The Cree family of Stanfree in Bolsover, Derbyshire

James Cree of Mansfield was a second cousin of the brothers James and John Cree of Oxcroft, as he was almost certainly the child James who mentioned in the 1758 Settlement Certificate of John and Dorothy Cree.

He christened his own first daughter Dorothy at the Old Dissenters' Meeting House in Mansfield. His other daughter Mary gave private lessons in writing and embroidery, to a Miss Mary Butler, the daughter of James Butler, landlord of the Royal Oak in Stockwell Gate, Mansfield. A much younger sister of Mary Butler, Jane Butler, was later to marry Joseph Cree, a third cousin of Mary Cree.

In 1827 James Cree was described as a framework knitter when he acquired the tenancy of Black Banks, a nine-acre smallholding in Stanfree, Bolsover. This was just 400 metres or so below Oxcroft and in full view of it. He lived to be 90, while his daughter Mary faithfully kept house for him until his death, being shown in Bagshaw's 1846 Trade Directory as Miss Mary Cree of Stanfree. Then, at the age of sixty, she married a "gentleman" of Chesterfield, Thomas Woodhead, a music seller in Saltergate, although I suspect he was of the local Woodhead family. On her marriage she set up a Deed of Settlement in favour of Henry and William Hollins, the well-known cotton manufacturers (of Viyella fame) of Pleasly and Mansfield. I have yet to discover what, if any, was the connection between the Cree and Hollins families beyond membership of the same Dissenters' Meeting House at Mansfield.