The Edisbury family had been minor gentry since the mid-sixteenth century. Joshua was easy-going, fond of gambling, cock fights and forever bailing out family and friends short of money, which was often. His fortunes were at their peak, so he decided to build a new home.
Edisbury chose the dramatic site on an escarpment above the winding River Clywedog a mile south of Wrexham. Work on Erddig Hall began in 1684.
'A Japan Skreen'
Joshua Edisbury had been eager to curry favour with such a rising man as Yale. So he decided to present him with ‘four rundletts [casks] of Sandpatch Ale’ – 74 gallons in all.
On 20 April 1682, Yale wrote back a letter of effusive, but rather stilted thanks sending to Edisbury in return a cask of ‘our best mango Atchar [chutney]’ and to his wife ‘A Japan Skreen’. Remarkably, the screen can still be seen in the State Bedroom at Erddig today.
Dire straits
But things were not going well for Edisbury. Building costs were spiralling out of control. His relations continued to pester for money, his lead mining investments in Flintshire turned sour, and he had to borrow to pay off the interest on old debts.
By the late 1690s he was in dire financial straits and turned to Elihu Yale, among others, for help. Not a problem for the wealthy merchant.
However Edisbury and Yale’s friendship evaporated when Yale, who had been forced to leave Fort St George after accusations of corruption, called in his debts. He demanded £4,000 in payment for a loan of half that.
Declared bankrupt
It was a crushing blow for Edisbury. Joshua’s brother, Dr John Edisbury, a successful lawyer, MP for Oxford University and from 1684, a Master of the Chancery, came to his aid, but only succeeded in being ruined with him. John was found to have stolen Chancery fees in a vain attempt to stave off his brother’s creditors, and was brought to trial.
Dr Edisbury died in disgrace the following year; Joshua who had been declared bankrupt in 1709, left Erddig for ever and seems to have spent the rest of his life in London. He is last heard of in 1716, when he was living ‘at Blew Spires in the Old Bayley’.