{"id":8751,"date":"2026-06-26T15:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T14:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/?p=8751"},"modified":"2026-06-26T15:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T14:48:15","slug":"the-ballitore-papers-now-available-online-to-mark-the-200th-anniversary-of-the-death-of-mary-leadbeater-in-1826","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/the-ballitore-papers-now-available-online-to-mark-the-200th-anniversary-of-the-death-of-mary-leadbeater-in-1826\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ballitore Papers now available online to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Mary Leadbeater in 1826"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kildare County Archives has digitised many of the Ballitore Papers to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Mary Leadbeater n\u00e9e Shackleton in 1826 and the founding of the Ballitore School in 1726. It consists of letters, notebooks, diaries, and personal memorabilia of the Quaker families of Shackleton, Leadbeater and Barrington; there is extensive correspondence written between Mary Leadbeater (n\u00e9e Shackleton) (1758-1826) and Arabella Forbes; Anne (1759-1818) and Elizabeth Grubb (1762-1829), and Bishop Thomas O\u2019Beirne of Meath (c. 1747-1823) and his wife, Jane. Other items in the collection include memoirs, diaries, and notebooks, such as two diaries of Sarah Shackleton, sister of Mary Leadbeater (PP1\/91-2) which cover a few months of 1772 and 1774; The Ballitore Magazine 1809 (PP1\/23) which contains a variety of articles, poetry and local news items; notes and letters compiled by Selina Fennell n\u00e9e Barrington (1833-1917) (PP1\/25) relating to the life of her father, Edward Barrington; a notebook belonging to Margaret Davis n\u00e9e Barrington (1823-1912) (PP1\/29) relating to the early years of her\u00a0<\/strong>mother, Sarah Barrington n\u00e9e Leadbeater\u2019s life, and also contains details of the last days of Mary Shackleton Leadbeater.\u00a0You can find put more here<\/a>. Digitised items from this collection can be found\u00a0here<\/a>. Further items will be digitised in due course.<\/p>\n

A full descriptive list is available\u00a0here<\/a>. Some of the Ballitore Papers have also been transcribed and are available along with the digitised originals\u00a0here<\/a> and at Kildare County Archives in Naas, Co. Kildare. The collection has bee organised<\/p>\n

(i) Masters of Ballitore School<\/strong><\/p>\n

(a) Abraham Shackleton (1696-1771)<\/strong>
\nPP1\/1<\/a>\u00a0A testimony concerning that worthy elder Abraham Shackleton, 1774.<\/p>\n

(b) Richard Shackleton (1726-1792)<\/strong>
\nPP1\/2<\/a>\u00a0Correspondence between Richard Shackleton (Master of Ballitore School 1756-1779), his former pupil Aldborough Wrightson and his father George Wrightson, 1763-1771.<\/p>\n

(ii) Sarah Shackleton (1760-1847)<\/strong>
\nPP1\/9\/1<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0PP1\/9\/2<\/a>\u00a0Two diaries of Sarah Shackleton, 1772 & 1774.<\/p>\n

(iii) Elizabeth and Mary Shackleton \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\nPP1\/10<\/a>\u00a0Copy of a letter and reflections of Betsy Shackleton (niece of Mary Shackleton Leadbeater), 1843 & 1848.<\/p>\n

The Leadbeater Family<\/strong><\/p>\n

(i) Mary Leadbeater n\u00e9e Shackleton (1758-1826)<\/strong><\/p>\n

(a)\u00a0PP1\/11<\/a>\u00a0Letters from Arabella Forbes, 1774-1778 and full transcription\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n

(c)\u00a0PP1\/13<\/a>\u00a0Letters from Susannah and Mary Bewley, 1788-1794 and full transcription\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n

(e)\u00a0PP1\/15<\/a>\u00a0Letter relating to Edmund Burke<\/p>\n

(f) Literary Works & Interests<\/p>\n

PP1\/18<\/a>\u00a0Notebook of poems written by Mary Leadbeater, 1775<\/p>\n

PP1\/19<\/a>\u00a0Notebook of poems written by Mary Leadbeater, 1778<\/p>\n

(g) Artistic Interests<\/p>\n

PP1\/20\/1 \u00a0<\/a>Notebooks of sketches belonging to Mary Leadbeater, 1768-1769<\/p>\n

(ii) Elizabeth Leadbeater (1791-1876)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

PP1\/21<\/a>\u00a0Contains literary extracts, poems and an essay, (1788), 1809-1828<\/p>\n

PP1\/22<\/a>\u00a0Diary of Elizabeth from 1797-1815<\/p>\n

PP1\/23<\/a>The Ballitore Magazine, July and August 1809 and full transcription\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n

The Barrington Family<\/strong><\/p>\n

(i) Edward Barrington
\n<\/strong>PP1\/25<\/a> Memoirs of Edward Barrington compiled by his daughter Selina, (1839), 1863, 1914<\/p>\n

(iii) Selina Barrington
\n<\/strong>PP1\/28 \u00a0<\/a>Diary of Selina Barrington, 1855<\/p>\n

(iv) Margaret Barrington
\n<\/strong>PP1\/29<\/a>Notebook of Margaret, daughter of Edward and Sarah Barrington, 1851<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Publications:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cottage Dialogues among the Irish Peasantry<\/em><\/a>, by Mary Leadbeater (1811)
\nMemoirs and Letters of Richard and Elizabeth Shackleton \u2026 compiled by their daughter,<\/em>\u00a0by Mary Leadbeater (1822)
\nThe Leadbeater papers. The Annals of Ballitore Vol. I<\/a>\u00a0&\u00a0Vol. II<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0by Mary Leadbeater (1862) &\u00a0Annals of Ballitore<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2009 edition, Kildare Library Service)
\nThe Grubbs of Tipperary,<\/em>\u00a0by Geoffrey Watkins Grubb (1972)
\nAn Irish Genealogical Source, The roll of the Quaker School at Ballitore, County Kildare,<\/em>\u00a0by E.J. McAuliffe (1984)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kildare County Archives has digitised many of the Ballitore Papers to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Mary Leadbeater n\u00e9e Shackleton in 1826 and the founding of the Ballitore School in 1726. It consists of letters, notebooks, diaries, and personal memorabilia of the Quaker families of Shackleton, Leadbeater and Barrington; there is extensive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-social-history"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ShackletonNotebookimage-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ShackletonNotebookimage-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Karel Kiely","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/kkiely\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8756,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8751\/revisions\/8756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}