Burland & Pennsylvania
In 1900 Gilbert Cope published Genealogy of the Darlington Family at West Chester, Pennsylvania, for the American descendants of Abraham Darlington. Its chapter "Our English Kith and Kin" includes the Burland branch, and one of its last entries appears to be our Richard. unconfirmed
"Joseph (163) married Eva Parker and has one daughter (172) Marian, and one son (173) Richard." (Cope, 1900, p. 38)
The Burland branch
Cope writes that this branch "has been settled, and has owned property, at Burland and Brindley, in the parish of Acton, since the early part of the eighteenth century", near Nantwich, Cheshire. In 1900 the Burland property was held by Mrs Elizabeth Darlington, aunt of Thomas Darlington.
- John Darlington of Brindley settled there about 1700; his wife Elizabeth died in 1728.
- Abraham Darlington (bap. 22.11.1704) married Phoebe Pulford of Malpas in 1739; their son Abraham was baptised in 1746.
- Abraham Darlington married Catherine Rowe at Bunbury in 1766 and died in 1805.
- Richard Darlington of Burland, their son, married Anne Tomlinson. Children: John, Mary, Richard (1833), Anne, Elizabeth, Sarah and Phoebe.
- Richard Darlington (b. 1833) married Anne Phillips in 1859 and had seven children: William (deceased by 1900); Thomas (b. 22.02.1864); Lois, who married Thomas Hockenhull and had a son, Thomas Darlington Hockenhull; Joseph (b. 1869); Kate (deceased); Benjamin (deceased); and Leonard (b. 1875), unmarried and living at Grahamstown, South Africa.
- Joseph Darlington (b. 1869) married Eva Parker (at Ellesmere in 1895, from the FreeBMD index) and had a daughter, Marian, and a son, Richard.
All of this comes from Cope's book. The link to our Richard (b. 1899) is very likely but not yet confirmed by certificate. unconfirmed
Thomas Darlington (1864–)
Joseph's brother Thomas was born at Burland on 22.02.1864 and went to Acton Grammar School, Whitchurch Grammar School and The Leys, Cambridge. At St John's College, Cambridge, he became Scholar and then Fellow. He was a master at Rugby, Principal of Queen's College, Taunton, Secretary of the University of Wales, and then HM Inspector of Schools for Mid-Wales. He wrote The Folk-Speech of South Cheshire and was sent by the British Government to report on education in Russia. He married Annie Edith Bainbridge in 1888 and visited the American Darlingtons at their bicentennial gathering in 1894, which is probably how our branch came to be in the book.
The Pennsylvania connection
Cope traces the Burland line (John of Brindley is cross-referenced to entry 80) to the Darlingtons of Brookhouses, Whitegate, Cheshire, the same stock as Abraham Darlington, who emigrated from Darnhall, Cheshire, to Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1711. This would explain the family memory that many Darlingtons went to Pennsylvania. unconfirmed