Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Greenhalgh, John
GREENHALGH, JOHN (d. 1651), governor of the Isle of Man, only son of Thomas Greenhalgh of Brandlesome Hall in the parish of Bury, Lancashire, by Mary, daughter of Robert Holte of Ashworth Hall in the same parish, was born before 1597. His father dying in 1599 his mother married Sir Richard Assheton of Middleton, Lancashire, by whom Greenhalgh was brought up. He was well educated and travelled abroad. On the death of his grandfather, John Greenhalgh, he succeeded to Brandlesome Hall, was on the commission of the peace for and deputy-lieutenant of the county of Lancaster, and was appointed governor of the Isle of Man by the Earl of Derby in 1640 [see Stanley, James, seventh Earl of Derby]. In 1642 he was discharged as a royalist from the commission of the peace by order of the House of Commons. He fought under the Earl of Derby at the head of three hundred Manxmen at the battle of Wigan Lane in August 1651, greatly distinguished himself at Worcester (3 Sept.), when he saved the colours from capture by tearing them from the standard and wrapping them round his person, was severely wounded in a subsequent affair with Major Edge, when the Earl of Derby was taken prisoner, but made good his escape to the Isle of Man, and there died of his wound, and was buried at Malow, 19 Sept. 1651. His estates were confiscated. Greenhalgh married thrice: first, on 30 Jan. 1608-9, Alice, daughter of the Rev. William Massey, rector of Wilmslow. Cheshire; secondly, Mary, daughter of William Assheton of Clegg Hall, Lancashire; and thirdly, Alice, daughter of George Chadderton of Lees, near Oldham. He had issue three sons and three daughters.
[Seacome's Hist. of the House of Stanley, p. 215 et seq.; Peck's Desid. Curiosa, 1779, p. 434 et seq.; Comm. Journ. ii. 821, vii. 199; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1650, p. 543; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. viii. 203; Manx Miscellanies (ManxSoc.),vol. xxx.; Ormerod's Cheshire, ed. Helsby, iii. 596.]