Biographical Details of the Shackletons, Ballitore

Abraham Shackleton, 1696 –1771

Abraham was born on 27 th August 1696 in Yorkshire, the youngest child of Richard and Sarah Shackleton. Despite the death of his father when he was six years old, Abraham was influenced by his religious nature, and was described as a quiet and studious child.

He became an assistant in the school of David Hall in Skipton, where he was to meet his future wife , Margaret Wilkinson. He then came to Ireland as a tutor for two families, the Coopers and the Ducketts. It was from these men that he received the encouragement to open a boarding school. He became the first master of Ballitore School when it was opened on 1 st March, 1726, when he was 29. His nondenominational school was a great success, with 38 pupils at first, and the numbers steadily increased. Abraham and his wife had two children, Richard born in 1726 and Elizabeth, born in 1732. He died on Midsummer’s Day 1771, surrounded by his family. (Kildare Heritage Project)

Richard Shackleton, 1726 – 1792

The son of Abraham Shackleton , he was born on 9 th October 1726, seven months after his father opened Ballitore School. He was an intelligent religious child who studied at Ballitore with his lifelong friend , the scholar and parliamentarian Edmund Burke.

Although a Quaker, he completed his education at Trinity College, gaining a fluency in languages, and married Elizabeth Fuller, in 1749. The couple had four children, Abraham, Deborah, Margaret and Henry. Elizabeth died in 1754 and Richard remarried a year later. Richard and his new wife , Elizabeth Carleton, had two children who survived to adulthood, Sarah and Mary.

In 1756, Richard became headmaster of Ballitore School, following his father’s retirement. Twenty three new pupils enrolled at this time. William Leadbeater , who was later to marry Richard’s daughter, Mary, was employed to teach French at the school. Richard died on 28 th August, 1792, of a violent fever on his way to a provincial school meeting in Mountmellick, at the age of 66.

(Kildare Heritage Project)

Abraham Shackleton, 1752 – 1818

The first son of Richard Shackleton, born on 8 th December 1752, he became headmaster of Ballitore School c.1780. He decided however, to change the established practice of many years in the school, that of non-denominational education and restricted admission to Quakers only. This decision, in tandem with the effects of the 1798 Rebellion, led to the decline and eventual closure of the school in 1801.

“During the year of the rebellion the school was further reduced, many of his pupils being taken home by their parents on account of the disturbed state of the times…..”

(Annals, p 175)

The school was, however, reopened by James White, Abraham Shackleton’s son-in-law, five years later, and regained it’s former glory, catering for pupils of all denominations. The school, founded by the first Shackleton to reside in Ballitore had carried on for 73 years. Following the school’s closure, Abraham retired to Ballitore Mill, taking charge of the business until his death in 1818.

(Kildare Heritage Project)

Mary Shackleton - Leadbeater

Mary Shackleton was born in 1758, the daughter of Richard, the Master of Ballitore School. Mary demonstrated an early ability for creative writing and in 1791 married William Leadbeater, former pupil and teacher at the school. She became the first postmistress in Ballitore village. Mary corresponded with Edmund Burke, a former pupil of Ballitore school, Maria Edgeworth and George Crabbe. Her Annals of Ballitore,began in 1766 and finished in 1824, recounts life and events in her own life and the village and are an invaluable social and historical record.

Mary, a perfect embodiment of Quaker values: humble, unselfish and opposed to violence, died in 1826.

William Leadbeater, 1763 – 1827

Born on 4 th October 1763, and orphaned at an early age, William Leadbeater was a descendant of the Huguenot families of Le patre and Gilliard, who fled France due to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Placed in Ballitore School at the age of 14, he earned the goodwill of the Shackletons, with whom he stayed ,and grew up with Mary Shackleton, who later became his wife.

He went to Dublin to work as an attorney’s assistant, but later decided to return to Ballitore and join the Society of Friends. He married Mary in 1791 and they had three children, Lydia (1787), Mary (1789) and Margaret (1793). He taught French at Ballitore school and had over thirty years of happiness with his wife in the village. He died on 1 st September , 1827.