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.

William Blackett was Governor of Plymouth, Devon, which was, and still remains, one of the main bases of the Royal Navy. In his Will, proved in 1782, he stated:

“I desire that my body may be kept as long as it may not be offensive, and that one or more of my toes and fingers may be cut off to secure the certainty of my being dead. I also make the further request to my dear wife, that as she has been troubled with an old fool, she will not think of marrying a second.”

On 26 December 1883 the Northern Echo reported: “A Novel Birthday Celebration. Three brothers born in Woodland celebrated their birthdays on Friday, the 21st inst, whose united ages are 217 years, viz, Cuthbert Blackett, Crook, seventy nine years; Ralph Blackett, Woodland, seventy one years; and Robert Blackett, Lynesack, sixty seven years. They all enjoy good health.”
The brothers were three of the twelve children of Joseph Blackett and Elizabeth Stephenson. None of their other siblings shared a common birthday.

Blackett Crater is a lunar impact crater. 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 (see A Nobel Prize for a Blackett), the British physicist and Nobel laureate. Unfortunately it is on the far side of the moon, and cannot therefore be seen from…

… the Blackett Observatory.

The observatory stands in the grounds of Marlborough College in Wiltshire. It is named after Sir Basil Phillott Blackett KCB, (see A Blackett in High Finance) a past President of the Old Malburian Club, and houses the largest telescope in full time use in any school in the UK. It was opened in 1935, shortly after Sir Basil died in Germany, following in a car crash in Belgium.

In New South Wales, Australia is the town of Blackett (see Wikipedia article), 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 1823 to 1830.

And in the centre of Sydney still stands what was, until 2009, the luxurious Blacket hotel, formerly a bank designed by Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture). The interior of the hotel, which opened in 2001, was contemporary in style but Blacket’s neo-classical exterior design was retained. Sadly, in 2009 the hotel closed to be redeveloped for shops and offices.

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In 1847, following the death of his wife, Maria, John Charles Blackett (see Naval Blacketts), then living in Auckland, New Zealand, founded the Maria Blackett Scholarship Trust, financed by the conveyance of his land at “Somerville’s corner” in central Auckland. In 1878 the trustees leased the land to the South British Insurance Company Limited, whose board commissioned the building of what became known as Blackett’s Building. The building is now used as shops and offices. Maria Blackett scholarships are still awarded to students of St. John’s College, Auckland University.

On a more modest scale, Blackett’s general store and post office was opened by Henry Blackett in Rangiora, New Zealand shortly after Henry’s arrival from England in 1858. In 1878 Henry became the first Mayor of Rangiora. The store was demolished in 1910 but there is a Blackett Street close to where it stood. Henry was a grandson of Joseph Blackett of Durham City (please see Can You Help Us?). In 1900, around the time of his 80th birthday, Henry fired a canon down the main street of Rangiora to celebrate the Relief of Mafeking, breaking several windows in the process. His grandson, Henry Cuthbert Blackett, was killed as a result of a fall from a penny-farthing bicycle, but the two events were not related.

Blackets Lenswood Vineyard is situated in the Mount Lofty ranges, east of Adelaide in South Australia. Acquired by the Blacket family in 2004 and managed by them, it produces a range of cool climate premium wines.

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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).

Squire Blackett beer is brewed by the award-winning Wylam Brewery Ltd. near Heddon on the Wall, Northumberland. It is a traditional northern style brown ale, with an ABV of 3.6%, and is made with five different varieties of barley and wheat grains, and two varieties of hops. Wylam Brewery has also produced Puffing Billy beer, named after Christopher Blackett’s famous locomotive. (See Railway Blacketts)

The present brewery was established in 2000 but an earlier Wylam Brewery was in existence as long ago as 1835 when, on 23 February of that year, Christopher Blackett of Oakwood, Wylam granted a lease of 12 years to John Weatherly, brewer of Wylam Brewery. The brewery closed in 1870.

The most illustrious connection, athough hardly a direct one, between the Blacketts and literature stems from Edward Blackett, who married Agnes Lilburne around 1602. Agnes was the great-aunt of John Lilburne, who married Isabel Quiney, the great-niece of William Shakespeare. (Agnes Lilburne was also the 4xgreat-aunt of US President Thomas Jefferson, as shown in Links to Presidents of the USA.) There are, however, a number of other literary connections, where the connection is somewhat more direct.

Hurst and Blackett, a London publishing house, was founded early in the 19th century by John Blackett (1785-1832) and (probably) William Hurst, born about 1766. John Blackett descended from the Northumberland Blacketts (see Can You Help Us?) and was the son of another John Blackett (1757-1831), a wealthy merchant, who moved into ship-building in Limehouse, London and fell on hard times in the depression of the 1820s/1830s. John junior seems to have been a wealthy man in his own right as in 1820 he lent several thousand pounds to his father. (In December 1832, shortly after the death of John junior, his widow sued her father-in-law’s executors for the return of the money and other sums owing.)

Some sources cite 1812 as the year when Hurst and Blackett commenced publishing, and the covers of some of their publications carry the legend “Publishers since 1812”. However, this may relate to the firm of Henry Colburn, (who was definitely publishing in that year), which they acquired in 1841, and during the 1850s/1860s many of their publications referred to them as “Successors to Henry Colburn”. Hurst and Blackett were however publishing books from at least as early as 1824.

John Blackett may have entered the publishing business through his association with Henry Allnutt of Maidstone, Kent, a relative of his wife’s, who was a paper manufacturer and later became a publisher himself.

John’s elder son by his second marriage, Henry (1826-1871), was only six years old when his father died in 1832, but eventually followed his father into the business, which expanded steadily from the 1850s onwards. At least four of Henry’s sons became publishers. Spencer Collinson Blackett (1858-1920), Henry’s 4th son, became a successful publisher in his own right, publishing works by, amongst others, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H. Rider Haggard. Hurst and Blackett continued publishing throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century, and early in the 1930s acquired the British rights to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” for just £350. They also published three volumes of Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret, each containing two stories. The firm was later subsumed into Hutchinson, which itself is now a subsidiary of Random House, a division of the media company Bertelsmann.

Hurst and Blackett are said to hold the record for the shortest ever exchange of correspondence between a writer and his publisher. In 1862 Victor Hugo, then on holiday, was anxious to know how the British sales of “Les Miserables” were progressing, and sent a telegraph consisting only of a “?” The reply from Hurst and Blackett read simply “!”.

Around 1841 James Blacket (1808-1877) established himself as a bookseller in Newbury, Berkshire and by 1854 was described as a “printer, bookseller, stationer and stamp distributor.” In 1859 he set up The Newbury Advertiser, but the paper survived only 9 months. In 1866 his eldest son, Walter James Blacket (1842-1916), took over the business, and in 1867, in partnership with a journalist, Thomas Wheildon Turner, founded The Newbury Weekly News, which is still published to this day (2012), with wider printing interests, all under its holding company Blacket Turner and Co. Ltd. Walter’s two brothers both went into the printing and stationery business, and Blackett Press Stationers Ltd., set up by Edmund Ralph Blacket (1843-1933) in Bath, Somerset, was still in existence as recently as 2007.

In July 1919 William C. Blackett of Massachusetts, USA became a co-founder, along with Clayton Holt Ernst and Ormond E. Loomis, of The Torbell Company, publishers of The Open Road (see Wikipedia article), a magazine for boys. “Torbell” was derived from the initials of the magazine and the surnames of the founders, viz. T[he]O[pen]R[oad]B[lackett]E[rnst]L[oomis]L[td]. The name of the magazine was changed to The Open Road for Boys in 1925 and by 1940 its circulation had reached 301,000. It finally ceased publication in the 1950s.

Several Blacketts have been published authors. In addition to those mentioned in The Famous Blacketts, the following are examples of some of the Blacketts who have seen their works published:

“Two Years in an Indian Mission” by Herbert Field Blacket was originally published in 1884 and was reprinted in both hard and soft back in 2007.

William Stephens Blacket was the author of “Researches into the Lost History of America – Or the Zodiac Shown to Be an Old Terrestial Map in Which the Atlantic Isle is Delineated”, published in 1884. The previous year he had published his research purporting to show that Stonehenge was built by the inhabitants of the lost city of Atlantis. His writings do not, however, seem to have provided him with a sufficient income to give up his job as a gas collector in London.

Richard Blackett, who is the Andrew Jackson Professor of History at Vanderbilt University in the United States, has written a number of books under the name of R. J. M. Blackett, chiefly focussing on the history of slavery, including “Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War”.

Mary Dawes Blackett (abt1750-1791) was a female poet. Her works included a poem entitled “Suicide” published in 1789.

In 1882 “The Life of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian Hero and Patriot” by Howard Blackett was published. (The preface by “H. Blackett” is dated 20 June 1882). It was reprinted in 1883, 1885, 1888 and 1890. (Nb. We have found no record of a Howard Blackett of the right age to be this author. One possibility is that it could be the pen name of Mary Maria Howard, born 1843 in Cartworth, Yorkshire, who married James Blackett in Victoria, Australia in 1860, where she had several children before returning to England between 1867 and 1870. The assumption of a male pen name would probably have helped her at the time to find a publisher for a work of non-fiction. However, other than the combination of surnames, we have found no evidence in support of this possibilty.)

“Visions of Terror” by Michael Blackett, published in 2002, “The River Styx” by Michael R. Blackett, published in 2006, and “Run, Dad, Run!”, a children’s book by Dulcibella Blackett, published in 2003, are unusual for Blackett authors in that they are works of fiction.

Tom Blackett, the former deputy chairman of Interbrand, has had several marketing books published covering brand management.

Rev. John Blacket (1856-1935), who spelled his name with one “t”, was the author of eight books on philosophy and history, the latter largely focussing on the first 30 years of settlement in South Australia. His first book, “A South Australian Romance”, published in 1898, is now regarded as an important historical work on early South Australia.

Marion Blackett-Milner, the sister of Lord Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (see A Nobel Prize for a Blackett) was a psychoanalyst and the author of a number of books on art and psychoanalysis. Her most noted work was “The Hands of the Living God”, published in 1969, detailing the story of the treatment of a very ill patient who communicated her emotions through the medium of drawing when unable to express herself in words.

Mark Blackett-Ord is the author of “Hell-Fire Duke”, published in 1982, the story of the Duke of Wharton, founder of the notorious Hell-Fire Club. He also writes and edits publications covering the law of partnerships.

Professor Adelle Blackett has had many articles on economics and labour relations published, and is the author of “Social Regionalism in the Global Economy”.

Jacqueline W. Blackett is the author of “Holistic Guide to Health and Self-Awareness” and “50 Q & A on Family Health and Welfare Issues”.

Baram Blackett is a historian who has co-written with Alan Wilson several books on ancient history, including “The King Arthur Conspiracy”, published in 2005, covering King Arthur’s connections with Wales.

In 1961 Lady Teresa Lorraine Onslow, the 6xgreat-granddaughter of Diana Blackett, married Auberon Waugh, the noted author and journalist. He was the son of the author Evelyn Waugh, whose works included “Scoop” and “Brideshead Revisited.”

In 1913 Mary Isabel Blacket, a granddaughter of Edmund Thomas Blacket
(see Architecture), married Sir Gordon Clavering Trollope, grandson of the novelist Anthony Trollope, one of the most successful authors of the Victorian era. Although his novels declined in popularity after his death, the latter half of the 20th century saw a major revival of interest, and several of his works have been adapted for television, including The Pallisers series and the Barchester Chronicles. Until 1867 Trollope combined his writing with holding down a senior position with the British Post Office and was responsible for the introduction of the Post Office’s first pillar box, which came into use for the collection of mail in 1852 in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands. The box was painted green, rather than the currently-used “pillar box red”.

In 1945 Diana Evelyn Legh, a 7th great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett married John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley, a third cousin 3xremoved of Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, better known as P. G. Wodehouse, the novelist, best known for his “Jeeves and Wooster” short stories. Born in Guildford, Surrey, P. G. Wodehouse moved to France and during World War II was interned for a time by the German occupying forces in Upper Silesia, now in Poland. (He famously remarked “If this is Upper Silesia one wonders what Lower Silesia must be like.”) He finally settled in the USA and became an American citizen.

Despite all of the above contributions to literature by Blacketts and their descendants, however, the prize for having the biggest effect on popular literary culture is due to Hill Blackett (1892-1967). For his role in the creation of the “soap opera” please see the final paragraphs of Blacketts in Politics.

Blacketts also appear as characters in fiction. In addition to Nancy Blackett in Arthur Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” (see A Blackett Female Pirate), the Blackett family, headed by Herbert Blackett, feature in E. H. Young’s “Chatterton Square”, published in 1947 and republished several times since.

“The Country of the Pointed Firs”, a novel by Sarah Orne Jewett, published in 1896, features an eighty-six-year-old Mrs. Blackett, the mother of the narrator, and her son William. The novel is considered to be the masterpiece of the author, who is regarded as one of the leading American writers of her day.

“Mrs. Blackett: Her Story” by Emily E. S. Elliott (1836-1897), published in 1868 and reprinted in 1899 and 1909, is a charming story of a housekeeper, the widow of Tom Blackett, relating her life story to the young folk of the household. It had previously been issued as part of “Copsley Annals” in 1866 and Miss Elliott agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to its being published as a separate volume after many requests from her readers.

J. G. Farrell’s novel, “The Singapore Grip”, published in 1978, centres around Walter Blackett, the head of the fictional firm of Blackett and Webb, British Singapore’s oldest and most powerful firm, and the impact of the Japanese invasion in World War II.

Admiral Sir James Blackett and Lady Blackett appear as characters in Nevil Shute’s “Landfall”, first published in 1940 and reissued in 1992.

“Dead Fish”, a play by award-winning British playwright Gordon Steel, is a tragic-comic story of the Blackett family, who find themselves nearly torn apart when the eldest son refuses to follow his father into the steel industry.

Matthew Blackett, the son of a colliery owner, and a young officer under the command of the Duke of Marlborough in the early 18th century, is one of the main characters in “With Marlborough to Malplaquet” by Richard Stead and Herbert Strang, ( a pseudonym of two members of the Oxford University Press) written in 1908 and which can now now be read online.

Stretching the “literary” connection somewhat, the long-running TV series “Z Cars” featured a character named “Sergeant Jim Blackitt”, played by Robert Keegan, who also played the same character, then retired, in the subsequent TV series “Softly, Softly”. On the bigger screen, the movie “A Woman’s A Helluva Thing”, released in 2001, starred Angus MacFadyen as Houston Blackett, a men’s magazine owner.

And stretching the family connection almost to breaking point, in 1837 Diana Bosville Macdonald, the 2xgreat-granddaughter of Diana Blackett married John George Smyth, the fourth cousin of Alice Pleasance Liddell. Alice Liddell, on whom “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” was based, was the daughter of Henry George Liddell, who became close friends with Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll. A version of the story was originally told by Lewis Carroll to Alice, and he subsequently had an amended version published. Both that and the subsequent “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” were dedicated to Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Eric Arthur Blair, who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell, attended St. Cyprian’s School in Eastbourne, Sussex, which had been established in 1899 by Cicely Ellen Philadelphia Comyn, a granddaughter of Ellen Anne Blacket, and her husband Lewis Chitty Vaughan Wilkes. George Orwell outlined his unhappy experiences of the school, and his unfavourable impression of Cicely and Lewis Vaughan Wilkes, in his essay “Such, Such Were the Joys”. It was considered libellous and an unfair account and publication in the UK was delayed until after the death of Cicely in 1967.

Of course, like most families, the Blacketts owned books, which would have contained their personal bookplates. Some of these have survived to this day. Bookplates, also known as ex-libris, have since the 15th century been used in books to declare ownership. Personal bookplates have been available to anyone owning a library and wishing to place in the books a printed design as a mark of ownership. We are fortunate to have in our possession some of the Blackett Bookplates bearing their name and coat of arms. The following bookplates and information have kindly been supplied by The Bookplate Society, an international society of collectors, bibliophiles, artists and others dedicated to promoting the production, use, collecting, and study of bookplates. The society achieves this through their publications, lectures, visits to collections, members’ auctions, social meetings, and exhibitions.

We have not been able to identify all the owners of these bookplates. If you have information on them please contact us.

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.

The only Blackett reference to real-life piracy we have discovered is that in 1715 Jeremiah Higgins left Jamaica in the Blackett “to go treasure-fishing”. Higgins was captured in New York in 1717 and released in 1718 as part of the General Pardon.

The Blackett Level is a substantial mine exploration and drainage system constructed to explore unknown ground in Allendale in Northumberland in northern England. It was engineered by Thomas Sopwith and Thomas John Bewick on behalf of the mine owner and first Baron Allendale, Wentworth Blackett Beaumont M.P. Construction began in 1855 and continued until 1903 when after 4.68 miles, it remained incomplete.
The tunnel still exists today and houses an underground canal, which measures 8ft in height and 5ft in width and runs between Allendale (where it starts at Allendale Town) and Allenheads – the tunnel portal can still be seen by the riverside at Allendale.
Wentworth Blackett Beaumont had inherited the original Blackett of Newcastle estates and the substantial mining interests of Sir Walter Blackett through marriage, whereby these estates passed to the Wentworth Blacketts of Bretton Hall and the Blackett-Beaumont line of the family. The significant engineering feat was named after the Blackett Baronets, who were important to both the lead mining and coal trade to such a degree that in the 17th Century the Blackett mines provided about 1/7 of all lead ore mined in the UK.

Wentworth Blackett Beaumont was 1st cousin of Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont (see A Blackett Firearm).

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.

Lee Blackett is not the only Blackett with connections to Rugby Football Union. His Honour Judge Jeff Blackett, (who is also Judge Advocate General of the British armed forces and a circuit judge), is Disciplinary Officer of the RFU and conducted the 2008 enquiry into the behaviour of the England squad on their New Zealand tour.

Blackett links to sport go back some time. Joe Blackett played football for Loughborough until 1896 when he transferred to Wolverhampton Wanderers, before joining Derby County in 1900. In 1908 he was playing for Leicester Fosse, later known as Leicester City. Frederick Blackett competed in the 400 metres hurdles as part of the British team at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, which was immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. Sadly, Frederick did not win a medal, which perhaps explains why he did not feature prominently in the movie. He did however win the English Amateur Athletics Association 440 yards hurdles in 1924 and 1925. In 1938 Jennings Blackett, a Panamanian sprinter, won the 100 metre final at the Central American and Caribbean Games in a record-breaking time of 10.4 seconds. He actually achieved an even better time of 10.3 seconds in the semi-finals in a tie with the Cuban entrant.

Basil John Blackett was a professional jockey and racehorse trainer in New South Wales. In 1914 he enlisted in the Australian Flying Corps and became a World War I ace, being awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre, French Croix de Guerre and French Legion of Honour Chevalier.

Mortimer Charles Blackett (1881-1938) is shown in some sources as a member of the South African cricket team that toured Australia in 1910/11. Although he did accompany the tour, it was as a journalist, reporting for the Johannesburg “Star”. However, while covering a pre-tour match of the South Africa Touring XI against Western Province, he was brought on as a substitute, and, although batting last and being bowled for a duck, did achieve an impressive boundary catch, helping his side to win by an innings and 18 runs. He later became the racing editor of The Star. [We are indebted to “Mort” Blackett’s great-niece, Yvonne Elizabeth Airey (nee Blackett) of New Zealand, herself a journalist, for these details.]

More recently, Andrea Blackett, a Bajan athlete, who was born in London in 1976, won a gold medal in the women’s 400 metres hurdles at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. And Shane Blackett is a professional football player, currently (2011) playing for Luton Town.

In the 1880s William Charlton Blackett, the son of a coal agent, joined forces with Charles W. Howden and set up the firm of Blackett and Howden Ltd., organ builders of Newcastle Upon Tyne. They introduced some highly innovative features to pipe organs, and their business rapidly expanded from its initial focus on the Tyneside area, to supplying organs across the whole of the United Kingdom and beyond, at one time having a second workshop in Glasgow. They built and restored church and theatre/cinema organs, many of which are still in use to this day in countries such as Australia and Germany as well as the UK.
They built the organ for the Royal Memorial Chapel at Sandhurst and reconstructed the organ in Hong Kong Cathedral. The firm was still trading under its original name as recently as 1969.

William Charlton Blackett was the 2nd cousin of Robert Blackett Charlton, who founded the engineering firm of R. Blackett Charlton Ltd. (see A Piping Hot Blackett).

Musical visitors to this site might like to try out this traditional Northumbrian air, originally called “Blackett O’ Wylam”, and presumably dedicated to Christopher Blackett or his descendants.

In 1850 Robert Blackett Charlton, the son of Edward Charlton and Elizabeth Blackett (see Whickham and Lamesley Blacketts in Can You Help Us?) set up a brass foundry in the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Over the years the company, trading as R. Blackett Charlton Ltd., established a worldwide reputation as a manufacturer of pipes and other engineering products. It moved to its present site in Walker, east of Newcastle, in 1901. The company became a part of the Chieftain Group in 1991, which itself has been part of Redhall Group plc since 2008. R. Blackett Charlton Ltd. continues to trade under its own name however.

Robert Blackett Charlton was the 2nd cousin of William Charlton Blackett (see A Blackett Music Maker.)

In addition to the town of Blackett, now a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, (see Blacket(t)s Down Under above) and Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands (see Naval Blacketts), there is a Mount Blackett, (after which an East African Railways locomotive was named), in Rift Valley, Kenya; a Blackett’s Ridge, (named around 1937 after the appropriately named Hill Blackett Jr., a student at the Southern Arizona School for Boys), near Tucson, Arizona; a Blackett’s Creek in Prince Edward Island, Canada (named after William Blackett who farmed there); a Blackett’s Lake in Cape Breton County, Nova Scotia (formed in 1902 when the Sydney River was dammed and probably named after a descendant of Walter William Blackett); and a Blackett Lake in the Lac La Biche region of Alberta.

In 1831 Henry Ralph Beaumont, great-grandson of Diana Blackett, married Catherine Cayley, daughter of Sir George Cayley. Sir George was a Fellow of The Royal Society, and in 1853 organised the first true (though non-powered) aeroplane flight in history, 50 years before the Wright brothers, at Brompton Hall, Yorkshire. Rather than fly the monoplane himself, he instructed his coachman, John Appleby, to pilot it. After the inevitable crash, Appleby gave notice to his employer, stating “I was hired to drive, not to fly!” Some sources claim the pilot was Sir George’s grandson, but whoever flew the aircraft was perhaps fortunate in that Sir George was also the inventor of the seat belt.

Sir George helped to found the Royal Polytechnic Institution, now the University of Westminster. After earlier flights of a replica of his 1853 machine, now on display at the Yorkshire Air Museum, a second replica was flown by Richard Branson in 2003.

In 1860, Rev. Henry Moule (1801-1880), the great-grandson of Ann Blackett patented the dry earth closet. Following the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854, and particularly after the “Great Stink” during the unusually hot summer of 1858, when the smell in London from overflowing cesspits became so bad that it affected the work of the House of Commons, he filled in his own cesspool and instructed his family to use buckets, burying the contents in the garden of his Dorset vicarage. Finding that no trace of the sewage remained after a short time, he erected a shed and each day mixed dry earth with the contents of the bucket, discovering in the process that the contents made excellent fertiliser.

He believed that his discovery could play a major part in reducing the spread of disease and developed a type of commode employing the dry earth principle, and established the Moule Patent Earth Closet Co. Ltd. in the 1870s. For much of the rest of the 19th century his dry earth closet was a major competitor of the water closet (“WC”), but by the end of the century the WC had become the normal standard. Ironically, in recent years composting toilets have grown in use, being considered more eco-friendly than a water-flush system.

Henry Moule had a number of children who achieved eminence in the church and in academia. His sons, Henry Joseph and Horatio Mosley Moule, were close friends of the author Thomas Hardy, and his youngest son, Handley Carr Glyn Moule, was Bishop of Durham from 1901 to 1920.

On the evening of 22 October 1641 the infant, Henry Blackett, was being put to bed by a servant in Belfast, Ireland, (some sources say Dublin), where his parents had been living for some years.

The servant, a Catholic girl, had learned of an impending attack by Catholics on Dublin Castle at midnight that night which was intended to spark a rebellion across the whole of Ireland, and lead to what has become widely known as the Irish Massacre. This caused great distress to the servant, who was fearful for the pious family for whom she worked, and particularly for Henry, to whom she was warmly attached, and with whom she usually slept.

As she was bending over Henry she was seen to be weeping and was heard to say “My dear Henry, farewell. I shall never sleep with you again!” On learning of this, Henry’s parents anxiously enquired the reason for her grief. “Fordyce’s History of Durham” contains an account (which could have been written by Barbara Cartland!) of what happened next. “She hesitated. Fear for her own life, fidelity to the party she was connected with, affection for the family she served, and warm attachment to her little charge, all these combined, wrought powerfully within her throbbing bosom; and at length, humanity and endearment triumphing over her religious scruples and bloody fidelity, she divulged the Roman Catholic secret of the intended attack on the Protestants of Dublin next day.” Henry’s parents immediately made preparations to leave Ireland for England, which they did on 23 October.

Henry eventually became a draper in County Durham, and for more than 40 years was an Anabaptist pastor, living at Bitchburn, near Witton le Wear. He was an elder of the church and in 1689 was a “messenger” at the Anabaptist General Assembly in London. Services and meetings were held regularly at his Bitchburn home. He died on 23 October 1704¹, exactly 63 years after his family’s flight from Ireland.

As well as preaching for the church, he was kindly to his Christian friends, accomodating in his house those who had come a great distance to the services. A traditional saying of his, repeated down the years among his descendants was:

“I have room in my stable for your horses; I have room in my house for yourselves; but I have still more room in my heart.”

¹ Some sources show his death as 23 Oct 1705.

In 1856 Robert Collingwood Blackett (see the article on him in Can You Help Us?) arrived in New York with his wife Eleanor and four of his children on the ship Thornton. They had left Liverpool on 4 May 1856 as members of a large group of converts to the Mormon faith under the leadership of James G. Willie, intending to settle in Utah. A departure from England as late as May was to prove problematical, and in some cases fatal, for the company.

Robert’s daughter Priscilla, then aged 13, had become ill by the time the family reached New York and her parents decided to leave her there in the care of friends, fearing that she would not survive the trek to Utah. Robert, Eleanor and the other children were to become part of what became known as the Willie Handcart Company.¹ This has become famous in the history of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and in the words of Kim Blackett, a descendant of Robert Collingwood Blackett, it was “the handcart equivalent of the Titanic”.

Due to the poor communications then existing, together with lack of time and supplies, the handcarts supplied by the Church for the migrants were poorly built and constructed with unseasoned wood. When the company had reached the Mormon outpost at Florence (the modern day Omaha), Nebraska, more time was lost in making repairs to the handcarts. It was already August and they had covered only 275 miles, with more than 1,000 miles still to go to their final destination. 96 members of the company decided to wait out the winter in Florence, but on August 17 the remainder of the company set off. Of approximately 400 members who left Florence, 68 of the Willie company, (plus at least a further 145 members of the Martin company, who were following some way behind), perished in the snows, and many of the survivors had to have fingers, toes or limbs amputated due to frostbite.

Robert Collingwood Blackett’s decision to remain behind at Florence was understandable. He was then aged 49 and Eleanor 48, and Eleanor had broken her leg on the first stage of the journey, having to walk on crutches. Additionally Robert had become ill and had been forced to ride part of the way to Florence. Nevertheless it could not have been an easy decision to ignore the urging of most of the Church elders to continue the journey in the belief that the company would be protected by divine intervention, but had he decided differently there could well now be many fewer Blackett descendants living in the USA.

We are indebted to Glorianne Marshall and to Kim Blackett for informing us of this saga.

¹ Wikipedia: Mormon handcart pioneers

The Blackett Aerophor, from the Greek, meaning air-carrier, was a form of breathing apparatus, introduced in the Durham area in 1910 by Col. William Cuthbert Blackett (1859-1935).

The breathing bag, worn on the chest, was made of rubber enclosed in a strong leather case. It was connected to a backpack containing liquid nitrox with a minimum oxygen content of 50 per cent and a canister of potash or soda. It was used until the 1950s, mainly in mine rescue.

Colonel Blackett, a former commanding officer of 8th Bn., The Durham Light Infantry, was a President of the Institute of Mining Engineers, and was responsible for a number of developments in mining equipment, including the Blackett coal-face conveyor, patented in 1902.

In 1776 Trinity House agreed to allow Captain John 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 erection of the lighthouses followed an earlier request by Captain Blackett to build a lighthouse on the Outer Staple Islands in 1755, which was turned down by Trinity House. 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. It is possible that this is the family from whom the Stock Exchange Blacketts were descended.

John Blackett (1818-1893), after following
his father as an engineer (see Railway Blacketts), emigrated to New Zealand and became Engineer-in-Chief for New Zealand. He was responsible for the building of 14 lighthouses around the New Zealand coast. His daughter, Isabel Mary Houston, established the John Blackett Prize for outstanding engineering students. It is still awarded to this day.

Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture) designed a number of lighthouses in New South Wales, including Nobby’s Head, Newcastle, established in 1854.

In 1896 John Joseph Blackett (1875-1931) and his father, Ralph, established R. Blackett and Son Ltd., a Darlington-based brick manufacturer and builder. The company was responsible for building a number of Darlington landmarks, including the town’s first power station. When, however, towards the end of World War I the British government ordered 154 concrete hulled barges and tugs, due to a shortage of steel, John Joseph Blackett went into business with F. V. Nettleton to form Blackett’s Concrete Ships Ltd., based at Stockton and Thornaby-on-Tees. The business was incorporated in 1917, but the only two vessels built by them, both barges, were not launched until 1920, more than a year after hostilities had ceased. Orders for a further eight ships were cancelled and John Joseph Blackett reverted to brick manufacturing. One of the barges, however, the 745 ton Cretejoist, was sold to Norway in 1924. In 1942 she drifted onto rocks near Trondheim but did not sink, and the occupying German forces attempted to blow her up, without success. Many years later the Trondheim harbour authorities tried again, but failed to sink her. She still sits at Fevag, near Trondheim, in proud defiance of all that man and nature can inflict upon her.

The Cretejoist was not the only concrete ship built by a Blackett descendant, nor by a long way the largest. In March 1918 the first US concrete ship, the 8,000 ton freighter Faith, was launched in the Redwood City, California shipyard of William Leslie Comyn, a grandson of Ellen Anne Blacket. W. Leslie Comyn was born in Hammersmith, West London and was part of a notable family. His elder sister Cicely was co-principal and headmistress of St. Cyprian’s School, Eastbourne (see the George Orwell paragraph in Blacketts and Literature) and a brother, Henry Hugh, was a Wimbledon tennis player, and English badminton champion in 1908 and 1909.

Around 1820 Patience Wise Blackett Izard, granddaughter of John Erasmus Blackett and niece of Sarah, the wife of Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, planted an avenue of oak trees along the drive of Tomotley Plantation, near Charleston, South Carolina, where she was living with her parents. It is not known whether she was inspired to do so by the example of Lord Collingwood, who regularly sowed acorns in his walks in the country to ensure that there would always be a supply of timber for the Royal Navy’s ships, or whether she was Patience by nature as well as name. Although the original plantation house was destroyed by General Sherman’s troops in 1865, the avenue was spared and is still there.

Many members of the family have served in the armed forces, and several became prisoners of war.

In 1942 Sir Charles Douglas Blackett, then a Major in The Queen’s Bays, was serving in the North African desert. On 25 January he was captured during a counter-attack against tanks of Rommel’s Afrika Corps.

Wentworth Hubert Charles Beaumont, the 3rd Viscount Allendale, and a descendant of Sir Thomas Wentworth Blackett, enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1940 and flew 71 Spitfire missions before being shot down in 1942 while attacking a ship off Valchesen in northern Holland, suffering a severe leg injury. He was captured and sent to Stalag Luft III at Sagan in Silesia, the setting for what was to be made famous in the film ‘The Great Escape’. Unable, due to his injury, to join the 80 prisoners in the escape party, he was a member of the map-making team supporting the escape committee. He was commissioned a Flight Lieutenant while in the camp, where he spent the rest of the war.

Ernald Freeman Chell, the son of Frederick Chell and Catherine Blackett of Frankton, Hamilton, New Zealand and a private in the New Zealand 21st regiment was captured in North Africa. On Monday 17 August 1942 he was one of 3,000 prisoners of war on the Italian troop ship Nino Bixio. Between Libya and Sicily the ship was torpedoed by the submarine HMS Turbulent and Ernald, along with more than 100 other prisoners, was killed.

Selwyn Beattie Blacket died at sea as a prisoner of war on 12 September 1944. He was a private in the 8th Division, Australian Army Service Corps.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Lewis Hodges, who married Elisabeth M. Blackett (a descendant of the Hurst and Blackett publishing family) in 1950, was a POW for only a short time. In September 1940, returning with 49 Squadron from a bomber raid on Stettin, his plane crashed in France. He reached the Pyrenees but was captured by the gendarmerie and moved to Marseilles. After trying to get away by ship he was imprisoned and then placed on parole pending trial. He then escaped to Spain via Perpignan, was again imprisoned, finally returning to England in 1941

Captain Douglas Blackett was captured in 1940 and remained a prisoner in Offlag VII-B in Stuttgart, Germany, for the duration. For a fascinating account of his pen-pal correspondence with Ed Crommelin, a Dutch radio jazz broadcaster, reproduced with kind permission from Miff Crommelin, please click here.

There are earlier examples of prisoners of war connected to the Blacketts. Hanbury Clements, the father-in-law of Edith Blacket was born in Dublin in 1793 and enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1806. In 1812, while serving on HMS Laurel during the Napoleonic Wars, he was captured near Quiberon Bay, off the coast of France after his frigate sank. He remained a prisoner at Verdun, France until the end of the war in 1814 and later emigrated to Australia, settling near Sydney, New South Wales in 1829. In 1862 his son, also Hanbury Clements, was close by when Australia’s biggest ever gold robbery took place near his farm at Eugowra, New South Wales. Hanbury’s wife Edith, nee Blacket, treated the wounded while Hanbury rode off to alert the authorities. The bushrangers made off with £14,000 (equivalent in 2009 values to about 2.5 million Australian dollars) in gold and bank-notes, more than half of which remains missing to this day.

And also in 1812 Ann Blackett, the wife of Alexander, a mariner of Monkwearmouth, County Durham, petitioned Trinity House for financial assistance while her husband was a prisoner of war at “Bezanzon” (probably Besancon in France) during the Napoleonic Wars. Alexander was eventually released and died at his home in Monkwearmouth in 1852

(For details of Blacketts who were killed in the World Wars please visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site)

The Blackett name has been seen on many high streets over the years. In White’s Directory of 1837 James Blackett is shown as a grocer in Briggate, Leeds. In 1851 Ralph Blackett (1812-1889) was a small farmer and grocer in Woodland, Co. Durham, but by 1861 he seems to have abandoned farming to run a full time grocery business in Forster Hill to the south of the village. By 1881 he was a grocer and draper, occupying Edinburgh House, Woodland, where the store continues to this day. After Ralph’s death his son Henry took over the business, followed by Henry’s son John Robert, whose initials still adorn the shop sign.

Blackett & Dixon were wine and spirit merchants operating between at least 1777 and 1801, and are recorded in Whitehead’s Trade Directory of 1790 as occupying premises in Mosley Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The co-founder of the business was probably Christopher Blackett of Wylam, Northumberland (1751-1829). Christopher built a town house in Mosley Street, though it is not clear if this was the same building as that occupied by the business. (Nb. In February 1879 Mosley Street became the first street in the world to be completely lit by electricity.)

Blackett & Son Ltd. is recorded in the 1939 edition of the “Official Guide to Barnard Castle in Lovely Teesdale”, published by Barnard Castle Publicity Society, under “Milliners, Drapers, Furnitures etc.” They were based in Horse Market, Barnard Castle. Blacketts furniture and department store was a prominent feature in Stockton High Street from around 1939 to 1970 when the premises were taken over by Waring and Gillow. The business was set up by George Marriner Blackett (1888-1951). There were at one time also Blacketts department stores in Sunderland and Hartlepool.

The Barnard Castle and Stockton Blacketts stores may be long gone, but in 2006 Blacketts Furniture Store opened in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland. In December 2008 the store won the Bishop Auckland Christmas window dressing competition.

From 1976 to 2000 Blackett’s Bars and Restaurant occupied 63-67 Bondgate in Darlington. Part of the premises have been occupied since 2004 by Blackett’s Medical Practice. The premises were originally the headquarters of R. Blackett & Son Ltd. (see An Indestructible Blackett Ship), a brick manufacturer and builder, and the connection is commemorated by a frieze of bricks on new gates built for the medical practice.

The name Blackett is frequently encountered in a wide variety of businesses. As at 2009 there was a Blacketts Restaurant and a Blacketts Gift Shop in Bamburgh, Northumberland, (named after Blackett Row, Bamburgh), a D. H. Blackett newsagent in Bishop Auckland, Blackett-Ord consulting engineers in Appleby-in-Westmorland, Davison Blackett Ltd., surveyors and valuers in Bedlington, Northumberland, and Blackett’s Doors in Fenham, Newcastle Upon Tyne, (formed in 1946 by Robert Blackett under the name of F. Blackett & Sons), as well as Blacketts Ltd, lithographic printers in Epping, Essex and Blacketts Nursery in Rickmansworth, Herts. And of course any internet search for “Blackett” will turn up many references to Blackett Hart and Pratt, a major law firm in north-east England. The origins of the firm go back to the beginning of the 19th century, but the name Blackett first appeared in its title in 1993. It has now been re-branded BHP.

Further south, Jimmy and George Blackett, two of the sons of James Blackett, a Manchester blacksmith (the family originally hailed from Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland), who had moved to Plumstead, London in 1870/71, opened Blackett Bros. Cycles in Cross Steet, Woolwich in 1908/09, shortly thereafter moving to Woolwich New Road. Sometime during the First World War, however, the brothers fell out and George opened a competing cycle shop around the corner. He moved back to Woolwich New Road during the 1930s, immediately opposite his brother’s old business. Jimmy had, however, sold his business in 1929, and his successors concentrated on hand-built lightweight cycles, leaving George to retail family and utility bicycles. (NB. Jimmy had enlisted in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Gravesend, Kent on 14 April 1891. His military career was not a success, however, and he was discharged six months later as a “useless lunatic”.)

If you are aware of other Blackett high street businesses, either past or present, please contact us.

James Douglas Blackett (1828-1912) and his brother William Richard Blackett (1830/31-1902) were both stock jobbers and members of The London Stock Exchange. (After the Stock Exchange’s “Big Bang” in 1986 jobbers became known as “market makers”.) Born in Wapping, London, they were two of the sons of John Anderson Blackett, a former publican born in the village of North Sunderland, close to the north-east coast of Northumberland, and were grandsons of James Blackett, a Trinity House agent born in neighbouring Bamburgh. This line of Bamburgh Blacketts can be traced back to James Blackett, baptised in Bamburgh in 1693, the son of John Blackett, baptised in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1663, and grandson of Nicholas Blackett. (See Can You Help Us?).

John Blackett, a labourer, also known as John Abraham Blackett, lived in the East End of London with Mary Ann Hawkins for nearly 50 years and the couple had at least ten children born between 1826 and 1856. On 5 March 1873 the couple finally wed at St. Mary’s, Whitechapel. They are described in their marriage record as a bachelor and spinster, both of full age, which seems something of an understatement as John was then nearly 70 and Mary Ann 62. John died early the following year and Mary Ann a year later. It is not known if John was aware of the Blackett family motto, “Nous Travaillerons en Esperance” (we labour in hope).

In December 2010 Tyler Thomas Blackett Bennett was born in Newport Beach, California. He was the first of his direct line to bear a Christian name of Blackett since his 4xgreat-grandfather, William Blackett Wood, (1837-1906), who was himself a great-grandson of Isabel Blackett (1725-1770), a member of the Blackett family of Helmington Hall, County Durham (see The Blacketts of Helmington and Shull).

Tyler’s mother, Janette, a keen genealogist and researcher into Blackett family history, decided to add the name of Blackett in the knowledge that Tyler will have to explain the story of his name for the rest of his life! And so the Blackett tale lingers on…

(NB. This is the first instance we have encountered of the Blackett name being adopted as a direct result of genealogical research.)

In 1819 William Robinson, the son of Margaret Blackett and William Robinson of Hamsterley, County Durham, married Johanna Christian in London. Johanna was the daughter of Admiral Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian, a descendant of an old Isle of Man family, and was the 5th cousin of Fletcher Christian. Fletcher Christian was master mate on HMS Bounty¹ and led the mutiny on 28 April 1789 against the captain, William Bligh, later immortalised in the 1935 motion picture “Mutiny on the Bounty”, starring Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian. After evading capture by the Royal Navy, Fletcher Christian died on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific on 20 Sep 1793, six weeks before the birth in Oxfordshire of his 5th cousin Johanna Christian on Thursday 31 October 1793. By coincidence Fletcher Christian had named his eldest son, born in 1790, “Thursday October Christian”.

William and Johanna Robinson settled in Hamsterley for some years, where William built “Hamsterley Lodge” (now known simply as “The Lodge”)². Their two children were baptised in Hamsterley and Johanna was buried there on 24 October 1827 (which was a Wednesday).

¹ In 1837 the ship’s log of HMS Bounty was purchased at Pitcairn Island by Midshipman John Charles Blackett from a descendent of Fletcher Christian (see Naval Blacketts).
² We are indebted to Jonathan Peacock and to Hamsterley and South Bedburn village site for their help in identifying this property.

In the Museum of London is the Blackett Dolls House, believed to have been a gift by Sir Edward Blackett to his wife Anne on the birth of their two younger children William and Mary c.1758. Models such as these were known at the time as “baby houses” and were intended for display, rather than to be played with by the children of the household. They were frequently commissioned as miniature replicas of real houses, and the dolls house, other than its lowest floor, displays some resemblance to Newby Hall, near Ripon, North Yorkshire, which had been rebuilt by Sir Edward’s grandfather in the 1690s and sold by Sir Edward in 1748.

The dolls house was presented to the museum in 1912 by Ida Frances Blackett, a great-granddaughter of Sir Edward and Lady Anne Blackett.

Image courtesy and copyright of the Museum of London.

John Blackett (1777/8-1858) was from at least 1814 to 1851 employed by the Ordnance (the government body charged with supplying armaments and munitions), and was based in 1841 and 1851 at Harwich, Essex. He named one of his sons Edmund Phipps Blackett (1830/1-1887), almost certainly after Hon. Edmund Phipps, (the son of the 1st Earl of Mulgrave), who in 1812 became Clerk of the Deliveries of the Ordnance, a government ministerial position, and held the post until it was abolished in 1830.

It is not clear whether Edmund Phipps had shown a special kindness to John Blackett or whether John bestowed the name on his son in the hope of advancing his own career. If the latter, it appears to have met with only limited success as John was shown as a store keeper for the Ordnance at the baptism of his son John Griffiths Blackett in 1814, but was still no more than a clerk there in 1841 and 1851.

Please also see Blacketts of Essex and Cambridge in Can You Help Us?.

In 1856 Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont, a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, was granted a patent for improvements to the Adams revolver. This enabled it to be be fired after first cocking the hammer, as in Colt single-action revolvers, but for subsequent shots by merely pressing the trigger. It was the first true double-action system ¹ and was adopted by the British Army later in 1856 and subsequently by Holland and Russia. Approximately 1,750 of the revolvers, manufactured under licence by the Massachusetts Arms Company, were purchased by the Union Army at the beginning of the American Civil War.

Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont was descended from the Blacketts on both his mother’s and his father’s side, and was the 1st cousin of Wentworth Blackett Beaumont (see An Engineering Achievement). He also invented the Beaumont tunneling machine, which was used in the construction of the Mersey Railway Tunnel in the mid-1880s, and was associated with the Channel Tunnel Company. He sat as Member of Parliament for South Durham from 1868 to 1880.

¹ Link to Wikipedia article.

In 1823 Powell Charles Blackett, a naval surgeon, donated to the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons a tourniquet he had developed for applying pressure to the carotid artery. The curator of the museum, on whom Blackett had tested the device in front of the Board of Curators recorded in his diary that “the compression was so great as to produce numbness for many hours; & felt for some days afterwards”. The tourniquet, together with a medical support belt, also developed by Blackett, are held by the museum.

Please also see Roman Catholic Blacketts in Can You Help Us?

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.