The Jodrell family of Yeardsley, Cheshire, traced their ancestry to one William Jaudrell, an archer under Edward the Black Prince, Earl of Chester, in the French wars in the mid-fourteenth century. At the time of his death he held lands at Yeardsley cum Whaley, Disley, and Kettleshulme, Cheshire. His son, Roger Joudrell (as the name was then spelt) was one of the four Esquires of the King's body in the reign of Richard II. In 1393-4 he was granted an estate at Whiston, Leicestershire, by Thomas de Mowbray, Earl Marshal, and served with the latter at Agincourt. By the late fifteenth century the family was known as Jodrell. In the reign of Henry VII Roger Jodrell of Yeardsley acquired estates at Twemlow by marriage to Ellen, daughter and co-heir of Roger Knutsford. The Jodrell family then made their home at the Twemlow estate. The family later intermarried with the Burdett family of Foremarsh, the Molyneuxs of Teversall and other ancient families.
In the eighteenth century the Twemlow estate passed to the Leigh of High Legh family, following the marriage of Elizabeth, younger daughter of Francis Jodrell, to Egerton Leigh in 1778. Her elder sister and heiress to the Yeardsley estate, Frances Jodrell, married John Bower of Manchester, on 18 January 1775; John then assumed the surname Jodrell. John Bower Jodrell was succeeded by his son, Francis, in 1796. Francis, who served as sheriff of Cheshire in 1813, died in 1829; two sons (John William and Foster-Bower) died unmarried, and his third son (Francis Charles) died without surviving issue on 4 June 1868.
Thus in 1868 the Yeardsley estate passed to Thomas Jodrell Phillips-Jodrell (1807-1889), the nephew of Francis Jodrell, who owned an estate at Shallcross, Derbyshire. Phillips-Jodrell died without issue and was succeeded by his nephew, Henry Richard Tomkinson, who made a deed of gift and was in turn succeeded by his nephew, Sir Edward Thomas Davenant Cotton-Jodrell (1847-1917). He was MP for Wirral 1885-1900 and served on the Headquarters Staff of the War Office, 1906-1912 (he had assumed the surname Jodrell by Royal Licence in 1890). He was succeeded in 1917 by his eldest daughter, Dorothy Lynch Ramsden-Jodrell, who had married Colonel Henry Ramsden in 1902. She assumed the name and arms of Jodrell by Royal Licence in 1920.
The Jodrell Trust estates, comprising over 3000 acres in Yeardsley, Shallcross and Taxal in Whaley Bridge, were sold by auction on 14 November 1923.
