Hunter suggests that the name of "Cannon" may be connected with one Gilbert Canun de Birthwaite in the early part of the thirteenth century, whose name, he says, occurs in the earliest collection of Cawthorne deeds among the old evidences of the Bosvile family.
It is doubtless upon the authority of these family evidences that he states that the lands of this Canun family, together with those of the le Hunts, were bought by Thomas Bosvile of Ardsley, in successive portions, in the reign of Edward III. "The earliest purchase, I find, is in 1342; and in 1382 there is a quit claim from Richard son and heir of Robert, son of William, son of Adam de Cawthorne, to Thomas Bosvile, of Ardsley, of all right in messuages, &c, at Calthorn, which the said Thomas has of the gift and feofment of the said Robert."
From this time Cannon Hall seems to have become one of the seats of the Bosviles, the Bosviles, of Ardsley, or New Hall in Darfield, being the chief branch of "that numerous and opulent family."
In the reign of Henry VI., the Bosvile estates were divided between the sons of a John Bosvile's two wives, and the lands at Cawthorne, with the advowson of the Chantry here, were settled upon Richard Bosvile, who died in 1501, a son of the second marriage. He was the founder of the Gunthwatte branch of the Bosviles, which became extinct in the male line by the death of William Bosvile in 1813. It is now represented through the female line, from the marriage of this William Bosvile's sister, in 1768, to the first Lord Macdonald, and their grandson assuming the name of Bosvile in 1832, by Alexander Wentworth Macdonald Bosvile, of Thorpe and Gunthwaite, born Sept. 26, 1865.
The Bosvile estates still include several hundred acres in the northwestern part of Cawthorne parish.
The Bosvile Arms:
Argent, five fusils in fesse gules, in chief three bears' heads, sable.
Crest: An ox issuing from a holt of trees, proper.
Motto: "Intento in Deum animo."
