Capt. Readhead
 

There is a thread running on the Acklington pages about Captain Robert Readhead of Amble New Hall. In 1791 he was bankrupt and a meeting of creditors received an update on unsold assets. One of these was Debdon colliery.
Readhead was from a Rothbury family which seemed to have acquired property from Rothbury to Amble.

MacKenzie's History of Northumberland, published in 1811 has the following information about the Captain's Rothbury property:
Near to Debdon Wells "are many excavations, from which Captain Readhead, of Rothbury, obtained large amounts of ochre; but the great expense of carriage, as we are informed, induced that gentleman to abandon the undertaking."
"Towards the south, on a rising ground called Ward's Hill, are mines of limestone, coal, and iron......The latter appears to have been dug to a considerable extent; and that very ingenious and scientific gentleman, Captain Readhead, has extracted a greater proportion of ore from stones found here, than from any other which he has had an opportunity of submitting to a chemical analyze."

Land Tax Records 1798
 

In that set of newly released land tax records there are two entries for Robt Redhead, occupying property in Rothbury Parish owned by the Duke, and Warkworth South Side owned by Greenwich Hospital.

(ex navy man??)

Just a correction to this one, the Derwentwater estates passed at one time to Greenwich Hospital and later to the commissioners of the Admiralty which probably explains the reason they appear here.

All we know is that he was a captain in the Northumberland Militia.