledhow Grange-Hawkhills Estate abutted Gledhow Lake as did the adjacent Gledhow Hall. In 1881, William Middleton's son, Edwin (1841–1892), a keen ice skater, was reported as the hon. treasurer of the Gledhow Skating Club. Gledhow Hall was owned at that time by Samuel Croft, the former Mayor of Leeds (1875) and the club's other hon. treasurer. The Leeds Mercury recorded in January 1881 that "per S. Croft and Edwin Middleton", a "proportion of surplus [funds] from the Gledhow Skating Club had been donated to the Leeds Infirmary". William's son, Robert (1847-1912), was married in 1874 to Mary Anne Howe; Robert's brother, Edwin, was married in 1870 to Mary Anne Howe's sister, Catherine Howe. Robert was a hydraulic and general engineer and established Sheepscar Foundry. He lived at Gledhow Lodge. Their nephew, Tom Taylor, had bought Hawkhills by 1908 following the death in 1907 of Arthur Middleton to whom Hawkhills had been entailed. From 1885, the owner of Gledhow Hall was James Kitson, 1st Baron Airedale with the first marriage between the neighbouring Middleton and Kitson families occurring in March 1900.
William Middleton's descendants include his grandson (Richard) Noël Middleton (1878–1951), a solicitor, director of the family woollen manufacturing firm and co-founder of the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra. Noël Middleton's youngest son was Peter Francis Middleton, who was Prince Philip's co-pilot on a tour of South America. Peter Middleton's second son is entrepreneur Michael Francis Middleton, who married Carole Goldsmith in 1980. By 1995, the couple had purchased Oak Acre, a Tudor-style manor house in Berkshire surrounded by around two acres including a field where they lived with their three children.
Party Pieces Michael and Carole Middleton founded a mail-order supply company, Party Pieces, in 1987, but sold it in May 2023 after it fell into administration. The company was at one point estimated to be worth £30 million, but by the time it collapsed it owed £2.6 million to creditors, including £612,685 owed to HM Revenue and Customs, £218,749 owed to Royal Bank of Scotland for a Coronavirus Business Interruption loan, and £20,430 to an Afghan refugee whose small business was a supplier of helium gas. The company's administrator's report stated that unsecured creditors were unlikely to be paid.
The children of Michael and Carole Middleton are: Catherine Elizabeth, Princess of Wales, socialite and columnist Philippa Charlotte Matthews and businessman James William Middleton. The Middletons purchased Bucklebury Manor in 2012.Why Prince William and Kate Middleton have chosen Bucklebury as Prince George's first home , Hello, 20 August 2013
Aristocratic ties Robert Lacey describes the Middleton family as having aristocratic kinship. The Middletons were "friends of British royalty" to whom, in their civic capacity, they "played host as long ago as 1926". The great-grandfather of Catherine, Princess of Wales, Noël Middleton, and his elder brother, photographer and civil engineer Captain William Middleton (1874–1940) reportedly wed their fiancées in Leeds at Mill Hill Chapel in the years before the First World War. Mrs William Middleton (née Agnes Clara Talbot) was the niece of Sir James Kitson, 1st Baronet (later 1st Baron Airedale), who led the chapel's congregation at this time, while Mrs Noël Middleton (née Olive Christiana Lupton) was the first cousin-once-removed of Baroness von Schunck (née Kate Lupton), and the second cousin of Baroness Airedale (née Florence von Schunck) and of Lady Bullock (née Barbara Lupton). The 1990 edition of Debrett's Peerage records that the daughter of Mr and Mrs William Middleton - Clara Talbot Middleton (1903-1985) - married Thomas Arthur Charles Pakenham, scion of the Earls of Longford in December 1925.
Two of the grandchildren of William Middleton (1807–1884) were solicitor Henry Dubs Middleton (1880–1932), a Charterhouse alumnus, and Gertrude Middleton (1876–1942), educated at St Leonards School, who were both students at the University of Oxford between 1899 and 1903; Gertrude, the "wealthy" sister of Noël Middleton, studied at St Anne's College while her cousin studied law at University College. Henry served as Chairman of Leeds General Infirmary where he played host to Princess Mary in 1932. He was married to golfer Jane Middleton (née Berney) (1878–1964), a daughter of Sir Henry Hanson Berney, 9th Baronet (great-grandson of George Neville, 1st Earl of Abergavenny). Their sons were Ralph Middleton (1908–1990), who was, like their father, a solicitor who later headed the family law firm, and cricketer Cecil Middleton (1911–1984). They were educated at Charterhouse and University College, Oxford.
Family law, oil and woollen manufacturing firms
Many relatives of Michael Middleton (father of the Princess of Wales) were solicitors in the Leeds-based family firm, Messrs Middleton & Sons. His grandfather Noël Middleton, great-grandfather John William Middleton, Esq. (1839–1887), and great-great-grandfather William Middleton, Esq., as well as many other Middleton relatives, were all solicitors at the law firm which William had established in 1834. William Middleton's 1884 obituary in the Leeds Times records that the firm Middleton & Sons had been solicitors to the Leeds Permanent Building Society since its establishment in 1848.
William Middleton's great-grandson John Alfred Middleton (later Middleton-Joy, 1895–1975) was the son of Gilbert Middleton (1865–1921), a church soloist (the Church of St Oswald, Filey and St Chad's Church, Far Headingley) and solicitor. John Alfred Middleton studied at Winchester College where he was a substitute in the college's First XI in the 1914 Eton Match. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford where he gained a legal qualification (Jurisprudence). In 1962, Middleton-Joy was a director of Edward Joy & Sons Ltd, manufacturers of Filtrate Oil, having previously been chairman of the company. He married Dorothea, daughter of Judge Thomas D. Beighton. Middleton and his wife were members of Ascot Heath. Reportedly one of "the keenest women in Leeds on horse-racing matters", Mrs John Alfred Middleton-Joy and her husband dined alongside fellow racing enthusiasts Princess Mary and her husband, the Earl of Harewood, at a Tangiers hotel in February 1934.
John Middleton-Joy's elder brother, solicitor Alan Lomas Middleton (1893–1970) was, like his brother, an Oxford graduate. Alan and their father Gilbert, a Cheltenham College alumni, were members of the Yorkshire Ramblers' Club as was Gilbert's brother Noël Middleton. Alan's son David Middleton (died 2023, age 95) attended Winchester and then went up to New College, Oxford University after which he was a solicitor at the family law firm and President of the Leeds Law Society. David attended the wedding at Westminster Abbey in April 2011 of Catherine Middleton – his second cousin, once removed – to Prince William.
Noël Middleton was a director of William Lupton & Co., the Leeds textile manufacturing firm his wife, Olive, had inherited in 1921. His two elder sons, Christopher Maurice Middleton (later Lupton)—an alumnus of Clifton College and Cambridge University's Emmanuel College—and Anthony John Middleton a graduate of Clifton College, worked at the family's manufacturing firm. In 1958, after closing their business, Anthony moved to Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.
Described by Tina Brown as being at the "top level of the legal profession in Leeds", Middletons solicitors (formerly known as Middleton & Sons) existed for over 150 years, then absorbed into Booth & Co in 1985 - itself later absorbed by Addleshaw and merged with Theodore Goddard in 2003 to form Addleshaw Goddard.
Michael Middleton's niece, Lucy Middleton, is a London-based solicitor and a godparent of Prince Louis.
Peter and Valerie Middleton Michael Middleton's father was Captain Peter Francis Middleton (1920–2010), a commercial pilot and Royal Air Force officer.
His boyhood in Leeds saw Peter Middleton share a governess with his second cousins, Dr Francis G. H. Lupton (1921–2006) and Arthur Ralph Ransome Lupton (1924–2009), both nephews of Arthur Ransome.
As all three of Middleton's maternal uncles died in the First World War, the family seat, Beechwood Estate, was inherited by his grandfather's younger brother, Arthur Greenhow Lupton (1850–1930), and later controlled by his spinster daughters, Dr Elinor Gertrude Lupton (1886–1979), a Lady Mayoress of Leeds, and Elizabeth Lupton (1888–1977). Francis Lupton's 2001 book, The Next Generation: A Sequel to The Lupton Family in Leeds by C.A. Lupton contains Middleton's memoirs in which he recalls attending formal family gatherings at Beechwood: "...the even greater ordeal of the annual Beechwood Party, for which I still remember the horrors of trying to tie a black bow tie for my first dinner jacket. Nor will I forget my terror of Lady Bryce..." Lady Bryce was the aunt of his mother's first cousins, sisters Elinor and Elizabeth Lupton. Middleton wrote that he was "somewhat in awe" of his unmarried cousins who shared a love of animal husbandry with their friend Princess Mary. The two sisters also shared great-grandparents with Beatrix Potter.