A Canine Blackett 

On 6 Jul 1722 the following entry appeared in the London Daily Post: Lost at Hampton-Court on Thursday the 28th last, a large white and brown spaniel bitch, with a large head, long ears, pretty rough long hair about her legs, and a small yellow spot above each eye, with a long neck coming out of her shoulders, loose made. Whoever brings this bitch to John Blackett at Hampton Court, or to Christopher Blackett on Bread Street Hill, London, shall have Two Guineas reward, and reasonable Charges. 

Two guineas was all that some domestic servants earned in a year, but John and Christopher could well afford so handsome a reward as they were respectively the 4th and 3rd surviving sons of Sir Edward Blackett (1649-1718).

It is not known if the spaniel was recovered.

                                                                                                                                                     

A Lunar Blackett

 Blackett Crater is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the moon. It has a diameter of 141km and lies beyond the outer ring of the Mare Orientale basin. It was named in honour of Lord Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974), the British physicist and Nobel laureate.

Blacket(t)s Down Under 

In New South Wales, Australia is the town of Blackett, now a residential suburb of Sydney. It was named after George Forster Blackett, who was Superintendant of the Government Cattle Station at neighbouring Rooty Hill from 1820 to 1830. And in the centre of Sydney stands the luxurious Blacket Hotel, formerly a bank designed by Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Famous Blacketts). The interior of the hotel, which opened in 2001, is contemporary in style but Blacket's neo-classical exterior design has been retained. 

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A Blackett Pub  

The Blackett Arms stands in Nelson Street in central Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. In the 18th century the site would have been within the grounds of Anderson Place, the magnificent town house of Sir William Blackett (1657-1705).  

A Sporting Blackett

 On 21 March 2008 Lee Blackett, a rugby union football player for Leeds Carnegie, scored the fastest try in Guiness Premiership history, taking just eight seconds to breach the defence of Newcastle Falcons. None of the opposing team touched the ball. Leeds won the game by 16-15. 

A Blackett Female Pirate

 When Arthur Ransome wrote his famous "Swallows and Amazons", published in 1930, he decided to name his best known character, the skipper of the Amazon, Nancy Blackett. What prompted him to use the Blackett name is not known, but Ransome drew his inspiration for the story from his beloved Lake District, close to where several branches of Blacketts have lived since at least the 17th century. After the success of his book, Ransome bought a sailing cutter and renamed her" Nancy Blackett". The boat has been restored and is owned and operated by the Nancy Blackett Trust. 

Blacketts on the Map

 In addition to Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands (see "Naval Blacketts" in the Famous Blacketts section), there is a Blackett's Ridge near Tucson, Arizona, a Blackett's Lake in Cape Breton County, Nova Scotia (formed in 1902 when the Sydney River was dammed) and a Blackett Lake in the Lac La Biche region of Alberta. 

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A Blackett Aid to Shipping 

In 1776 Trinity House agreed to allow a Mr. J. Blackett to build at his own expense two lighthouses off the Northumberland coast, one at Farne Island and the other on Staples Island, not far from where in 1838 Grace Darling and her father rowed out to save nine survivors from the SS Forfarshire. The Staples Island light was blown down in 1784 and rebuilt, but by 1809 both towers were decaying. In 1825 the Blackett family sold the lease of the Farne Island site to Trinity House for £36,484. 

The Mother of All Blackett Parties 

When Sir William Blackett (1689-1728) married Lady Barbara Villiers in 1725 he laid on so much alcoholic refreshment for the inhabitants of Newcastle and surrounding areas that much of the county was drunk for several days. The Devil's Punchbowl, a natural basin in a rock at the highest point of Shaftoe Crag, was enlarged, before being filled with wine for the celebrations. As can be seen from the adjoining photograph, it does not seem the safest of places for imbibing large quantities of wine, but there is no record of any fatalities marring the celebrations.