W is for Whitehall

In my 2020 A to Z blog challenge each letter links a bit of my family history to a London place-name. The connection is sometimes rather tenuous, so I’m pleased to say that I’ve got a fairly direct link to a well-known ‘W’: Whitehall, the district of the City of London that comprises the administrative centre of the government of the United Kingdom.

The Old Palace of Whitehall by Hendrick Danckerts, c. 1675. The view is from the west, in St. James’s Park. The Horse Guards barracks are on the extreme left, with the taller Banqueting House behind it.  Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

 

On 18 December 1768 my fifth great grandfather Edmund Dana (1739 – 1823) was ordained first as a deacon then, a few months later, as a priest of the Church of England at the Chapel Royal of the Palace of Whitehall.

 

The Reverend Edmund Dana (1739-1823), a miniature in the possession of my father.

The function of the Chapel Royal was (and is) to serve ‘the spiritual needs’ of the reigning monarch and the Royal Family. In practice this meant conducting private religious services for the sovereign. Attached to the Chapel Royal was a choir; the liturgy was often choral.

Administrative structures have a momentum of their own, and by Edmund Dana’s time the Chapel Royal’s role had expanded to include ordinations of well-connected candidates for ecclesiastical office.

It seems likely that self-interest and the ambitions of his wife’s family rather than a sudden rush of religious fervour brought about Edmund Dana’s interest in the Church. He had commenced studying medicine, but when in Edinburgh in 1765 he married Helen Kinnaird, her family, specifically her maternal uncle William [Johnstone] Pulteney
(1729 – 1805), sponsored Edmund Dana’s change of career and supplemented the Dana family income to ease the transition. (His qualification for the role was an MA from Harvard College. It seems likely he received training for the Church of England in London.) Three days after his ordination Edmund Dana was appointed as vicar of Stanion Chapel, at Brigstock in Northamptonshire.

This painting by an unknown artist records the magnificent flotilla of barges that sailed to Westminster to commemorate Sir Henry Tulse being sworn in as Lord Mayor of London on 29 October 1683. In the background is the sprawling palace of Whitehall. The Palace of Westminster is on the left  and the roof of the Banqueting House can be seen on the right. Retrieved from The Royal Collection Trust.

 

Following a fire in 1698 which destroyed most of Whitehall Palace, Sir Christopher Wren was instructed to fit out the Banqueting House, the only part of the Palace that survived the fire, as a Chapel Royal to replace the ruined Tudor chapel. It remained in use as a chapel until 1890.

“Whitehall-Chapel” in Pyne, W. H. ; Combe, William; Ackermann, Rudolph; Rowlandson, Thomas; Pugin, Augustus, The Microcosm of London or London in Miniature, Volume III, London: Methuen and Company, (1904) [1810] . Pages 237 – 239 including Plate 95

The Banqueting House, marked with a black x, was the only part of the Palace of Whitehall that survived the 1698 fire. It is 1/3 of a mile north of the Palace of Westminster.

Sources

• Details of Edmund Dana’s ordination and career in the Church of England are provided by The Clergy Database at jsp/ persons/10426
• ‘Whitehall Palace: Buildings’, in Survey of London: Volume 13, St Margaret, Westminster, Part II: Whitehall I, ed. Montagu H Cox and Philip Norman (London, 1930), pp. 41-115. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol13/pt2/pp41-115

Related posts

• S is for Shrewsbury
• 52 ancestors: Whitehall June 15 1727

K is for Knightrider Street

In 1718 my 6th great grandfather Philip de Crespigny (1704 – 1765) was apprenticed to a proctor (lawyer) at the Arches Court of Canterbury named Charles Garrett. Philip’s widowed mother Magdalene Champion de Crespigny paid £126 ‘premium’ for this arrangement.

Philip’s older brother William had been appointed to a lawyer, a member of the Inner Temple, one of the Inns of Court. Philip was entering a different area of law to William. Had he not died an early death (in 1721) before he qualified, William would have gained the right to practice in the regular courts of England governed by Common Law, that is, law based on precedent and derived from judicial decisions of courts and similar tribunals.

The Demolition of Doctor’s Commons from the Illustrated London News 4 May 1867 page 440 retrieved through FindMyPast

The Arches Court, which Philip entered, was an ecclesiastical court that specialised in the legal practice of Civil Law based on the Roman tradition. This legal system originated in Europe, and was set within the framework of Roman law, with its core principles codified into a referable system serving as the foundation of its jurisprudence.

The intellectual framework of Common law systems, by contrast, is derived from judge-made decisional law, which gives precedential authority to prior court decisions.

Besides its jurisdiction over members of the clergy in the Province of Canterbury, governing all the southern part of England, the Court of Arches had authority over legal matters concerning inheritance and marriage, notably the probate of wills and questions of divorce. Oddly enough, practitioners were also authorised to deal with cases of admiralty law. Given that these commonly involved international affairs, admiralty law was based on Roman law rather than English Common Law. The separate jurisdiction developed in medieval times and continued into the nineteenth century.

Doctors’ Commons (also called the College of Civilians), was a society of lawyers founded in 1511 practising Civil Law in London. It had its main buildings, with a large library and rooms where its members lived and worked, in Knightrider Street. Court proceedings of the civil law courts were held in Doctors’ Commons. The society used St Benet’s, Paul’s Wharf as its church. Doctors’ Commons was dissolved following the Court of Probate Act, 1857.

The 1857 Act abolished separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction over wills and testaments, and a Matrimonial Causes Act created a new court to deal with divorce. Both these areas were now opened to practitioners of the Common Law, and members of the College lost their special authority. In 1859 an Act established the High Court of Admiralty too, and the remnant ecclesiastical matters handled by the Court of Arches were also abolished a few years later. The purpose of the College thus came to an end, and the buildings of Doctors Commons were demolished in 1865.

St Benet’s, Paul’s Wharf. The church was rebuilt after the Great Fire by Christopher Wren’s Company. It was one of only four City churches to escape the bombs of the Blitz. Photograph by George Rex, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Proctors or procurators of the Court of Arches were analogous to solicitors, and entry to their ranks was based upon a seven-year term of service as an articled clerk. Since there were only thirty-four Proctors, and each was allowed just one such apprentice at a time, Philip was fortunate to have obtained a vacancy; there may have been family assistance [Mum ponied up 126 quid!]. Apprentices were required to have a good classical education, best provided by a grammar school, so someone in the family, probably his uncle Pierre Champion de Crespigny, had worked to prepare the young man for the opportunity.

Philip Crespigny (1704-1765), Procurator-General of the Arches Court of Canterbury Portrait at Kelmarsh Hall, Northamptonshire, attributed to Jean-Baptiste van Loo

Philip had a very successful career, culminating in his appointment as Procurator-General of the Court of Arches.

In 1731 he married Anne Fonnereau at St Paul’s Cathedral, not far from his offices at Doctor’s Commons. Their daughter Jane was baptised in 1733 at St Benet’s, Paul’s Wharf. Five of Jane’s siblings – Claude, Susan, Anne, Philip, and another Anne – were also baptised there.

Doctors Commons [circled] between St Paul’s Cathedral and the Thames. The church of St Benet’s Paul’s Wharf[e] is marked in blue. Detail from John Strype, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, 1720

Sources

• Philip de Crespigny, indenture year 1718 : index record from FindMyPast record set Britain, country apprentices 1710-1808
• De Crespigny, Rafe Champions from Normandy : an essay on the early history of the Champion de Crespigny family 1350-1800 AD. Lilli Pilli, New South Wales Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny, 2017. Pages 147-9, 153. Can be viewed at Champions from Normandy 
• O’Day, Rosemary The professions in early modern England, 1450-1800 : servants of the commonweal. Longman, Harlow, 2000. Pages 156-157

Related posts

• C is for Camberwell
• I is for Inns of Court
• 52 ancestors: Whitehall June 15 1727

Further reading

• “Court of Arches Project 2.” A Monument of Fame, Lambeth Palace Library, 3 Mar. 2017, lambethpalacelibrary.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/court-of-arches-project-2-privateers-bigamy-and-cross-dressing/.

  • Human frailty was daily laid bare in the Court proceedings. Two cases brought in 1699 and 1700 by Godfrey Lee, a proctor in the Court of Arches, against his wife Mary and her lover Charles Garrett,  a fellow proctor, brought to light reports of ‘a frolique’ involving cross-dressing and the singing of ‘obscene and smutty songs’ in the garden of Lee’s house at Streatham. Perhaps Doctors’ Commons was inured to such tales; the careers of Lee and Garrett were unaffected and both rose to be senior proctors in the Court.

I is for Inns of Court

In 1713 my 7th great-uncle William Champion Crespigny (1698 – 1721) was apprenticed to Edward Mills, gentleman, of the Inner Temple. William’s father Thomas, who died in 1712, had been a soldier, but William was following in the profession of his uncle Pierre Champion Crespigny (1652 – 1739). William’s younger brother Philip (1704 – 1765) was also apprenticed to a lawyer in 1718.

The Inner Temple is one of the four London Inns of Court, professional associations which trained barristers. The others are Middle Temple, Lincolns Inn, and Gray’s Inn.

Each of the four Inns of Court has three ordinary grades of membership: students, barristers, and masters of the bench or “benchers”. The benchers constitute the governing body for each Inn, with the right to appoint new members from among their barrister members.

In the 14th century the Inner Temple began training lawyers. Many of this Inn’s buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Some of what remained was damaged in two more fires in 1677 and 1678.

William Champion Crespigny does not seem to have been admitted to the Inner Temple. His name is not recorded in the admissions register. He died in 1721.

There are two Edward Mills listed on the list of admissions in the seventeenth century. The master of William Champion Crespigny was probably Edward Mills, admitted 26 October 1673 and called to the bar on 12 February 1682. Mill’s occupation is given as ‘gentleman’ and his address City of London. Being ‘Called to the Bar’ was the formal ceremony by which student members were promoted to the status of barrister.

Members of the Inns of Court were in theory men who wished to become barristers. But besides these, many joined an Inn without going on to be called to the Bar. Before the twentieth century this second group was relatively numerous. Attending one of the Inns of Court was a way to make good social contacts, not necessarily to qualify as a barrister.

The admissions registers of the Inns have been digitised. I have looked for members of my family associated with them.

I have been unable to find anyone of the Champion de Crespigny family being admitted to the Inner Temple.

The admissions register of Middle Temple, however, shows Herbert J. W.S.C. de Crespigny admitted on 23 April 1822 and William O.R.C. de Crespigny admitted on 6 November 1807. Herbert Joseph Champion de Crespigny (1805 – 1881) and William Other Robert Champion de Crespigny (1789 – 1816) were my 2nd cousins 5 times removed. They were sons of William, the second baronet. William Other Robert was much lamented when he died very young, much like his great grand uncle William, who died at the age of twenty-three.

Another Middle Temple relative was Edward Mainwaring (1635 – 1703), one of my eighth great grandfathers, who was admitted to Middle Temple on 24 November 1652. The register of admissions states: EDWARD MAINWARING, son and heir of Edward M., of Whitmore, Staffs., esq. Edward, then 17 years old, was a student at Christ’s College Cambridge. There are other Mainwarings on the register of admissions to Inner Temple but none of them seem to be of the Whitmore Mainwaring line.

At Lincoln’s Inn, Claude Crespigny, gen., eldest son of Philip Champion C., of Doctors Commons, London, Esq. was admitted on 23 October 1750 aged fifteen. Claude Crespigny (1734 – 1818), my 6th great uncle, was Receiver-General of the Droits of Admiralty. He later became the first baronet. Claude Crespigny was educated at Eton, and became a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. When he died in 1818 it was at his house at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Another of my Lincoln’s Inn relatives was George Crespigny (17), “2 s. Charles Fox Champion C., of Tally-Uyn Ho., co. Brecon, gent.”, admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 4 November 1833. George Blicke Champion de Crespigny (1815 – 1893), my fourth great uncle, did not go on to follow the legal profession but joined the army ending up as Lieutenant Colonel and Paymaster.

I have found no de Crespigny family connection with Gray’s Inn. There is no one of that surname on the Register of Admissions 1521 – 1889. There is one distantly related Mainwaring, however: Philip Mainwaring (1589 – 1661), who was admitted to Gray’s Inn on 14 March 1609. Philip was my second cousin 12 times removed. He became a member of Parliament and Principal Secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Lord Strafford.

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, with Sir Philip Mainwaring c.1639–40 by Anthony Van Dyck in the collection of the Tate, image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

Sketch plan of the Inns of Court from The Inns of Court Author: Cecil Headlam Illustrator: Gordon Home first published 1909 and reissued as an ebook by Project Gutenberg

Legal London, A Map showing the Inns of Court and places frequented by the Learned in Law, 1931 retrieved from the British Library

Sources

• William Champion Crespigny, indenture year 1713 : index record from FindMyPast record set Britain, country apprentices 1710-1808
• Inns of Court Admissions Databases
  • Inner Temple :
    • Inner Temple Archives records https://www.innertemple.org.uk/who-we-are/history/the-archives/
    • Inderwick, Frederick A. A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records. London: Published by order of the Masters of the Bench, 1896. Retrieved from archive.org.
    • The Inner Temple Admissions database http://www.innertemplearchives.org.uk/index.asp
  • Middle Temple :
    • Links to digitised records including the Registers of Admissions https://www.middletemple.org.uk/library-and-archive/archive-information-and-contacts/register-of-admissions
  • Lincoln’s Inn :
    • Researching past members including links to published admission registers https://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/library-archives/researching-past-members/
  • Gray’s Inn :
    • • The register of admissions to Gray’s Inn, 1521-1889 by Foster, Joseph, 1844-1905 published 1899, page 121, retrieved from archive.org

Further reading

• Russell, Judy G. “The Temples of England.” The Legal Genealogist, 15 May 2017, www.legalgenealogist.com/2017/05/15/the-temples-of-england/.

F is for Fire following Plague

Earlier this year we were forced to flee from a catastrophic bushfire on the Australian east coast. It burnt out an area the size of England. Now, just a few months later, we’re self-quarantined against the COVID-19 plague, at home with the doors shut, permitted out only to buy food.

We Antipodeans, of course, got it the wrong way around. London had its plague first, from 1665, then its fire, in 1666. Whatever the order of events, of course, catastrophes are no fun for anybody.

In a year and half, the Great Plague of London – a rapid-spreading bacterial infection, rather than a virus – killed nearly 100,000 people, a quarter of the city’s population.

As it spread, a system of quarantine was introduced. A house where someone had died from plague would be locked, with no one allowed to enter or leave for 40 days. A plague house was marked with a red cross on the door and the words “Lord have mercy upon us”, and a watchman stood guard in the street.

Nine images of the Great Plague of London in 1665 from The great plague in London in 1665 by Walter George Bell From the Wellcome Trust CC-BY-4.0,  retrieved through Wikimedia Commons 

 

I have an ancestor who was a doctor at the time, probably a plague doctor. This was Ichabod Chauncy (abt 1635 – 1691), one of my 8th great grandfathers. Like his father, Ichabod Chauncy was a clergyman, but in 1662 he was forced to leave the clergy, one of some 2,000 Puritan ministers forced out for what were deemed to be their unorthodox beliefs. He took up the profession of medicine instead, and in 1666 he was admitted to the College of Physicians. It seems very probable that Ichabod Chauncy treated victims of the plague and wore the plague-doctors’ beak-like mask filled with aromatic herbs designed to protect the wearer from putrid air, which according to the miasmatic theory of disease was the cause of infection.

1661 Medical costume for the plague:  illustration opposite page 142 from Thomas Bartholin (1661). Thomae Bartholini Historiarum anatomicarum [et] medicarum rariorum centuria V. [et] VI. Accessit Joannis Rhodii Mantissa anatomica. Typis Henrici Gödiani. p 142.

Then came the fire, a huge conflagration which burned for four days in September 1666, completely destroying the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. The homes of 70,000 people, more than three-quarters of the population of the city, were burnt to ashes. There were officially only six deaths; many went unrecorded.

Great Fire of London by an unknown artist about 1675 retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. “This painting shows the great fire of London as seen from a boat in vicinity of Tower Wharf. The painting depicts Old London Bridge, various houses, a drawbridge and wooden parapet, the churches of St Dunstan-in-the-West and St Bride’s, All Hallow’s the Great, Old St Paul’s, St Magnus the Martyr, St Lawrence Pountney, St Mary-le-Bow, St Dunstan-in-the East and Tower of London. The painting is in the [style] of the Dutch School and is not dated or signed.”

After the fire, London was rebuilt on essentially the same street plan. About three-fifths of the City of London had been destroyed: 13,200 houses, most great public buildings, St Paul’s Cathedral and 87 parish churches. Rebuilding housing took until the 1670s. Public buildings took longer, with St Paul’s finished only in 1711. This program had a modernising effect, for the city was now less dense, with only 9,000 houses rebuilt and not all churches and public buildings replaced.

Map of central London in 1666, showing landmarks related to the Great Fire of London. Drawn by Wikipedia user Bunchofgrapes and retrieved from Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

 

It is interesting that despite being separated from the events in London by 355 years and half way around the globe, we are experiencing similar catastrophes and coping along the same lines.

Mitchell family arrival on the Swan River 1838

On 4 August 1838, my fourth-great grandfather the Reverend William Mitchell (1803 – 1870), accompanied by his wife, four children, and a governess, arrived at Fremantle, on the mouth of the Swan River in Western Australia.

They had left Portsmouth four months and three days before, sailing on the “Shepherd”. Their only intermediate port of call was Porto Praya off the west coast of Africa (now Praia, the the capital and largest city of Republic of Cabo Verde), where the ship took on supplies.

The Swan River Colony – now Perth – was established in 1829 following exploration of the region in 1827 by James Stirling, later Governor of Western Australia. Fremantle was the settlement’s main port.

Captain Stirling’s exploring party 50 miles up the Swan River, Western Australia, March, 1827. Oil painting by W. J. Huggins in the collection of the National Library of Australia retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-134156746

William Mitchell had been ordained a minister of the Church of England in 1825. In 1826 he married Mary Anne Holmes (1805 – 1831), and soon afterwards, the family moved to India, where Mitchell served as a missionary. They had two daughters and a son. The second girl, Susan Augusta, born on 11 April 1828 in Bombay, was my third great grandmother. Around 1830 Mary Anne became ill and the family returned to England, where she died in 1831. William married again, to Frances Tree Tatlock (1806 – 1879) and returned to India, where this second marriage produced three more sons. Frances and the children returned to England in 1834 and William returned in 1835. In 1838 William was appointed by the Western Australian Missionary Society to be clergyman for the residents of the Middle and Upper Swan regions of the new colony of Western Australia.

Reverend William Mitchell portrait from “Mitchell Amen” by Frank Nelder Greenslade

The oldest child of the Reverend William Mitchell, born to his first wife Mary, was Annie (1826 – 1917). She was 12 when the family arrived on the “Shepherd”. In her memoirs, written many years later, she described their arrival:

The ship “Shepherd” anchored off Garden Island on 4 August 1838, after a voyage of four months and three days. We landed at Fremantle by the ships boats. The first sight we witnessed was a very large whale lying on the sea beach at Fremantle, from which the natives were cutting large pieces and carrying them away on spears.

We lodged at Fremantle for a week and then proceeded to Government House where we were entertained by Sir James Stirling and Lady Stirling. It was usual practice at this time for new arrivals to call at Government House on arrival. We stayed at Judge Mackies house for a while (he was the first Judge in the Colony). After this we went to Henley Park, on the Upper Swan, by boat. Major Irwin was landlord at this time. He was Commandant of the troops in W.A. We stayed with him for a week or so then went to the Mission-house on the Middle Swan where we settled.

The whole of Perth at this time was all deep sand and scrub. There was no road or railway to Perth. All transport was done by water travel. The banks of the Swan River were a mass of green fields and flowers, with everlastings as far as the eye could see.

At the time of arrival, there were only two vessels, the “Shepherd” and the “Britomart” plying between London and Western Australia. When a ship arrived, a cannon was fired to let people know that a vessel had arrived. The people used to ride or row down to Fremantle to get their letters. There were then about seven or eight hundred people settled in W.A. mostly along the banks of the Swan.

There was no church in the colony at this time and the services were conducted in the Courthouse by the Revd John Wittenoom, the first colonial chaplain.

Panorama of the Swan River Settlement, ca. 1831 by Jane Eliza Currie (wife of explorer Mark John Currie)

The Mitchells lived at Middle Swan, now a Perth suburb, 12 miles from the city centre.

In 2000 we visited Mitchell’s church at Middle Swan. The original octagonal church, built in 1840, was replaced in 1868 by the present-day building.

St Mary’s Octagonal Church, Middle Swan, sketch published in “Mitchell Amen” page 14

St Mary’s Church, Middle Swan photographed 2006 by Wikipedia user Moondyne

William Mitchell died at Perth and is buried in the graveyard of St Mary’s Middle Swan with his second wife and his son Andrew (1846 – 1870).

William, Frances Tree & Andrew Forster Mitchell, gravestone at St Marys, Middle Swan. (Photograph provided by a 3rd great grand daughter of William Mitchell and used with permission)

Sources

• Greenslade, Frank Nelder Mitchell Amen : a biography on the life of Reverend William Mitchell and his family. F.N. Greenslade, Maylands, W.A, 1979.
• THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL. (1838, August 11). The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (WA : 1833 – 1847), p. 126. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article639437 
• Clergy of the Church of England database: https://theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/DisplayOrdination.jsp?CDBOrdRedID=139120 and https://theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/DisplayOrdination.jsp?CDBOrdRedID=139062
• Anglican Parish of Swan 
  • Octagon Church https://www.swananglicans.org.au/octagon-church
  • St Mary’s Church https://www.swananglicans.org.au/st-marys-church-cny2

Related post

• Remembering Susan Augusta Chauncy née Mitchell (1828-1867)

Surgeon James Gordon Cavenagh at Waterloo

A guest post by Diana Beckett; great great granddaughter of James Gordon Cavenagh.

Miniature of James Gordon Cavenagh in the possession of a granddaughter of Lt Col W.O. Cavenagh

 

Lt Col W.O. Cavenagh, (Wentworth Odiarne / WOC / Cousin Wenty) who did extensive research on our Cavenagh ancestry, was the grandson of the surgeon. The latter died in 1844 and WOC was born in 1856, so they never met. However, WOC knew as family tradition related by his father (Gen Sir Orfeur Cavenagh) that the surgeon had served at Waterloo, but was puzzled that he never received the Waterloo medal awarded to all those who served there. This therefore raised the question to later generations as to whether it was indeed true.

J G Cavenagh was the Staff Surgeon of the Royal Staff Corps, a regiment responsible for short term military engineering, which was stationed in Flanders from April to July 1815. The Battle was on June 28th.

In his book “The Bloody Fields of Waterloo”, M.K.H Crumplin, a retired surgeon, medical military historian much involved in Waterloo re-enactments,  meticulously lists all the surgeons present at Waterloo or working with the wounded in the aftermath. Cavenagh is listed on page 157 as a late arrival. Presumably he was not ordered from his Flanders base to the battlefield in time.

On page 148 Crumplin explains that surgeons who arrived late were not awarded the Waterloo medal nor the two years added pension rights.

“There must have been many a military medical man who wished he had been present at this monumental battle. The staff who were there, were mostly surgeons both in regimental and staff posts. Some arrived late and would not receive the coveted Waterloo medal and two years added pension rights.” See Appendix below.

Arriving late, Cavenagh would have worked after the battle in one of the several hospitals in either Brussels or Antwerp where the wounded were treated. We do not know how long he stayed in Belgium but WOC records that sometime after the battle he proceeded to Paris where he was joined by his wife. (GO471 p 29)
An internet search shows that at least 3 officers of the Royal Staff Corps did receive the Waterloo medal.

Cavenagh is also mentioned in the Medico Chirurgical Transactions 1816 (Volume 7, part 1) when he was consulted about an operation on the jaw and mouth of a young drummer. The wound healed and the young man was discharged on August 16th.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=XvK3l9ZKvHsC&pg=PA108

P148 Crumplin Bloody Fields of Waterloo.

Related post

• N is for neighbours

N is for neighbours

My 3rd great grandfather was James Gordon Cavenagh (1770-1844), an army surgeon who was with the Royal Staff Corps at Waterloo.

Cavenagh obtained his diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1795-6 he first saw active service, with the 83rd Foot in the so-called ‘Maroon War’ in Jamaica. On 21 February 1800 he transferred to the Royal Staff Corps. The Royal Staff Corps was a corps of the British Army responsible for military engineering which was founded in about 1800 and disbanded in about 1837.

In March 1815 Cavenagh married Anne Coates. They lived at Hythe, Kent, where the Corps was headquartered and had eight children.

View at Hythe; illustration to Ayton’s ‘Voyage round Great Britain‘, vol. VII. 1823.  Print maker, draughtsman and publisher  William Daniell. In the collection of the British Museum retrieved through watercolourworld.org https://www.watercolourworld.org/painting/hythe-tww00a352

Engraving of “The Barracks and Town of Hythe, Kent” from Ireland’s History of Kent, Vol. 4, 1831. It appears between pages 224 and 225. Drawn by G. Sheppard, engraved by C. Bedford. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

On 25 June 1825 Cavenagh retired on half pay, afterwards continuing to live at Hythe.

In 1830 he leased a house next to the Royal Staff Corps Barracks, which earlier had been connected with it. There was a gate in the fence between the house and the barracks and the Royal Staff Corps decided to remove the gate and close up the fence. Cavenagh took exception to the this, and threatened the men removing the gate with drawn sword, saying, “I’ll run the first man through the body that attempts to touch the palings”. There was a brawl but eventually the fence was erected. When the matter went to court a jury found against Cavenagh and awarded 10 pounds damages. [The amount, hard to express in today’s money, would come to somewhere between £500 and £10,000.]

Hull Packet 17 August 1830 page 2 digitised by the British Library Board and retrieved through FindMyPast

In 1834 Cavenagh became the mayor of Hythe and was still living there in 1837. He died at Castle House, Wexford, Ireland in 1844 and is buried in Wexford in the family vault in St Patrick’s Abbey.

The Royal Staff Corps Barracks has gone, with the site from 1968 occupied by a Sainsburys supermarket and carpark. The only surviving part of the barracks complex is Hay House on Sir John Moore Avenue. It was built in 1809 and became the Commandant’s House. It is now subdivided into 6 flats.

It would seem that Hay House is the house that J. G. Cavenagh rented. The Mainwarings of Whitmore family history states

During the short peace between the Peninsular war and Waterloo James Cavenagh was quartered with this corps at Hythe, where he met and married his wife. On the termination of the campaign he returned with this regiment to Hythe, and when it was disbanded he remained there for some years, living in the Commandant’s house which he rented from the Authorities and in which all his children were born.

Hay House, Sir John Moore Avenue, Hythe, glimpsed from the entrance to the Sainsbury’s Loading Dock. Image from Google Street View May 2009 https://goo.gl/maps/BsWaHM8Kzxk

Sources

• The Mainwarings of Whitmore and Biddulph in the County of Stafford. An account of the family, and its connections by marriage and descent; with special reference to the Manor of Whitmore. J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring, about 1935
• John Booth (1816). The Battle of Waterloo: containing the series of accounts published by authority, British and foreign, with circumstantial details, relative to the battle, from a variety of authentic and original sources, with connected official documents, forming an historical record of the operations in the campaign of the Netherlands, 1815 : to which is added the names alphabetically arranged, of the officers killed and wounded, from 15th to 26th June, 1815, and the total loss of each regiment, with an enumeration of the Waterloo honours and privileges, conferred upon the men and officers, and lists of regiments, &c. entitled thereto : illustrated by a panoramic sketch of the field of battle, and a plan of the positions at Waterloo, at different periods, with a general plan of the campaign. Printed for John Booth …, T. Egerton … and J. Fairbairn … (Edinburgh). p. 20.
• Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London (1816). Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. Longmans, Green and Company. p. 108.
• “No. 18174“. The London Gazette. 10 September 1825. p. 1649.
• Hull Packet 17 August 1830, page 2 digitised by the British Library Board and retrieved through FindMyPast

• Dover Telegraph and Cinque Ports General Advertiser 8 February 1834, page 8 digitised by the British Library Board and retrieved through FindMyPast

• Paton, David. “Hythe’s Guides Town Walks (p. 38).” Hythe Life Magazine Spring Edition Issue 12, Hythe Life Magazine, Mar. 2017, issuu.com/hythelifemagazine/docs/hythe_life_magazine_-.
• Hay House.” Historic England, historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1068931.

Temperance Crew nee Bray (abt 1580 – 1619)

My 11th great grandmother was Temperance Crew nee Bray (abt 1580 – 1619). She was the wife of Sir Thomas Crew (1564 – 1634), a lawyer and politician. His entry in the History of Parliament online mentions his marriage to her, noting that she was the daughter of Reynold Bray of Steane and a kinswoman of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, Gilbert Talbot (1552 – 1616). Temperance, her father who died in 1583, and her and Thomas’s son John, are also mentioned in her husband’s entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Temperance was the fourth of five daughters of Sir Reginald (or Reynold) Bray (c. 1550 – 1583) and his wife Anne Bray nee Vaux (c. 1550 – 1619). She was baptised on 6 November 1580 at Hinton in the Hedges, Northamptonshire.

Reginald Bray died in October 1583 and was buried at Hinton in the Hedges on 18 October 1583. Reginald was aged about 44.

An inquisition post mortem was held (Esc. 26 Eliz. n. 119.) This was a local enquiry into the lands of a deceased person, held to discover what income and rights were due to the crown. Information from this inquisition was used to produce a family tree by George Baker in his 1822 book History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton (page 685).

Reginald had one son, William, who died in his father’s lifetime aged about 7. Reginald had five daughters who were his coheirs:

• Mary, aged 14 in 1583 thus born about 1569. On 16 August 1586 at Eaton Bray, Bedfordshire,  she married Sir William Sandys (c 1562 – 1641) of Fladbury, Worcestershire. She appears to have died by 1597 about which time  Sir William Sandys married secondly to Margaret Culpepper. She appears not to have had children.
• Anne, aged 10 in 1583 thus born about 1573; she was later the wife of John Sotherton (1562 – 1631), a judge and later a Baron of the Exchequer. John Sotherton married two more times and had two sons and a number of daughters – it is not certain if Anne was the mother of these children. Anne had died by 1602.
• Alice, aged 6 in 1583 thus born about 1577. In 1592 she married Nicholas Eveleigh, a lawyer. Nicholas Eveleigh died aged 56 in 1618 when the Chagford Stannary Courthouse collapsed killing him, two of his clerks and seven others, also leaving a further 17 injured. She secondly married Elize (Ellis) Hele, a lawyer and philanthropist who died in 1635. The trust from his will was used to found a number of schools including Pympton Grammar School. Alice died on 20 June 1635, it would seem she had no children. She and her second husband are buried at Exeter Cathedral but there is a monument to both of her husbands at Bovey Tracey Church.
• Temperance, aged 3 in 1583 (see below)
• Margery, age 2 in 1583 thus born about 1581. She married Francis Ingoldsby of Boughton and they had a son John.

The chancel of Bovey Tracey Church, Devon looking eastward. On the left (north) side , the monument with effigy of Nicholas Eveleigh (d.1618); on the south side the monument with effigy of Elize Hele (d.1635), who married Eveleigh’s widow Alice Bray. Photograph by Wikimedia commons user Lobsterthermidor [CC BY-SA 3.0], retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

Effigy in Bovey Tracey Church, Devon, of Nicholas Eveleigh (d.1618) of Parke in the parish of Bovey Tracey. Photograph from Wikimedia Commons by user Lobsterthermidor [CC BY-SA 3.0]

Monument to Elize Hele in Bovey Tracy Church, Devon. Below his effigy are the kneeling effigies of his two wives, facing each other in prayer, behind the left one kneels his young son. Photograph from Wikimedia Commons by user Lobsterthermidor [CC BY-SA 3.0]

In 1596 Temperance married Thomas Crew (1665 – 1634). Temperance was a kinswoman of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury (1552 – 1616). Thomas Crew was in the service of the Earl. Thomas had been educated at Shrewsbury School and the Inns of Court.

Thomas Crew was first elected to Parliament in 1604 representing Lichfield.

Temperance and Thomas had nine children:

• John Crew (1598 – 1679)
  • My 10th great grandfather. Married Jemima Waldegrave and had six sons and two daughters. Was a Member of Parliament and was mentioned in the diaries of  Samuel Pepys.
• Anne Crew (1599 – ?)
  • married Sir Edward Stephens, a Member of Parliament. They had three sons and a daughter
• Thomas Crew (abt 1602 – after 1682)
  • Attended Queen’s College, Oxford: matriculated 1618, BA 1622, MA 1625.
• Nathaniel Crew (abt 1606 – 1692)
  • Attended Lincoln College, Oxford, matriculated 1623. Admitted Gray’s Inn January 1622.
• Patience Crew (abt 1608 – 1642)
  • Patience married Sir John Curzon (1598 – 1686), a Member of Parliament. They had seven children. Patience and John are buried at Kedleston, Derbyshire.

Memorial to Sir John Curzon, All Saints’ Church, South Transept, Kedleston Photograph from Geograph.org.uk

• Temperance Crew (abt 1609 – 1634)
  • Temperance married John Browne (c 1608 – 1691) and died without having children. She is memorialised at Steane. In June 1660 Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that he went to visit Mrs Browne. The 2000 edition published by University of California Press has annotated  that Mrs Browne was Elizabeth, second wife of John Browne, Clerk of the Parliaments: his first wife (d. 1634) was Temperance Crew, aunt of Montagu’s wife.
• Silence Crew (abt 1611 – 1651)
  • Silence married Sir Robert Parkhurst (1603 – 1651) of Pyrford, Surrey, Member of Parliament. They had one son.
• Salathiel Crew (1612 – 1686)
  • Attended Lincoln College, Oxford, matriculated 25 November 1631. Was a soldier. In 1641 there was a Certificate of residence showing Salathiel Crew (or the variant surname: Crewe) to be liable for taxation in Northamptonshire, and not in the half-hundred of Newport, Buckinghamshire, the previous area of tax liability. Salathiell Crew was appointed sherif of Rutland in 1652. Salathiel Crew was buried at Hinton in the Hedges. His will mentions his brother Thomas and two granddaughters, Isabella and Elizabeth. I have found no record of Salathiel’s marriage, children or military career other than the mention of militis in Oxford University Alumni.
• Prudence Crew (1615 – 1641)
  • Prudence Crewe died unmarried in 1641. She left a will probated 10 June 1641.

Temperance Crewe died in 1619.

Sir Thomas rebuilt the chapel of St Peter at Steane in memory of his wife who was buried there and an altar Tomb bears her figure and that of Sir Thomas dressed in his Sergeants robes.On a tablet is this inscription:

“Temperans Crewe, the wife of Thomas Crewe, esq. And one of the daughters and coheirs of Reginald Bray, esq. By his wife Anne, his wife, daughter of Thomas Lord Vaux, died in the year of our Lord 25 October, 1619, in the year 38 of her age, and now restith from her labours, and hir works follow hir:
A daughter of Abraham here doth lye
Returned to her dust
Whole life was hid in Christ with God
In whom was all her trust
Who wifely wrought while it was day
And in hir spirit did watch and pray
To heare God’s word attentive was her care
Hir humble hart was full of holy feare
Hir hande which had good blood in every vaine
Yet was not dayntye nor did disdayne
Salve to applye to Lazarus fore
And was inlarged to the poore
Lyke God’s Angells she honor’d those
That taught his word and did his will disclose
And persons vile her hart abhor’d
But reverenst such as fear’d the Lord
A true Temperans in deed and name
Now gone to heaven from whence she came
Who with her lott was well contented
Who lived desired and dyed lamented.
Premissa non amissa, discessa non mortua
Conjux casta, parens foelix, matrona pudica,
Sara vivo, mundo Martha, Maria deo.”
[Having never lost, went out without having died, = Not lost, but gone before
A chaste wife, a happy parent, a modest lady,
A living Sara, a worldly Martha, Maria of god.]

Photographs of the chapel and the monument can be seen by clicking the links below:

• The outside of the chapel
• Photographs by by Northamptonshire Historic Churches Trust

Thomas Crew served as speaker of the House of Commons from 1623 – 1625. Thomas Crew was knighted in 1623.

To the end of his life Sir Thomas Crew continued to practice law.

Portrait of Sir Thomas Crewe, Speaker 1623 – 1625. Given by his descendant Ralph Cartwright, Esq. 1805. In the collection of the UK Parliament (catalogue number WOA 2702) Crew displeased James 1 by upholding the liberties of Parliament as ‘matters of inheritance, not of grace’ but later said by the King to be the ‘ablest Speaker known for years’.

Crewe died on 1 Feb. 1634, aged 68, and was buried with his wife under the  marble effigy in the chapel he had built at Steane. His funeral sermon praised the quickness of his wit, the firmness of his memory, and the readiness of his expression. He was said to be one who ‘set the stamp of religion on all his courses, in his whole conversation’, ‘a man exceeding conscionable’, ‘a marvellous great encourager of honest, laborious, religious ministers’, ‘the poor man’s lawyer’, and ‘a great lover of his country’.

Sources

• Archive.org
  • Family tree of Reginald Bray retrieved from Baker, George. “History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton.” 1822, page 685 retrieved electronically through Archive.org archive.org/stream/HistoryAndAntiquitiesOfTheCountyOfNorthamptonBakerVol1/History%20and%20Antiquities%20of%20the%20County%20of%20Northampton%20-%20Baker%20Vol%201#page/n687/mode/2up.
  • Ingalsbe, Frederick W. “Ingoldsby Genealogy, Ingoldsby, Ingalsbe, Ingelsby and Englesby, from the 13th Century to 1904 ” Archive.org, archive.org/details/ingoldsbygenealo00inga/page/8.
  • Philipot, John. “The Visitation of the County of Buckingham Made in 1634 by John Philipot, Esq. .” Archive.org, College of Arms, 1909, archive.org/details/visitationofcoun58phil/page/76.
• History of Parliament online
  • CREWE, Thomas (1566-1634), of Gray’s Inn, London and Steane, Northants.; later of Serjeants’ Inn, Fleet Street, London.
  • other links in text
• British History online : ‘House of Commons Journal Volume 7: 12 November 1652’, in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 7, 1651-1660 (London, 1802), pp. 214-215. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-jrnl/vol7/pp214-215
• Google books
  • William Cotton (1859). Some account of the ancient borough town of Plympton St. Maurice, or Plympton Earl. With memoirs of the Reynolds family. John Russell Smith. pp. 28–29.
  • George Lipscomb (1847). The History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham. J. & W. Robins. p. 169.
  • Samuel Pepys (30 July 2000). The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. 1: 1660. University of California Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-520-22579-4.
  • The Gentleman’s Magazine (London, England). F. Jefferies. 1790. p. 420. (Monument at Stean in honour of Temperance Crew nee Bray)
  • England; John Britton (1810). The beauties of England and Wales; or, Delineations… of each county, by J. Britton and E. W. Brayley [and others]. 18 vols. [in 21]. pp. 83–5.
• National Archives (UK)
  • Chancery: Inquisitions post mortem: Bray, Reginald: Northampt.  Esc. 26 Eliz. n. 119. Reference C 142/204/119
  • Certificate of residence showing Salathiel Crew (or the variant surname: Crewe) to be liable for taxation in Northamptonshire, and not in the half-hundred of Newport, Buckinghamshire, the previous area of tax liability.  Reference E 115/112/113
• ancestry.com
  • England, Select marriages ,1538 – 1973
  • Wills probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury
  • Dictionary of National Biography (UK)
• Wikipedia: links in text

Miniature portrait of Geoff de Crespigny by Olive A Chatfield

My father has a small collection of family portraits. One is a miniature of his father Richard Geoffrey “Geoff” Champion de Crespigny (1908 – 1966) as a child.

The portrait is signed  ‘O. A. Chatfield’. This was Olive Amy Chatfield (1880 – 1945).

Olive Chatfield was born in New Zealand, the fourth of eight children of an architect named William Charles Chatfield (1852 – 1930). Olive’s mother Mary Chatfield nee Hoggard (1853 – 1896) died when Olive was 15.

In November 1910 Olive Chatfield ‘of New Zealand’ was one of the artists in the 13th annual Federal Art Exhibition in Adelaide, a showing organised by the South Australian Society of Arts. I am not sure when Olive Chatfield came to Adelaide or why she was living there.

In March 1912 Miss Olive Chatfield donated a miniature portrait of Lady Bosanquet, wife of the South Australian Governor, to the Art Gallery of South Australia. Described as ‘gouache on ivory, 7.6 x 6.3 cm’, it remains in the Gallery’s collection,

In 1914 and 1915 Olive Chatfield is mentioned several times in Adelaide newspapers, usually under ‘social notes’.

On 3 April 1916 Olive Chatfield married Vyvyan Hughes (1888 – 1916), Geoff’s maternal uncle. Vyvyan Hughes died a few weeks later in a military hospital in Ceylon.

Vyvyan Hughes with Olive 1916

Olive Hughes did not re-marry, and in November 1916 returned to New Zealand, where under the name of Mrs Westbury Hughes she practiced as a professional artist specialising in miniature portraits. Some of her work was exhibited by the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts.

Photo of Olive Hughes accompanying an article in the Sydney Sun of 16 December 1923

ART AND HEREDITY (1923, December 16). The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 – 1954), p. 1 (Women’s Supplement). Retrieved December 6, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222682064

Olive Hughes died in Wellington, New Zealand on 10 July 1945.

There is a family resemblance down the generations between Geoff and his descendants.

Geoff de Crespigny

Geoff’s son

Geoff’s grandson

Geoff, his son, grandson, and great grandsons

Sources

• MARRIAGES. (1916, April 8). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 – 1954), p. 32. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87243826
• Family Notices (1916, May 18). The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 – 1929), p. 8. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59818703
• AUSTRALIAN ART. (1910, November 3). Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 – 1912), p. 4. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article207214665
• PERSONAL. (1912, March 23). Observer (Adelaide, SA : 1905 – 1931), p. 34. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article164772419
• Art Gallery of South Australia Collection: item 0.634
• ART AND HEREDITY (1923, December 16). The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 – 1954), p. 1 (Women’s Supplement). Retrieved December 6, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222682064
• PapersPast: New Zealand digitised newspapers:
  • Notes for Women, New Zealand Times, Volume XLI, Issue 9507, 15 November 1916, page 5. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM19161115.2.25
  • Notes for Women, New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9777, 28 September 1917, page 9. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM19170928.2.59

• • At the Art Gallery, New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10271, 5 May 1919, page 3. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM19190505.2.9
  • Sketch Exhibition, Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 121, 23 May 1919, page 4. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NEM19190523.2.27
  • Social Gossip, Free Lance, Volume XIX, Issue 1006, 15 October 1919, page 22. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZFL19191015.2.34
  • Dispute over a miniature, Sun, Volume VII, Issue 2099, 5 November 1920, page 4. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SUNCH19201105.2.16
  • Deaths, Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 9, 11 July 1945, page 1. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19450711.2.4

Related post

• K is for Kanatte General Cemetery in Colombo

 

Macavity wasn’t there!

Today, 5 November, is the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, an abortive attempt to assassinate King James I of England and blow up the Houses of Parliament. Some of my forebears were English politicians of the time. I’ve been trying to find out if any were involved or implicated or put in danger.

Edward Mainwaring (1577 – 1647), one of my 10th great grandfathers, was elected to Parliament on 30 September 1601 for the borough of Newcastle Under Lyme. However, he was not re-elected in the next election, on 28 February 1604, so at the time of the plot in November 1605, he would not have been present in Parliament.

 

Edward Mainwaring, portrait from opposite page 63 of The Mainwarings of Whitmore and Biddulph in the County of Stafford. An account of the family, and its connections by marriage and descent; with special reference to the Manor of Whitmore. J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring, about 1935

 

Edward Mainwaring matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford,  on 8 November 1594. He entered Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in 1595. In his history of the Mainwarings of Whitmore, Gordon Mainwaring says:

At this time there was considerable litigation concerning manorial dues, and lords of manors began to realise that a knowledge of law was essential in the management of their estates. Among the papers at Whitmore is an interesting correspondence between this Edward and his father concerning the refusal of Sir John Bowyer of Knipersly to recognise their right to a heriot [a tribute paid by the estate of a
deceased tenant].

In 1601 Edward Mainwaring married Sara Stone. In 1604 his father died and he succeeded to the Whitmore estate. Perhaps he decided to forgo a parliamentary career to concentrate on running the estate.

Edward Mainwaring was elected again to Parliament in 1625. There is a suggestion that the person elected was not Edward Mainwaring (1577 – 1647) but  his son, also named Edward (1603 – 1674).

Sources

• The Mainwarings of Whitmore and Biddulph in the County of Stafford. An account of the family, and its connections by marriage and descent; with special reference to the Manor of Whitmore. J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring, about 1935
• History of Parliament online:
  • Edward Mainwaring 1577 – 1647
  • Edward Mainwaring c. 1602 – 1674
  • Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme 1558 – 1603
  • Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme 1604 – 1629