General news

1. You can now pay for my research services by PenPal.
2. I'll talking about Researching Brewery and Publican Ancestors at  the Family History Society for Essex at the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford on 21 May (2.30pm) and The National Archives on 13 October (2pm).
3. Look out for articles by me in May's Who Do You Think You Are Magazine. One is the first guide to The National Archives' spiffy new catalogue the Discovery System.

Oddities at the PRO (written April 2000)

This week I thought I would be perverse and talk about sources at the Public Record Office (PRO) [Ed. Now of course The National Archives or TNA]. It is partly because somebody's just sent me the reference for the 1881 census for the Island of Heligoland (CO 122/37) which I've been looking for - though heaven knows why as I have no Heligoland ancestry.

The main reason however is that I've found a notebook of references to PRO material mainly relating to officers in the Army and Navy which is full of some interesting oddities. It seems to have been compiled by a Miss E.H. FAIRBROTHER at about the time of the Second World War. The notes have been typed up and placed in the SoGs Armed Forces tracts box.

PRO references have been included in brackets just in case you want to check out the material for yourself. Most of the material seems to come from the Colonial Office (CO) lettercode which confirms my long held belief that these records contain much of interest to family historians but are impenetrable to all but the most dedicated researcher.

Do you suffer from Asthma? Well this might help: 'Get some blotting paper and saturate it well in strong solution of saltpetre take out and dry it then take a piece [the] size of your hand. On going to bed light and lay it upon a plate in your lodging room, however badly afflicted persons will find that they can sleep almost as well almost as ever they did in their lives.' (CO 199/12 27 Nov 1844). Are you deaf? - CO 153/8 may offer a cure.

Did you know that George WASHINGTON apparently 'drew his last breath in the last hour of the last day of the last century' that is 31 December 1799 (CO 258/2), that NELSON and WELLINGTON were descended from Edward I (CO 53/34), or that Rev John WRAY the first Christian missionary to British Guiana was born at Skirlaugh near Hull on 1 December 1779 (CO 116/5), or that in 1798 'Lord' John Machon DERWENTWATER a sergeant in the 31st Foot claimed to be the only lawful protestant heir to the throne through his mother (T 1/813/266)[but see below], and lastly that in 1831 Mrs MCKENDRICK was aged 102 she emigrated to Prince Edward Island sixty seven years ago from 'Argarlshire' (CO 231/1).

Details of the marriage of Peter THOMISON and Mary SULLIVAN who were married on board HMS AMERICA in San Francisco Bay on 7 August 1845 is in ADM 8/1946. Indeed the whole of piece CO 53/11 is apparently full of 'facts for the curious' perhaps rather like this column!

 During the Irish Famine of the 1840s 'Amidst the din of battles and the wild hurrahs of victory the wail of distress from his native land reached the Irish soldier on the remote banks by the Sutley [India]... Within a few days the Irish soldier subscribed no less than 840 to the relief of their suffering fellow countrymen...' (CO 115/2) A most remarkable action considering how extremely poorly paid the ordinary soldier was at the time.

 For anybody interested in the Battle of the Somme the following words of the Duke of Wellington will particularly apposite: 'I have found that raw troops however inferior to the old ones in the manoeuvring are far superior to men in down right hard fighting with the enemy: at Waterloo the young Ensigns and Lieutenants who had never before seen a battle rushed to meet death as if they had been playing at cricket.' (CO 53/12) Nothing seems to have changed in a hundred years except on 1 July 1916 young officers substituted soccer balls for cricket bats.

The First World War also enters into the last extract. CO 116/3 describes a prophecy which predicted the fall of the Ottoman Empire for 13 June 1844 'It appears that the downfall of the Empire will be the signal for universal war and will prepare the way for the return of the Jews to their own land.' The Great War, in part at least, was caused by instability in the Balkans resulting from the break-up of the Turkish Empire in Europe. The war led to the Balfour Declaration in 1918 which established a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Spooky, eh!

Incidentally John Machon DERWENTWATER seems to have had no claim to his title let alone to the throne of Britain. According to the 'Complete Peerage' the third and last Earl of Derwentwater was found guilty of high treason and executed on Tower Hill on 24 February 1715/6 having sided with the Old Pretender during the 1715 rebellion. In a footnote the editor 'GEC' writes 'Even at this distance of time it is difficult to read without emotion his touching and chivalrous speech from the scaffold.’ 

Heartfelt letters (written March 2000)

For many years there was a large metal box in the basement of the Society. As my shins will testify the box was very easy to fall over when one went into the store room. One day I said I'll look inside. And when I did the contents proved to be a treasure trove of items, mainly relating to the PESCOD family. So far I've got as far as cataloguing a fascinating series of letters relating to the Taylor family of Wiltshire, Jamaica, Portugal and Canada. Some of the most interesting correspondence is from Phillpotts Wright TAYLOR to his spinster sister, Anna, that covers a thirty-five year period between 1829 and 1864.

The correspondence begins promisingly with passions of the heart. Taylor writes to Anna on 25 April 1829: 'You are aware that I was partial to Miss Selena HALE, for the last sixth months we have regularly corresponded and nothing was known of it though we used to see one another almost every week. About a month ago her Mamma caught her writing to me and nothing more was done by her parents than threatening to punish her. Last Monday week at 7 in the evening I heard that she had been sent out of the house, bag and baggage. No one knew where but those that [did] would not tell me... The other day in going into Bath I saw a girl's school in my path and low and behold Selena... Mr WILLIAMS the master took me up to his lodgings. He said that it was not on my account she was sent out of the house, but he refused to tell me where she was living... I wish I could get your clothes that I put on at Easter then I would go as a Miss somebody... [PS] I love her better than myself.'

The affair seems to have been mere teenage infatuation and was soon forgotten. Subsequent letters a few weeks later make no mention of Miss Hale. He writes however on 21 May 'I am a most awkward creature in company, always blushing and making mistakes...' An experience we must have felt when in our teens.

Wright choose the Army as a career, buying a commission in the 96th Regiment of Foot. He subsequently served in Ireland, Bristol, Nova Scotia and eventually spent many years in Canada. Eventually Taylor rose to become Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Canadian Rifles, retiring on half pay in 1854. The choice of these unfashionable regiments may well have been dictated by relative poverty.

Taylor was incurably romantic for he eloped with a young lady called Charlotte. This caused a massive family row. As a result in January 1836 he was ejected from his uncle's house (after whom he was named) at Clapton 'near London'. 'I should have never believed it possible' he wrote to Anna, 'had I not learnt it by experience.' A note by Uncle Philpotts on a subsequent letter says 'The answer to a strong remonstrance against Wright's marrying to a girl without a penny when he was an ensign in a foot regiment and with little more than his pay to keep him - I only begged him to wait until he became Captain and then promised to receive his wife as a sister.' A few days later Taylor protested to his sister 'I will not allow myself to think that anything but your affection for me had dictated to you the course that you are pursuing to wound me and one who is still dearer to me than myself. Till you can cease to write in that very virulent style may I beg that you not address me again...'

Fortunately subsequent letters suggest that the family made up. Indeed he writes excitedly to Anna on 31 May 1841 about the birth of his second son 'On my arrival in Chatham this afternoon I found my family increased a little boy lying by the side of my darling Lotty', but his concerned that his eldest son 'Georgy' who has whopping cough might infect the baby.

At about this time Taylor is posted to Canada. His family follow him there. By July 1843 is stationed at Chippawa where is 'ensconced with wife and chicks, but where you must not go out of doors at certain hours if you do not wished the serenity of your mind disturbed for at the hour of 11AM the Yankee steamer of 30 tons and 2.5 horsepower disgorges her cargo of buffalo's beauty and fashion at a wharf 6 feet by 8.' A couple of years later, in February 1845, the family (by now there are three sons George, Arthur and Colin) are based at Amherstburg. He declines to attend a wedding: 'The groom was a jolly ensign of our regiment who took his bride home to barracks within an hour of the ceremony... he is however a Canadian and knows no feeling of delicacy.' Indeed he does not seem overly impressed by the natives, in another letter of 1848 he complains that 'the youth of Canada are indeed brought up badly.'

Phillpotts Wright Taylor comes across in his letters as a devoted family man, but also somebody who was rather naive. This innocence was to lead him into trouble after he left the Army, as a stiff letter from Anna to his wife, Charlotte, in January 1864 suggests. This is incidentally the only letter from Anna to survive. Evidently Taylor was at this time in some financial difficulties. Some o16,000 left to him by the will of an uncle had been squandered, possibly by unwisely investing in Canadian companies. Anna, not mincing her words, wrote 'I hope this crisis will rouse him from the indolent selfish life he has been leading for ten years at least - if he has a spark of masculine self-respect he will exert himself and support his wife...' Wright and Charlotte had expectations of receiving sums from his sisters Anna and Georgina MAYNE, but Anna made it clear that it was not coming from her. 'Both you and Wright have exaggerated ideas of my income - It is carefully portioned out and I live up to it. I do not hoard. Certainly at my age I have a right to a house and two maids...' She urges that Charlotte lets her house 'to PAYING, not to only fashionable tenants... have the rent paid quarterly.' and suggests that George and Colin resign their commissions in the Army where they were officers (no mention is made of Arthur, perhaps he died as a child) 'two healthy young men with no money MUST earn their bread, and ought, if need be to support their mother.' Whether Wright and Charlotte heeded this sisterly advice is not known, but some how I doubt it.

The letters offer an fascinating glimpse into a mid-Victorian family and their concerns and worries. At times there are hints of the novels of Thackery and Dickens. It would of course be interesting to know more about the family. Perhaps there are other papers in the metal box which will shed light on them; and of course there should be records at the PRO about Wright and his two sons' military careers. 

Miscellanea (written February 2000)

During closed week staff and volunteers do all the tasks and chores they can't do when the Society is normally open. I have been sorting out the Society's own archives as well the Topographical Collection which, thanks to a team of dedicated volunteers, is looking better than it has for many years. Closed week throws up all sorts of minor problems and a great pile has landed on my desk to sort out. Well, that's what I'm here for. I thought I'd share a few of the more amusing discoveries with you.

Many of these items come from newspaper clippings that the Society has acquired over the years and for which no obvious home could be found.

On the top of the pile is a review of Anthony Wagner's 'English Genealogy' from the 'Sunday Times' for 1960. In it the reviewer, Cyril Connolly, sums up genealogy as: 'This harmless foible can become an obsession of the elderly who seek to cheat death and decay by receding ever further and further into the recesses of their pedigree; as if salvation depended on an examination in family history.' So now you know.

The next is a pedigree which was worked out from a newspaper advertisement published in July 1921 seeking relatives of Mary DAINS who died on 20 February 1913 at Trimley St Mary, SFK. According to the newspaper she 'belonged to the Eastern Counties and were Nonconformists and the most part Independent.' The Pedigree goes back to 1737 and includes families BRETT, DAINS, FISON, HARWOOD, KERSEY, NEWSON, OLIVER, PRENTICE, and TOKELOVE. If you think you have a claim on the money: forget it. Claims had to be submitted by 18 January 1922.

Another, sadly, undated press cutting concerns the age when children have been fathered. The subject has a resonance in the week when it was announced that a Star Trek actor is to become a father at the age of 79. The cutting began by saying that Mr JACKSON ' a north country farmer' was to become a father at age 82 and then describes other notable elderly fathers, such as Sir William NICHOLSON of Glenbervy who became a father at 92. 'Sir Stephen FOX's last child was cradled when her father was within a few months of completing his hundredth year. Sir Stephen was born in 1627, and had by his first a daughter who died in infancy in 1655. The child of his old age survived to the year 1828 and was thus able to say 'I had a sister who was buried 173 years ago!''

Other notable elderly fathers mentioned were William PREST of Ripon, William BEATTY of Drumcondra, Co Dublin 'who celebrated his one hundred and second birthday on the very day on which his youngest born entered the world' and Thomas PARR who married for the second time at the age of 122. How accurate these ages are of course is a matter of conjecture.

One of the librarians found this poem in a box of books he was sorting out. Titled 'Fellows' Interests' the poem originally appeared in 'The Pedigree Register' in June 1913. It is too long to reproduce in its entirety but a couple of stanzas may give a flavour of the whole.  'First, what became of grandpa's son - the eldest - and his history/has always been to dad and me an unabated mystery./ He might have fought a duel, or gone to sea, or bet/Nay done some things for which the courts incarcerate for debt./ His name? I have a sheet in front, at top, the prefix "Jo..."/But (how very aggravating!) a blot's behind the o.'  'The ivory knob herewith is borrowed from the bones/ (remaining in our family vault) of auntie's Cousin Jones/ Will you leave it on the table for the members' kind inspection?/The send it back to use who view the relic with affection.'  The author remains unknown, but signed himself 'John Montmorency Brown' On the whole the poem suggests that nothing in the world of genealogy nothing changes... 

Newspapers are a fine genealogical source. But one place where family historians may not look are the personal columns where solicitors put appeals for information about missing people. They could be a useful source for ancestors who suddenly disappear. Notices such as these have largely died out, but at the turn of the last century they were an important way of getting in touch with people 'who might hear something to their advantage' as the phrase went. Thousands of such notices appeared each year.

They were well known enough for Arthur Conan Doyle to use newspaper appeals as a plot device in a number of Sherlock Holmes stories.  The Society has a clipping from an unidentified newspaper dated 1912 listing 'curious next of kin jottings' for 1911. 'Many of these notices, apart from their monetary value, possess a curious air of romance' noted the paper. Perhaps seventy stories are contained in the article.  They include 'Walter Crosskill who died in Canada and whose wife was reported to have been killed at a railway crossing has left unclaimed property.... the heirs of James Davies, stonecutter, who left Cardiff for America in 1874 are wanted to claim a large estate... particulars are wanted for Lt R.A. Cammell who was accidentally killed whilst flying at Hendon... money is due to William Holding who left for New Zealand in 1881... Any inquiries as to the estate of Miss Isabel O. Newton who was brutally murdered by her native servants in South Africa will be answered by the solicitors to her executor... news is sought of Constance Goodrich, last heard of in Manchester, when she applied at a convent for employment.'  Lastly I am able to report a triumph for the Internet. Y

I have had an enquiry from Lloyd Lewis, editor of 'Cronicl Powys' published by the Powys FHS. He had been contacted about Thomas 'Old' PARR (1483?- 1635) who is buried in Westminster Abbey reputedly aged 152. I sent Lloyd details from the Concise Dictionary of National Biography, which was distinctly sniffy about his longevity, and suggested he e-mailed my colleagues at Westminster Abbey for further information.  They e-mailed Lloyd an entertaining short note about Thomas Parr. Old Parr's tomb is probably a favourite at the Abbey and the archives there must get a large number of enquiries about him.

The information is taken largely from John Taylor's pamphlet 'The Old, Old, Very Old of Man or the Age and Long Life of Thomas Parr' (1635).  Thomas Parr was apparently an agricultural labourer the son of John Parr of Willington near Shrewsbury. He married at the age of eighty, but his children died in infancy. At the age of 100 he did penance by standing draped in a white sheet in the parish church for being unfaithful to his wife and having an illegitimate child by Katherine Milton.  Parr's fame spread and eventually reached the court. In 1635 he was summoned to the court of Charles I. By then blind the journey was made in easy stages and the king provided a jester for his entertainment on the long trip to London.

But the bright lights and fast life was too much for him. Old Parr died within a few weeks of his arrival in the capital. His portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.  What was the secret of his longevity? A diet of green cheese, onions, coarse bread, buttermilk or mild ale (cider on special occasions) and no smoking kept Thomas healthy. His recipe for long life was reputed to be 'Keep your head cool by temperance and your feet warm by exercise. Rise early, go soon to bed and if you want to grow fat [i.e. prosperous] keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.'

I am sure readers already follow this sound advice. 

Murder in Northamtonshire (written February 2000)

In recent weeks I have been sorting out the papers of Ralph Hall, a long standing member of the Society of Genealogists who died in 1998. He was particularly interested in Cornwall, Devon and Northamptonshire.

But Mr Hall was best known for his work in indexing the 'London Gazette' - the British government's official daily newspaper. The Society has his index to Devonian names in the Gazette. His papers contain further lists of Cornish people and Londoners, as well as London coffeehouses.

His work suggest that the Gazette is a seriously under used resource for family historians, particularly for the first fifty or so years of the journal's establishment in 1665 when it contained many news items, such details of runaway apprentices, bankrupts and the arrival of ships in port, which would eventually find their way into more conventional newspapers. A set of the London Gazette is held by the Public Record Office (class ZJ 1) and the British Library. I am sure sets are also held elsewhere.

Ralph Hall was particularly interested in the small town of Raunds and its neighbouring villages on the Northamptonshire/Bedfordshire border. This is where his HALL ancestors came from and, as a result, he undertook a detailed study of the town and the people who lived there from the medieval times up to the 1930s. Unfortunately his work has never been published, which is a pity because there is some very useful material here.

Probably the most exciting thing ever to happen to the neighbouring parish of Ringstead was the discovery of the body of Lydia ATLEY (sometimes called ASTLEY or ATLEE in the newspapers)in 1864. The unsolved murder is still remembered today. Murders then, as now, sell newspapers and the unusual circumstances received considerable coverage. A verbatim account of the examination by magistrates appeared in the local 'Northampton Mercury' and the story also appeared in 'The Times' and other national papers.

A body was discovered in a ditch in February 1864, which was supposed to be that of Atley who had disappeared thirteen years previously. At the time of her disappearance she had been co- habiting with the married village butcher, Weekly BALL. Indeed she was pregnant by him at the time of her disappearance and was close to confinement.

On the evening of 22 July 1850 at about 9.45pm Ball's neighbours heard them argue in his orchard. Joseph Groom, Atley's brother in law, who lived opposite remembered her screaming 'Get off me for I believe you mean killing me tonight, Weekly Ball... The Lord have mercy upon me if I'm to die in the state I'm in.' But Groom being a complacent fellow did not investigate further. Next day she had disappeared.

A few weeks later one of the villagers received a letter from a son in Northampton 'I write a few lines to inform you that I saw L. Atley in Northampton.... There was a man with her with a long smock frock on and a cape' The examination cast doubt about the truth of the letter for Ball had apparently asked the writer to send it.

The local police soon began to investigate the disappearance. Notices were put into the 'Police Gazette' and hand-bills were circulated locally offering a reward of œ50 for information about her. She was described as being 'a young woman, middle size, very fair skin, very light hair and eyes; her face is quite red from scorbutic eruption. She was badly dressed at the time she left home, and had an old bonnet and shawl on...' But no information was received.

Certainly Atley was no saint. One of the doctors had mentioned that she had had another child in Thrapston Workhouse a few years previously. She clearly spread her favours widely amongst the local men. Under examination her own brother in law, Joseph Groom, had to deny the rumour saying that 'There never was any ground that I had been improperly familiar with Lydia Atley.'

The 1851 census indicates that BALL, a butcher, (age 33) was living with his wife and niece both called Hannah. Incidentally Ringstead was the home to Margaret Thatcher's great-grandfather John ROBERTS, although he was not involved in the case at all. Although not prosecuted at the time, Ball felt compelled to leave the village for good in the summer of 1851.

Because of the primitive state of forensic science at that time it was not possible to prove the body was that of Lydia. The doctors who testified before the magistrates thought it was not her's, because they could find no evidence of her having given birth. Indeed she was found in a place which tradition said was a gypsy burying place.

The village however was more certain. After the trial in 1864 song about the murder soon circulated in the district, which made clear the feelings of local people. The chorus went 'O cruel butcher he hung should be/for killing of Lydia Atley.'

Was Ball guilty? We shall never know, but from the newspaper reports it is clear that he had a strong case to answer. Had forensics been more advanced he might well have been found guilty and eventually hung.

Perhaps this miscarriage of justice why the ghost of Lydia Atley was supposed to have haunted the village for many years after the tragedy. According to Christina Hole's 'Haunted England' her ghost was often seen to be walking from the orchard sometimes towards the place where the body was found and sometimes towards the church.

Even in the 1990s the case was not dead. According to Paul Roberts, a local historian who corresponded with Ralph Hall: 'Even today if bones are found the story resurfaces... As a child when out for my parents for the Sunday evening was and we passed the spot where the map marks the supposed burial spot father would say that this was where the ghost of Lydia Attlee haunted, and being a lonely place on the road we never really believed in the ghost, but we always kept close to Mother and Father until well cleared of the place.' 

Genealogical reasons (written January 2000)

This week we are looking at reasons why people undertake genealogical research. As some of you may know I am doing a PhD thesis on the Great War [Ed – this had to be abandoned in 2002]. Last week I visited the Birmingham University Library where I looked at the papers of Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940). From his diary it seems that Neville was in his spare time a bit of a genealogist. Was he the only family historian ever to become prime minister?

At the time of the outbreak of the First World War he seems to have been actively tracing his family roots. This may possibly be as the result of a feeling of inferiority resulting from mixing amongst the aristocratic politicians of the day.

The family background was in trade. His father, the statesman Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), although of impeccable middle class background, made his fortune as a screw manufacturer in Birmingham. Joseph's entry in the Dictionary of National Biography notes that his father 'was the master of the Cordwainers' Company with which his family had been connected with for four generations, carrying on the business of wholesale boot and show manufacturers in the same house and under the same name for 125 years.'

Neville himself became a successful businessman in Birmingham before turning to politics. His diary for the winter of 1914/15 records a family visit to Bradford-upon-Avon, where the family originated in the sixteenth century, to look for the ancestral home.

They knock on the door of the cottage which is opened by one Daniel Chamberlain, who Neville notes was a typical 'rustic' wearing a smock. A few minutes stiff conversation before the visitors from Birmingham depart. Neville reflects that his ancestor three hundred years previously must have looked the same.

If the Chamberlain family were on the way up the next Victorian genealogist I want to write about, the Lucas', were on their way down. Perhaps the most attractive collection held by the Society are two beautifully illustrated albums compiled by Miss Louise Cecilia Bazalgette Lucas Lucas. She deposited them with the Society in July 1945, together with related paperwork. The albums however were compiled sixty years earlier.

The genealogy in the albums is by modern standards undoubtedly dubious. Any doubt however about the quality of the research however is immediately overwhelmed by the visual feast: page after page of hand-coloured coats of arms or gold leaf marginalia take the breath away.

The whole point of the album however was to commemorate a family however which Miss Lucas felt had suffered generations of decline. In the introduction she wrote 'We used to be big people once, but have gone done in the world. People at who a hundred years ago we turned up our noses, now turn up their noses at us... We had married heiresses had gone mounting up to the top of fortune's wheel, and it had been well with us - But alack, in these later days we had been too well known at Epsom and Newmarket. We had been very much at home at Crockford's [gambling club]... [and] had generally misbehaved ourselves, and in consequences, our many acres had passed into the hands of Manchester gents, with fat snug faces, who wage war of extermination against the letter h and use big words when little ones would have done better.'

Men, in fact, like the Chamberlains. 

18th century gossip

A member recently drew my attention to a small collection of eighteenth century letters he came across in the Document Collection. He forgot to mention however that the box also included a lock of Mrs Annesley's Hair. She was a blond, although discolouration of the paper in which the hair has been kept for perhaps 250 years suggest that Mrs A's hair may have been dyed.

The earliest item is an account of the 'my father's christening' dated 13 October 1701. Unfortunately it is n in pieces, but carefully put together offers a vivid portrait of a family occasion. The writer, a family friend Richard Harrison, talks loving of the christening cake, but it was the drink in the gossop (?) cup that was much on Harrison's mind 'because I love liquid it [was] upmost in my thought.' The cake was so large however that even though only half the cake was divided up 'my share served my family a week as bread.'

The next document is a draft petition for divorce presented to the parliament by Francis Annesley the younger of the Inner Temple. It is a most unusually item for divorces was almost impossible until the 1850s. He married one Elizabeth Gretton on 26 September 1724. In the petition she is accused of 'unlawful familiarity and adulterous conversation with 'Don Rodrigo a person of foreign birth.' Although couched in legalise Annesley's bitterness comes through when he declares all children 'born of the body of the said Elizabeth' are bastards.

On 10 January 1726 Francis Annesley, of Lincoln's Inn Fields wrote to his son Martin offering advice on his behaviour as a priest and which commentaries of the bible should be consulted in his studies. One piece of advice should be heeded by all family history lecturers: 'As to your preaching... provided it be in clear and proper language, as you can possibly contrive... And depend upon it, the more intelligible you are to the meanest the more acceptable you will be to the best and most judicious of your hearers.'

Ten years later, on 4 November 1736, Martin now at Bucklebury writes to his father about some family gossip which is means nothing today, although he notes his wife had been very ill 'tho is much better.'

The Library is lucky to have a history of Bucklebury (Arthur L. Humphries, 'Bucklebury: a Berkshire parish' (1932)), which includes biographical notes of the incumbents of the parish. Martin was the vicar between 1726 and his death in 1749 and family historians can be reassured that he 'kept the parish registers with great care and wrote the entries in beautiful handwriting'. As Martin was aged 25 when presented to the vicarage which suggests that the christening described above was his. He married in 1732 Mary Hanbury and their son, Francis, became MP for Reading in 1774.

The last dated letter was to 'dear nephew Annesley' from Francis Barrell written on 3 October 1761. Again it is letter of advice, encouraging the recipient to work hard. It includes a full description of the coronation of George III 'which [has] taken up our whole conversation for some time past' and with which the writer was 'much pleased with the sight' He belonged to 'an agreeable party who resolved to... stayed up all night and played Quadrille and were all in good humour and the time passed on very pleasantly.'

The rest of the letter however is full of family news who is visiting whom and who is ill. The collection also contains two undated letters. The first is a letter presumably sent to Martin by his brother Francis in the early 1720s as it congratulates him on his choice of career and gives very full advice (four pages worth) about his studies.

As with genealogy, in his theological studies Martin must 'carry on his studies to the end of his days.' Lastly there is a note from 'Mr Harrison' [Richard?] to a friend of the Annesley family, recalling: 'There was formerly very great intimacy between his family and ours. His grandfather and my father constantly corresponded till their death, travelled together through Scotland and often visited with much friendship.' There is reference to Uncle Francis marrying 'indiscretely' and to being at Eton and Cambridge with 'your friend's father.'