Arthur Kavanagh

Taylour of Headfort & Watson of Bective Arthur Kavanagh

Thomas Taylour was an English surveyor who was closely associated with William Petty the famous author of The Down Survey. He was in fact the Deputy Surveyor General from 1660 to 1667. Shortly after the Cromwellian subjugation of the Irish, Sir William Petty was commissioned to carry out a complete survey of the entire country with a view to deciding the lands of the 'rebel' Irish that should be forfeited and made available for distribution to the soldiers and adventurers. Thomas Taylour came to Ireland in 1653 and was in possession of lands in the Kells area before the end of the decade. He got other lands in the country also either by purchase or by grant. In the early 1800s the family owned over 7000 acres in Co. Meath, 14000 plus in Cavan, almost 13,000 in Westmoreland, 4,500 in York and 3,400 in Lancashire. At the time Lord Headfort's rental rolls brought him in a massive £40,000 per annum. The Watsons were a Quaker family; members of the petty gentry who had been established in Carlow by the early seventeenth century after John Watson from Cumberland obtained a lease of lands at Ardristan from the Earl of Ormonde. It is claimed that they were descended from the Rutland based Watson family who were raised in the peerage in the early eighteenth century to the Marquisate of Rockingham. The family's principal seats in Ireland were in Carlow, at Kilconnor and Ballydarton.