The Blacketts of North East England

The Famous (or nearly so) Blacketts

Blacketts in Politics

(For the links to Presidents of the United States please see the final paragraph of this page.)

Many Blacketts have been Members of Parliament. Sir William Blackett (1621-1680) became Sheriff of Newcastle in 1660, Mayor in 1666, and was elected a Member of Parliament in 1673, and became the first Baronet on 12 December in that year. Soon after he had commenced business, he speculated most of his assets on a ship-load of flax. The flax fleet was reported to have been lost in a storm, and the price soared. On his morning walk, however, Sir William saw his ship making for port, having weathered the storm. He at once rode to London and sold his whole cargo at an extravagant price. This laid the foundation for one of the largest fortunes acquired in Newcastle, and the story is the basis for the title of A. W. Purdue’s book, “The Ship That Came Home”, published by Third Millenium Publishing Ltd. Sir William went on to develop a mercantile and industrial base, and acquired an additional fortune. His eldest son, Sir Edward Blackett, (1649-1718) also entered Parliament, and Sir William’s third son, another Sir William Blackett , was created a Baronet in his own right on 23 January 1684/5, became Mayor of Newcastle in 1684 and was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1685. He was High Sheriff of the county in 1689. In 1856 his great-great-great-grandson, Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, married Lady Margaret Anne de Burgh, a granddaughter of George Canning, Prime Minister 1827.

Canning was not the only British Prime Minister with connections to the Blacketts. In 1830 Beatrice Trevelyan, great-great granddaughter of Julia Blackett, married Ernest Augustus Perceval, son of Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister 1809-1812. Spencer Perceval was the only British Prime Minister ever to have been assassinated. In 1842 his nephew, Charles George Perceval, married Beatrice’s cousin, Frances Agnes Trevelyan, another great-great granddaughter of Julia.

U. K. Prime Ministers do seem to keep cropping up in the Blackett family tree. (For two more please see Other Royal Connections.) In 1812 Ann Blackett (who was not a descendant of Sir William’s, but a 4th cousin 4xremoved) married Robert Wrigley, a great-great uncle of Herbert Henry Asquith. Asquith was Prime Minister from 1908 until he was replaced by David Lloyd George in 1916, after dissatisfaction over setbacks in the First World War. Robert Wrigley was a descendant of the Wrigleys of Saddleworth, Yorkshire, who, like him, were cloth manufacturers. Another descendant of this family was William Wrigley Jr. (1861-1932) who developed the chewing gum that still bears his name.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, in 1912 Lavinia Marion Garforth, a 5xgreat-granddaughter of Diana Blackett, married Charles Lambton, the great-grandson of the 2nd Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the U.K. 1830-1834. During his ministry the Great Reform Act of 1832 was passed. Earl Grey tea was named after him. Earl Grey’s monument in Newcastle Upon Tyne stands at the head of Blackett Street. His father, the 1st Earl, was also an ancestor of Anthony Eden, Prime Minister 1955-1957, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister 1963-1964, and of Diana, Princess of Wales.

In all, Blackett family connections to 40 Prime Ministers have been discovered. To view a complete list please click here. Many of these arise through the Blacketts’ links with the Eden family, and it is through that connection that links to a number of other notable figures can be found. These are detailed in The Eden Line.

But back to those Blacketts who bore the name….

Sir Walter Blackett, (see A Philanthropic Blackett), who was born Walter Calverley and assumed the name of Blackett to comply with the testamentary disposition of his uncle, Sir William Blackett* (Second Baronet) also became Mayor of Newcastle and an M.P. His ancestor, Walter Calverley, achieved notoriety by murdering two of his sons and wounding his wife at Calverley Hall, Yorkshire on 23 April 1605. The episode was the basis for a play “A Yorkshire Tragedy” published in 1608, and attributed (probably in error) to William Shakespeare.

*Sir William, who left no male heir surviving him, went to great pains to perpetuate his Blackett direct line. In his Will dated 14 August 1728, he provided that if Sir Walter Calverley should leave no male heir, then his estates were to be entailed to the male children of his sisters, on the same condition (i.e. the child to adopt the surname of Blackett.) On Sir Walter’s death in 1777, the only sister of Sir William with a male heir was Diana, married to Sir William Wentworth, whose son Thomas duly changed his name that year. However, Sir Thomas Wentworth Blackett, (as he had become) died leaving three daughters, and this male line of Blacketts came to an end. However, Sir William Blackett might, perhaps, have taken some consolation had he known that a number of his female descendants were to marry into families with connections to Prime Ministers and the mother of a future King.

Blackett connections with politics were not confined to the UK. Hill Blackett (1892-1967) was a Chicago advertising man who played a major part in running the 1936 U.S. presidential campaign of the Republican candidate Alf Landon, who was defeated in the landslide victory of the incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The early part of the Republican campaign was notable for the often heated disagreements between Blackett and his team of “think guys” and the Republican old guard, though peace was restored after a few weeks, with Hill Blackett retaining full responsibility for radio, movies and billboard advertising.

Born in 1892 in Alaska, where his father was working as a lawyer, and christened Vernive Hill Blackett, (Hill was his mother’s maiden name), he was largely raised by an aunt in his parents’ home state of Iowa. After managing an advertising agency in California, in 1923 he teamed up with John Glen Sample to form the Blackett & Sample (later known as Blackett-Sample-Hummert) agency, which by the late 1930s was the largest buyer of radio time in the United States. It was also the largest producer of radio material in the country, specialising in 15 or 30 minute daytime radio dramas and serials. Among its clients who sponsored the serials was the giant consumer products firm of Procter & Gamble. Thus “soap operas” were born, and by 1942 Time magazine was describing Blackett-Sample-Hummert as running “the biggest soap-opera factory in the world”.

Despite being a member of the Republican National Committee, Hill Blackett did not let politics stand in the way of good business, and, in 1939, three years after the failure of the presidential campaign he had guided, Blackett-Sample-Hummert collaborated with the president’s son, Elliott Roosevelt, in attempting to place transcriptions of some of its cheaper CBS and NBC serials for night-time broadcasting on smaller stations, including Elliott Roosevelt’s Texas State Network. When they met with opposition Elliott Roosevelt decided to set up a new radio network, Transcontinental Broadcasting System (TBS). Unfortunately the venture failed and TBS went into receivership. The Blackett-Sample-Hummert partnership was dissolved on 31 December 1943, but the agency continued under another name.

Blackett’s Ridge in Arizona (see Blacketts on the Map) is named after Hill’s son, Hill Blackett Junior.

For the links between the Blacketts and Presidents of the USA please click here.

Blackett Family Connections to Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

Links to Presidents of the USA

The Eden Line

On 4 January 1663/4 Elizabeth Blackett, eldest child of Sir William Blackett, married Timothy Davison, a wealthy Newcastle merchant. The marriage in 1739 of their granddaughter Mary Davison to Sir Robert Eden produced a line of descent that includes a surprisingly large number of notable figures, and which amply illustrates the web of family connections linking different parts of the British establishment at the time. (For a list of Prime Ministers with family links to the Blacketts please click here)

In 1803 Catharine Eden, Elizabeth Blackett’s great-great granddaughter, married Robert Duncombe Shafto M.P., who added the name “Eden” as a result of the marriage. He was the son of Robert Shafto (abt. 1732-1797) probably the subject of the well-known nursery rhyme “Bobby Shafto’s Gone to Sea".
The song is said to relate how Bobby Shafto broke the heart of Bridget Belasyse when he decided to marry Anne Duncombe. Robert Shafto’s supporters added additional lyrics to the song during the 1761 election campaign.

Catherine Eden, a great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett, married in 1770 Rev. Dr. John Moore. At the time of his marriage Rev. Moore was Rector of Ryton, Co. Durham, but his career swiftly advanced and on 26 April 1783 he became the 88th Archbishop of Canterbury. His tenure of office (1783-1805) was not without controversy and was described by Hartley Withers in his 1897 2nd edition of “The Cathedral Church of Canterbury” as follows:
“Although a promoter of Sunday-schools and foreign missions, he did not escape reproach for paying undue regard to the interests of his family. It has been well said that during his tenure of office and that of his immediate successor, the sinecures and pluralities held by the highest clergy were worthy of the medieval period.”

Certainly at least two of his sons entered the clergy, one of whom, Robert Moore, attracted some adverse comments himself. In 1854 an American visitor to England, Dr. Pleasant Jones, reported on the wealthy state of some of the senior members of the Anglican clergy. About Rev. Robert Moore he wrote:
“Robert Moore, a prebend of Canterbury Cathedral, is one of the sons of Archbishop Moore. This archbishop, about fifty years ago, gave his son a sinecure office in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, worth only £10,894 per annum. . . . . . . On reference to Sir Benjamin Hall’s penny letter, we find that in seven years, ending 1850, his Grace’s gross income was £210,134 8s. 4d.; his net income, £160,984 7s. 8d.; income from fines for seven years, £83,951 12s. 7d.; and his average salary, poor man, only £22,907 15s. 4 1/2d. a-year! How his Grace manages to sustain life upon such a paltry, unworthy income, we are totally at a loss to discover. . . . .”

In 1821 Caroline Eden, Elizabeth Blackett’s 3xgreat-granddaughter married the son of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker (1739-1807). Admiral Parker, who was in command at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, ordered his second-in-command, (then) Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, to disengage from the action. Nelson famously raised his telescope to his blind eye to ignore the order, thus giving rise to the phrase to “turn a blind eye” to something. (At the Battle of Trafalgar, four years later, Nelson’s second-in-command was his close friend Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, (see Naval Blacketts), husband of Sarah Blackett.)

The link to Earl Grey through his great-grandson, Charles Lambton, has been mentioned in Blacketts in Politics, but there are two further connections. In 1888 Lady Harriet Castilia Godolphin Osborne, a 5xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett, married Henry Frederick Compton Cavendish, a great-grandson of Earl Grey. Four years earlier Harriet’s elder brother, George Godolphin Osborne, 10th Duke of Leeds, had married Lady Katherine Frances Lambton, the younger sister of Charles Lambton and another great-grandchild of Earl Grey. Charles and Katherine Lambton also provide a link with yet another Prime Minister, their great-uncle, Earl Russell, who occupied the office 1846-1852 and 1865-1866. And to complicate matters still further, Earl Russell was also the brother-in-law of Louisa Blackett, the daughter of Sir Edward Blackett (1805-1885). (Earl Russell was also the grandfather of the Nobel prizewinning philosopher Bertrand Russell.)

As if more proof were needed of the interconnection of the political families around that time, in 1923 George and Katherine’s daughter, Lady Gwendolen Fanny Godolphin Osborne, married Algernon Cecil, the nephew of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, and 1895-1902.
In 1887 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil appointed his nephew, Arthur James Balfour as Chief Secretary for Ireland, reputedly the origin of the phrase “Bob’s Your Uncle”. Balfour, a 1st cousin of Algernon Cecil, was himself Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905. Later in his career, as Foreign Secretary in Lloyd George’s government, in 1917 he authored the Balfour Declaration promising the Jews a “national home” in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Sir Robert Eden and Mary Davison were 3xgreat-grandparents of Sir (Robert) Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, Prime Minister 1955-1957. Sir Anthony Eden had had a distinguished political career for 20 years before finally becoming Prime Minister in 1955, but his tenure was marred by the ill-fated Suez campaign of 1956. He is the only Prime Minister actually descended from a Blackett that we have discovered.

It is through the Eden line that connections to three further Prime Ministers can be established.
In 1824 Robert Henry Eden Henley, 2nd Baron of Chardstock, a great-great-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, married Harriet Eleonora Peel, younger sister of Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister 1834-1835 and 1841-1846. Peel was responsible for the introduction of the first properly organised police force, thus giving rise to policemen being known as “Bobbies”, (or in Ireland “Peelers”). He oversaw the foundation of the modern Conservative Party (which replaced the old Tory Party) and was responsible for the repeal of the Corn Laws. A second connection to Sir Robert Peel arises through the 1846 marriage of his neice, Julia Emily Augusta Peel to Anthony Henley, 3rd Baron Henley of Chardstock, a 3xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett.

In 1850 Charlotte Maria Eden, the 3xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett, married Dudley North, great-nephew of Lord North, Prime Minister 1770-1782. Lord North held office during most of the American War of Independence and was the first ever Prime Minister to be forced out of office by a vote of no confidence, following the British defeat at Yorktown. In 1774 Lord North would have been a near neighbour of William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland, Charlotte’s great-uncle, who in that year gave his address as “Downing Street, Westminster”. (Some of the houses in Downing Street were at the time privately owned, though not, of course, “Number Ten”.)

And in 1893 John Henry Eden, a 4xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, married Lady Florence Lowry-Corry, a great-niece of William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister 1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886 and 1892-1894. Gladstone was known to his supporters as the “Grand Old Man” or G.O.M. (which his arch-rival, Benjamin Disraeli, maintained stood for “God’s Only Mistake”). Unlike Disraeli, Gladstone did not always enjoy good relations with Queen Victoria, who once famously complained that “He always addresses me as if I were a public meeting".

The most illustrious branch of the line, however, stems from the marriage in 1824 of George Godolphin Osborne, 8th Duke of Leeds, 3xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, to Harriet Emma Arundel Stewart. Harriet was the illegitimate daughter of Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer by Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville. Henrietta, (whose sister Georgiana was the daughter-in-law of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Prime Minister 1756-1757), was married at the time to Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl Of Bessborough. In 1785, six years before the birth of Harriet, Henrietta and Frederick had had a daughter, Harriet’s half-sister Lady Caroline Ponsonby, who in 1805 married William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who later served as Prime Minister in 1834 and from 1835 to 1841.

Lord Melbourne, after whom the Australian city was named, was Prime Minister when the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne and was a great influence on her. His private life, however, had not been without scandal through the well-publicised affair of his wife Caroline with the poet Lord Byron (see A Blackett in Poetry). The tragic story of Lady Caroline Lamb was recounted, (with some historical inaccuracies), in the film of that name released in 1972, starring Sarah Miles and written and directed by her then husband Robert Bolt. Amongst the cast of the film was Sir Laurence Olivier (see below).

Lord Melbourne was not the only member of the Lamb family with connections to high political office, as his sister, Emily Mary Lamb, married in 1839 Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister 1855-1858 and 1859-1865. Among his many achievements Palmerston was influential in establishing Belgium as an independent nation, and his robust style of dealing with foreign powers spawned the phrase “gunboat diplomacy”. He famously said of the Schleswig-Holstein Question that only three people had ever understood it: one had died, one had gone insane and the third had forgotten it. Following his death he was given a State Funeral.

Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer provides the links to three particularly notable personalities, whose public lives require no further elaboration. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Prime Minister 1940-1945 and 1951-1955, was Henrietta’s 2nd cousin 4xremoved. Both descended from Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sutherland, and Lady Anne Churchill. Sir Winston’s great-great grandfather George Spencer, 5th Duke of Marlborough, changed the name from Spencer to Spencer-Churchill in 1817, and Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill, Sir Winston’s father, is said to have dropped the use of the hyphen, although it does not appear in the parish record of the 1819 marriage of his grandfather. Henrietta was also the 4xgreat-aunt of Lady Diana Frances Spencer who married in 1981 H.R.H. Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne. Their two sons, Princes William and Harry, are therefore 1st cousins 5xremoved of Lady Caroline Lamb. Their blood relationship to the Blacketts, however, stems from their descent through H.R.H. Prince Charles from King Malcolm III of Scotland (please see THE ROYAL CONNECTION CAVEAT in Blackett Family Tree).

The third link arises through the 1908 marriage of Henrietta’s great-great-granddaughter Lady Dorothy Beatrix Godolphin Osborne to Patrick Bowes-Lyon, 15th Earl of Strathmore,. He was the eldest brother of Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, later H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Lady Dorothy could also however claim direct descent from the Blacketts as she was the 6xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett.

Two more connections to the Blacketts via the Eden line are worthy of note. Sir Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman, 4xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, was an Anglo-Irish baronet. Having previously fathered four daughters by his marriage to Edith Sarah Hamilton-Boyd, he lived for many years with his daughters’ former governess, Sarah Junner, the illegitimate daughter of John Lawrence and Elizabeth Junner. Sarah had adopted her father’s name, and Sir Thomas also took the name of Lawrence. The couple never married, but their five sons also bore the name of Lawrence. The second son, Thomas Edward (T.E.) Lawrence, was better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”, following his part in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916-1918, as recounted in his 1922 book “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and in the 1962 film of his life, starring Peter O’Toole in the title role. (The script was co-written by Robert Bolt, who also wrote and directed “Lady Caroline Lamb” – see above.)

And in 1861 Rev. Dacres Olivier married Emma Selina Eden, 4xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett. Rev. Olivier was the great-uncle of Laurence Kerr Olivier, later Lord Olivier,
the internationally-renowned actor, whose father and grandfather were also members of the Anglican clergy. Laurence Olivier is widely regarded as the greatest actor of the 20th century. Among the many Shakespearean roles he played was Macbeth, the 1st cousin 27xremoved of his great-aunt Emma. In Shakespeare’s play, (largely, though not entirely, based on historical fact), Macbeth murders his cousin, King Duncan, who was Emma’s 25xgreat-grandfather. Even had Olivier been aware of that, given the remoteness of the relationship between him and Duncan, it is doubtful if it would have affected his performance too much. Strangely, although he appeared in “The Scottish Play” (as Macbeth is superstitiously called by the acting profession) in supporting roles in 1925 and 1928, he only seems to have played the title role twice, in 1937 at The Old Vic and in 1955 at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

A Nobel Prize for a Blackett

A Philanthropic Blackett

Sir Walter Blackett of Esholt and Wallington (1707-1777) was MP for Newcastle on several occasions between 1734 and 1777 and was a successful and wealthy businessman who had inherited the Baronet Blackett of Newcastle’s estates and vast mining interests through his marriage to Elizabeth Orde, daughter of his uncle, Sir William Blackett of Newcastle (2nd Baronet).
He also, however, seems to have been a man of noted benevolent and philanthropic qualities and well known for his generosity and public spiritedness at both the personal and public level.
For these and other qualities he acquired a number of nicknames including “the King Of Newcastle”, “the Patriot” and as an independant man “the Opposer Of The Court” and was made an alderman and freeman of Newcastle, and mayor on no less than five occasions in 1735, 1748, 1754, 1756 and 1771.
His charitable acts were well known and many personal acts included building a library at St.Nicholas’s church, Newcastle for public use, and to house books bequested to the Corporation Of Newcastle. The building was described as “a handsome fabric, consisting of two storeys” to which Sir Walter endowed an annual rent charge of twenty five pounds to support its upkeep.
Sir Walter was also one of the great benefactors to Newcastle Infirmary and gave two hundred pounds towards its construction in 1751 with an annual endowment of fifty pounds and, in 1754, he deposited with the Mayor and Burgesses of Newcastle twelve hundred pounds for the provision of a hospital to care for “six poor and decayed burgesses”. He also funded a fifty pound contribution towards the rebuilding of the church at St. John’s Chapel in Weardale, built the market hall in the market square in Hexham in 1766, and the greater part of St. Michael and All Angels Church in Warden, Northumberland in 1764.

So popular he seems to have been that on 17 October 1767, when laying the first stone of the bridge at the river at Hexham Abbey, in the presence of thousands of spectators, and amidst much entertainment, the streets reputedly rang out with “success to the bridge of Hexham” and “long live Sir Walter Blackett”
Not all gestures seem to have been so public or grand; one anecdote relates to an incident in Weardale when Sir Walter was hunting and
“happened to arrive at the cottage of a poor shepherd,
Who, though unknown to him, was one of his tenants.
To a visitor of Sir Walter’s appearance, the poor cottager
brought out the best his
frugal board could produce. During his stay, Sir
Walter enquired to whom the house belonged ? " To
one of the best men in the world," said the cottager;
“to Sir Walter Blackett, sir; no doubt you have
heard of him ; but these knavish stewards for these
three years past have advanced my rent to almost
double the value of the little tenement I occupy. I
wish I could have the honour to see my worthy land-
lord, I would acquaint him with my ill usage.” Sir
Walter smiled, but did not discover himself. On
departing, he presented the cottager’s wife with a sum
of money, and soon after ordered the house to be
rebuilt, and a considerable abatement to be made.”

Sir Walter was not without a sense of humour, and when a portrait he had commissioned from Sir Joshua Reynolds started to deteriorate, due to Reynolds’s use of unstable materials, he wrote the following lines:

“Painting of old was surely well designed
To keep the features of the dead in mind,
But this great rascal has reversed the plan,
And made the pictures die before the man.”

Apparently it was not unique for some of Reynolds’s portraits to fade or crack long before the people depicted in them had passed away.

A slightly more modest act of philanthropy was made by Sir William Blackett (5th Bt.), who in the 12 months to 1 April 1815 donated a total of eleven pounds and one shilling to the Shoreditch Refuge for the Destitute. One of the stated aims of the refuge was to provide temporary relief to distressed persons “and thereby to put an end to the plea of necessity urged by many of the idle, disorderly and profligate characters that infest our streets”.
Modest though the donation was, it was still sufficient to qualify Sir William as a Governor for Life, though he was not able to enjoy the position for long, as he died in 1816.

Railway Blacketts

Christopher Blackett (1751-1829) played a significant part in the development of early steam locomotives. As owner of Wylam Colliery, west of Newcastle, in 1805 he ordered a locomotive from the renowned Richard Trevithick, which was built in Gateshead, but after trials Blackett did not accept the locomotive, and it was converted into a blower for the foundry.

In 1813 he asked Trevithick to supply a further locomotive. As Trevithick was too busy, Blackett instructed his colliery superintendent, William Hedley, to build one. The result, after an earlier experiment, was Puffing Billy (see Wikipedia Article). After nearly 50 years of hauling waggons¹ along the Wylam Waggonway it was lent, and later sold, to the forerunner of the Science Museum in London, where it resides to this day. It is the oldest preserved locomotive in the world. Wylam Brewery Ltd. have produced a beer named after it. (See A Blackett Beer.)

George Stephenson, “The Father of Railways” was born in a cottage alongside the Wylam Waggonway in 1781, and as a boy worked for Christopher Blackett, keeping the waggonway clear of cows. George went on to build the Stockton and Darlington Railway and, in conjunction with his son Robert, to design and build the famous Stephenson’s “Rocket”.

Thomas Oswald Blackett (1790-1847) carried out a number of surveys for the early railway system, and in November 1824, working under George Stephenson, prepared the plans for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first passenger railway in the world. It was a hazardous occupation, as the local landowners, not wishing the railway to pass through their land, employed gangs of men to shoot at the surveyors, who consequently had to work largely at night. The official opening ceremony of the railway in 1830 was marred when the local Member of Parliament was run down and fatally injured by Stephenson’s “Rocket”, thus becoming the world’s first railway fatality. Thomas Oswald Blackett suffered a similar fate in 1847, when he was run down whilst working on the Newcastle to Carlisle line. His son, John Blackett (1818-1893) was also a surveyor and engineer. (See Blackett Aids to Shipping.)

Thomas Oswald was not the only Blackett to meet with an accident involving railways. In 1965 Sir Charles Douglas Blackett successfuly sued British Railways for being responsible for a broken femur he suffered when tripping over a mail-bag that had fallen off a luggage trolley at Kings Cross station. Damages were assessed at £1,500, but as Sir Charles was held to be one-third responsible for the accident he received only £1,000. It is assumed that the remaining £500 was awarded to the mail-bag. (NB. During World War I Sir Charles’s father, Sir Hugh Douglas Blackett (1873-1960), together with his friend and fellow-officer Fred Barnett, for whom he had fagged at Eton, were reputed to have commandeered their general’s train to transport their hunters.)

John Stephens Blacket (1833-1922) worked for some years as a surveyor for the East Indian Railway. During his time in the Agra district of India he became caught up in the Indian Mutiny and was forced to take refuge in Agra. His letters describing his experience are held by Durham University.

The only railway locomotive we have discovered containing the name “Blackett” is “Mount Blackett”, operated by East African Railways on the main line between Mombasa and Nairobi between the mid 1950s and the early 1980s. It was named after Mount Blackett in Rift Valley, Kenya. For the technically minded, it was an articulated steam locomotive 4-8-2+2-8-4 built by Beyer Peacock & Co. Ltd. of Manchester weighing 254 tons. Its number was 5922. Mountain Class locomotives were the most powerful metre-gauge steam locomotives ever built.

¹ A waggon (spelled with two "g"s) was a truck used for carrying coal.

A Blackett in Poetry

On 16 May 1811, while in Malta, Lord Byron wrote the following epitaph for Joseph Blackett, (1785-1810) “late poet and shoemaker”:

STRANGER! behold, interr’d together,
The souls of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe is gone, but left his all:
You’ll find his relics in a stall.
His works were neat, and often found
Well stitch’d, and with morocco bound.
Tread lightly – where the bard is laid
He cannot mend the shoe he made;
Yet is he happy in his hole,
With verse immortal as his sole.
But still to business he held fast,
And stuck to Phobus to the last.

Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only `leather and prunella*?’
For character – he did not lack it
And if he did, ’twere shame to `Black it.

Byron apparently had a club foot, so it is tempting to suppose that Joseph must have been a pretty good shoemaker. He spent his early days in London, learning the technique of ladies’ shoemaking from his brother John, and began writing verse after the death of his wife in 1807. Some of his letters to Lady Byron, with verses, are held in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Lady Byron’s family, the Milbankes, had been patrons of Joseph, and his published work, “Remains”, was dedicated to “Her Grace the Duchess of Leeds, Lady Milbanke and Family, Benevolent Patrons of the Author.” Byron seems, however, not to have been impressed with Joseph’s poetry, and after Joseph’s death described him as “the laughing stock of purgatory”, though this may have been influenced by Lady Milbanke’s daughter, whom Byron was courting, having taken Joseph under her wing. In 1809 she stated that Joseph’s poems “display a superior genius and an enlarged mind”. Moreover, Joseph could count Princes and Princesses amongst his patrons, as well as a number of other members of the nobility, quite an achievement for someone who was one of twelve children of a day labourer. However, as the Monthly chronicle of North-country lore and legend reported in 1891: “Poor Blackett’s fame was only a November sun; he still felt the shivers while he stood in the shine. He does not appear to have unduly neglected his trade, but he never emerged from a poverty which was soon aggravated by ill health.” He printed his “Specimens” in 1811 to help to pay off the arrears of maintenance of his infant child and “extricate himself from embarrassment occasioned by the very long sickness, death and burial” of his wife.

Byron’s low opinion of Joseph Blackett’s work was not expressed only by the poem written in Malta and on 28 June 1811, on board ship for England he wrote to his relative and literary agent, R. C. Dallas: “Yours and Pratt’s protégé, Blackett, the cobbler, is dead, in spite of his rhymes, and is probably one of the instances where death has saved a man from damnation. You were the ruin of that poor fellow amongst you: had it not been for his patrons, he might now have been in very good plight, shoe- (not verse-) making: but you have made him immortal with a vengeance. I write this, supposing poetry, patronage, and strong waters to have been the death of him.”

Joseph, who spelled his name “Blacket”, was born in Tunstall, Yorkshire in 1785 (some sources say 1786). For much of his short life he did not enjoy good health. He died at Seaham in County Durham in 1810, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Seaham. Examples of his poems, together with correspondence, etc. can be found at The remains of Joseph Blacket.

[*A worsted fabric then used for the uppers of women’s shoes.]

Naval Blacketts

Sarah Blackett, the daughter of John Erasmus Blackett, yet another Mayor of Newcastle, after whom Blackett Street in Newcastle is named, married Cuthbert Collingwood at Newcastle on 16 June 1791. Cuthbert later became Admiral Lord Collingwood, and served as second-in-command to his old friend, Lord Nelson, at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Collingwood’s ship, the Royal Sovereign, was faster than the Victory and was first to engage the enemy fleet, causing Nelson to comment “see how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ship into action!” At about the same time Collingwood remarked “What would Nelson give to be here?” After Nelson’s death Collingwood took over command for the remainder of the battle.
In later life he was appointed commander of the Mediterranean fleet. When his health began to fail he made repeated requests to be allowed to return home. His pleas were finally answered, but he died of cancer on board HMS Ville de Paris having just set sail from Port Mahon en route for Britain, without seeing Sarah and their two daughters again. Lord Collingwood’s statue stands at the mouth of the River Tyne, looking out to sea.

Horatio Nelson, whose mother was a great-niece of Sir Robert Walpole (see Blackett Family Connections to Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom), was born in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk in 1758. Probably around the time of his mother’s death in 1767 his father engaged a nurse to look after his younger children. The nurse was a young Mary Blackett (1760-1852) of Burnham Thorpe, the daughter of Peter Blackett. Although Mary would have spent more time with Nelson’s younger siblings, she would no doubt also have helped to look after him while he was home from school up to the time when he went to sea at the age of 12. Nelson and Collingwood had been friends for many years when Collingwood married Sarah Blackett, and it would, perhaps, have been surprising if the mention of her surname, an unusual one to Norfolk ears, did not prompt Nelson to remark on the coincidence, and possibly even speculate if there was a distant family connection with his family’s former nurse. In 1783 Mary Blackett married John High, the landlord of the “Old Ship Inn” at Brancaster, a few miles to the west of Burnham Thorpe. The marriage ceremony was carried out at St. Mary’s, Burnham Thorpe, by Horatio Nelson’s elder brother William. [i]

There is a further connection between Admiral Lord Nelson and the Blacketts. During the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 Nelson, who was second-in-command of the British fleet, was ordered to disengage his squadron. Famously, he raised his telescope to his blind eye and ignored the order, (thus giving rise to the expression to “turn a blind eye” to something), and pressed on with the action, forcing the Danish forces to capitulate. The order had been given by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, the father-in-law of Caroline Eden, the 3xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett.

Almost 200 years after Trafalgar, Commodore Jeff Blackett, (see also Sporting Blacketts ), then Commander of HMS Collingwood, the Royal Navy’s Weapons Electrical Training Establishment in Fareham, Hampshire, was asked to name newly built cabin accommodation. He decided to call it the “Sarah Blackett Suite” after Lord Collingwood’s wife, thus inviting the charge that he had named it after his own wife, Sally (a derivitive of Sarah)!

Several Blacketts served in the Royal Navy. In 1837 Midshipman John Charles Blackett, father of Admiral Henry Blackett, purchased at Pitcairn Island the medical book of H.M.S. Bounty from a descendant of Fletcher Christian. (See also Mutiny on the Bounty.) The book is now held by the National Maritime Museum. Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, the scene of the sinking in 1943 of PT109, commanded by a young John F. Kennedy, later 35th President of the United States, may be named after him. In 1841, four years after his visit to Pitcairn Island, John Charles Blackett arrived in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand in rather more style, in his own 80 ton yacht, Albatross, and entertained the Governor on board. Blackett’s Building in the centre of Auckland (see Blacket(t)s Down Under) is named after him.

In “My Name is Blacket” Nick Vine Hall recounts how he learned of a family story about “Ma coosin Jarmie Cook” the famous explorer. Details of the link between Captain Cook and the Blackets can be found on John Barker’s excellent website, ClanBarker.

[i] For more details please see the article on Nelson’s family life at The Nelson Society website. We are indebted to Peter Neale for informing us of this connection.

What Do You Think You Are?

Architecture

A Blackett in High Finance

The Blacketts That We Don't Talk About

Cuthbert Blackett (1840-1891) was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Blackett (1814-1873). In 1864 he was charged with the manslaughter of John Emmerson at Crook, Co. Durham, but was acquitted. He then seems to have embarked on a life of crime, though not too successfully, as he was convicted of stealing in 1871, 1873 and 1877. In 1881 he was a guest of Her Majesty in Portland Prison, Dorset, serving 7 years penal servitude for larceny. Ten years earlier William Blackett, born about 1844 in London, was a convict in the same prison.

Cuthbert was not the first Blackett to fall foul of the law, as the following extracts from Durham Quarter Sessions Rolls show:-

- Edmund Blacket of Stanhope, yeo., on 4 July 1555 at Brandon Field lay in ambush on the highway to kill Nicholas Barrow of Woodcroft, lab., and assaulted the same.

- Edmund Blacket of Stanhope, yeo., on 18 July 1555 with force and arms broke and entered the close of Nicholas Blacket of Woodcroft, gen., and lay in wait to kill and assaulted Nicholas Barrow.

- Richard Blackett of Sowandburn in the parish of Stanhope, co. Durham, yeo., and Edmund Blackett of the same, yeo., with 4 other unknown malefactors on 20 Sept. 1555 assembled rioutously by the special order and procurement of William Blackett of Sowandburn at Ferrefeilde in the parish of Stanhope and assaulted Alice Maddyson, widow, so that her life was despaired of.

- Thomas Blackett of Woodcroft, gen., [and 11 other accused], with 30 unknown malefactors with force and arms, namely swords, sticks, knives, bows and arrows [etc.] in warlike fashion on 3 May 1556 assembled at the manor of John Lumley, knt., Lord Lumley, at Butterby, being a pernicious example to all such delinquents.

- Thomas Blackett of Woodcroft, co. Durham, gen., on 2 Dec 1599 assaulted Cuthbert Morgaine in the parish church of Stanhope, seated at the time of common prayer.

A burial entry at Stanhope records that “Thomas Morgan ye sonne of John Morgan of Mill Howses was buried the 17th June 1619. Ther was great disorder committed in the churche at this burial about ye grave making in ye stall that belongs to Woodcroft & Mill Howses which disorder was committed by ye Blacketts.”

In 1537 Jacobus (i.e. James) Blackett, of Brampton, Derbyshire found himself 50 miles away in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He had made the journey not merely to admire the splendour of Beverley Minster, beautiful though that is, but to seek sanctuary, having been accused of murder. (The victim is unknown.) At the time criminals could claim sanctuary at Beverley if they could physically touch one of several sanctuary stones, originally made in the shape of a cross, sited on each of the roads leading into the town, approximately a league (about three miles) from the church door. The closer to the church the fugitive got, the greater the degree of sanctuary, and the final inner sanctum was reached by sitting on a stone chair, the “Frith Stool”, near the church altar, which fugitives must have regarded as the best seat in the house. The bailiff would then receive the oath of the fugitive, being paid a fee of 2s 4d for his trouble, and the clerk would record it, making do with a fee of only 4d. The fugitive would then enjoy sanctuary for 30 days, with food and lodging thrown in. If this seemed too good to be true, it was, as the reckoning came later. Within 40 days, if he wished to avoid being sent for trial, the criminal had to appear before the coroner, clad in sackcloth and with his head shaved. He would then be branded on his right hand with the letter “A”, signifying that he was swearing to “abjure the realm”, i.e. leave the country for ever. He was then free to make his way to the nearest port. Of course, once he had left Beverley, the criminal could have merely changed clothes, worn a hat until his hair grew, and kept his right hand hidden, and could then have resumed his felonious ways within the country. The penalty for such conduct was, however, severe. It is not known what became of Jacobus Blackett, nor whether he succumbed to that temptation.

The earliest Blackett transgression discovered, however, took place on 24 July 1307 when Richard Blachved and others forcibly entered lands in Middleton –in-Teesdale belonging to Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and “plundered those lands of the earl’s beasts.” At his trial three years later, Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, was a co-defendant. They got off.

Not all Blacketts had improved their behaviour by the 18th/19th centuries, as a list of Blackett Convictions shows. And mis-behaving Blacketts were not confined to civilian life. In 1884 Henry Blackett enlisted in the Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment), but his military career suffered a setback in 1887 when he was imprisoned for striking a superior officer. In 1889 and 1890 he was in a civilian prison for theft and in 1890 he was discharged from the army as being considered “incorrigible and worthless”.

In December 1739 Joshua Blacket was found guilty at the Old Bailey of attempting to steal a cotton handkerchief, value two shillings, from John Robinson in Temple, London. He was also accused of stealing a gold watch but, when detained declared that he “was not artist enough to take a watch”. He was transported to Maryland the following March. In 1777 he was a member of the crew of the frigate Boston in the American Continental Navy during the American War of Independence.

Lest it be thought that all early Blacketts were rogues, a number of them were church wardens, among them, recorded in Hamsterley and Witton le Wear records:-

Christopher Blackett 1609

Parcival/Percival Blackett 1st March 1618/9

John Blackitt February 1637/8

Christopher Blacket 1638

William Blackett 1742

William Blackett 1743

In addition, several Blacketts were Anabaptists, including Thomas Blackett (1722-1806), a weaver, who recorded in his diary a visit to St. James’s Church, Hamsterley, where he witnessed “ye fighting of the parsons and people in the church, ye congregation being more like a Mob, then (sic) a congregation that met to serve the Lord”. Thomas did not record whether the fighting members of the congregation included Blacketts continuing the tradition of more than a century earlier. (A similar extract from the diary of Thomas Blackett is shown in the Hamsterley and South Bedburn history page.)
More information on Thomas Blackett can be found in “My Name is Blacket” by the late Nick Vine Hall, though thanks to new evidence emerging, the ancestry of Thomas’s father has since been revised.

In some cases Blacketts received outside encouragement to maintain a sober and respectable lifestyle. For example in 1652 John Blackett (1635-1707), the son of Christopher Blackett, entered into an apprenticeship with George Errington, a merchant adventurer and boothman (corn merchant) for a period of 10 years. One of the provisions was that he was expected not to frequent taverns or alehouses. That would have covered John’s years from the age of 17 to 27, but he seems to have obeyed the provision, or at least not been found out, as he went on to practise as a merchant in the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Not so lucky, however, was George Blackett, who was an inmate in the Tynemouth House of Correction in 1841. He must surely be the youngest Blackett to suffer incarceration, as at the time he was five years old.

The all time record for time spent by a Blackett in prison must surely go to William Stephenson Blackett, who spent 27 years and 7 months in Durham gaol (three-quarters of them voluntarily) under an execution for costs in a suit of Chancery. Life for most inmates of Durham gaol was harsh in the extreme, but William seems to have had a more comfortable time. As the adjacent pencil and watercolour depiction ¹ shows, he hardly seems to have existed on a diet of bread and water, and was reputed to weigh 21 stone! William’s special priviliges may not have been confined to good food, as in 1818/19 his wife gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth Wolfe Blackett, and in 1822 to a son, Hugh Marshall Blackett. In Hugh’s baptismal record William is described as “gentleman”, which is certainly an improvement on “convict”. William died in gaol in 1840 and is buried in the family tomb at Hamsterley. Interestingly, Hugh was not buried there, but at Wolsingham, with his mother and his wife, but the headstone includes a memorial to his father.

It is not known if William stayed in prison after the end of his sentence due to his comfortable living conditions, or whether he was simply too fat to get down the prison stairs.

(Our thanks are due to Margaret Bainbridge, Keith Collinson, Gloria Norman and Marian Holstead for contributing to the research into William.)

For a more detailed account of William and his unconventional family please see The Blacketts of Helmington and Shull.

¹ The drawing is believed to be by Joseph Bouet. Many of his drawings are in Durham University Library, a selection of which are reproduced in Dr. David Cross’s book, entitled “Joseph Bouet’s Durham drawings from the age of reform”, published jointly by Durham County Local History Society, in association with Durham University Library, from either of which details of how to obtain copies of this interesting and informative book can be obtained. Our thanks are due to Dr. Cross for permission to draw on his book for some of the narrative above.

Blackett Convictions

The following are some of the Blacketts convicted during the 18th/19th centuries:

1) William Blackett, born 1760, Buckinghamshire. Tried in Middlesex 1792 for stealing.
Verdict
Sentenced to 7yrs transportation; someone spoke favourably on his behalf and he was pardoned to serve as a soldier in the East India Company.

2) William Blackett, born 1793. Tried in Middlesex 1812 for assault.
Verdict
3 months imprisonment.

3) Amelia Blackett, born 1786. Tried in Middlesex on three occasions. In 1815 was fined for larcency, in 1816 for larceny (acquitted) and again in 1822 for larceny.
Verdict
3 months imprisonment.

4) James Blackett, born 1798. Tried in Middlesex 1817 for larceny.
Verdict
7 yrs transportation.

5) Joseph Blackett, born 1807. Tried in Middlesex 1827 for larceny.
Verdict
14 yrs transportation.

6) James Blackett, born 1793. Tried in Norfolk 1836, involved in a riot.
Verdict
10 days imprisonment.

7) Frederick Blackett, born 1817. Tried in Middlesex 1837 for stealing.

Verdict
6 months imprisonment.

8) William Blackett, born 1825. Tried in Middlesex 1844 for larceny.
Verdict
18 months imprisonment.

9) Ralph Blackett, born 1828. Tried in Northumberland 1846 for larceny.
Verdict
6 months imprisonment.

10) James Blackett, born 1831. Tried in Middlesex 1848 for larceny.
Verdict
2 months imprisonment.

11) James Blackett. Tried in Middlesex 1849 for burglary.

Verdict
Ten years transportation.

12) Francis Blackett. Tried in Northumberland 1855 for larceny.
Verdict
4 years penal servitude.

13) Mortimer Blackett Tried in Essex 1857 for stealing.
Verdict
One month in prison followed by 3 yrs in Essex reformatory.
(Mortimer Alfred Blackett was born in Greenwich, Kent in 1842. After his marriage to Martha Finch in London in 1872 he seems to have spent some time in Ireland, where his eldest son, Albert, was born in 1872/73 but by 1875 he had moved to Cheshire. Three years later he was living in Manchester and moved around Lancashire until at least 1891, when he was working as a saddler in Salford. Despite, or perhaps because of, his peripatetic lifestyle he lived until the age of 86 and died in Salford in 1928.)

14) Francis Blackett. Tried in Northumberland 1859 for felony.
Verdict
Ten years penal servitude. Robbery together with another and with personal violence before convicted of felony.

15) Benjamin Blackett. Tried in the West Riding of Yorkshire 1861 for larceny.
Verdict
5 months imprisonment before convicted of larceny under Criminal Justice Act.

16) William Wilks Blackett. Tried in the West Riding of Yorkshire 1861 for embezzlement.
Verdict
6 months imprisonment.
(William seems to have committed the offence whilst working as a brewer’s clerk, his occupation in April 1861 (he is shown as a book-keeper at his marriage in March 1861). At the time of his conviction his wife would have been pregnant, as their elder daughter, Clara Emma, was born in January 1862. Despite the inauspicious start to his marriage, William managed to prosper and by 1881 he had his own cloth finishing business, employing around 50 people. However, his fortune did not last and he was sentenced to three months hard labour in 1884 on three indictments of forging acceptances on bills of exchange.)

17) Cuthbert Blackett. Tried in Durham 1873 for larceny.
Verdict
After previous conviction for felony, 18 months imprisonment, followed by five years supervision of the police. (This was by no means Cuthbert’s only conviction, as outlined in the opening paragraph to The Blacketts That We Don’t Talk About.)

18) Mary Blackett. Tried in Sussex 1874 for fraud,
and
19) Sarah Maria Blackett. Tried in Sussex 1874 for fraud.
Verdict
6 months hard labour.

20) Robert Blackett (alias Robert Davison). Tried in Durham 1874 for receiving stolen money.
Verdict
4 months imprisonment.

21) Cuthbert Blackett. Tried in Durham 1877 for larceny.
Verdict
After previous conviction for felony received 7 years penal servitude.
See 17) above.

22) Henry Blackett. Tried in the North Riding of Yorkshire 1882 for obtaining by false pretences.
Verdict
One month in prison.

23) Henry Blackett. Trial in the West Riding of Yorkshire 1884 for horse stealing.
Verdict
After previous conviction for misdemeanours, sentenced to 3 months in prison.

In his book “My Name is Blacket” the late Nick Vine Hall mentions a James Blacket listed in the 1837 Muster of New South Wales as a convict, aged 30 years. This appears to be the James Blackett who arrived in New South Wales on the “Dunvegan Castle” in 1832, who was granted his certificate of freedom on 31 January 1840. He is listed as a grocer of Sydney in an 1855 directory. Also in the 1837 Muster appears William Blacket, a convict, who arrived in Sydney in 1834 on the ship “Fairlie”. The earliest Blacket in Australia discovered by Nick Vine Hall was, however, Thomas Blacket, a convict who arrived in New South Wales in 1799 on the “Hillsborough”, having been convicted at York assizes some three years earlier. He received his certificate of emancipation in February 1811, and in 1818 received a grant of land at Field of Mars, Parramatta, New South Wales. (Field of Mars gave its name to Marsfield, now a northern suburb of Sydney.) In 1823 he is included in the return of allotments in the town of Parramatta.

Some Blacketts suffered the ultimate punishment. On 31 August 1726 Frances, alias Mary, Blacket, aged 34 and the wife of a seaman, was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey for assault and highway robbery, along with two others. Still protesting her innocence, she was hanged at Tyburn on September 12th 1726. Five years later, on 8 September 1831, James Blacket, aged 26, and a co-defendent were found guilty of breaking and entering and sentenced to death.

The Blacketts of Helmington and Shull

Any visitor to St. James’s Church in Hamsterley, about 6 miles west of Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham, cannot fail to notice an imposing raised tomb in the churchyard. This is the tomb of “William Blackett Esquire of Shull” (1724-1799) and seven members of his family, including William Stephenson Blackett, who died in Durham gaol in 1840 (he is referred to merely as “William son of the above” on the tombstone). This branch of the family is one of the most interesting and unconventional of all the Blackett lines.

The Blacketts had owned properties in the area for many generations and in the 1756 evidence for the Hamsterley Inclosure Award William is shown as owning Shull, though he continued to occupy Helmington Hall, near Bishop Auckland. The southern boundary of Shull adjoined the Hoppyland estate, which until 1768 belonged to the wealthy Blacketts of Wylam, Northumberland, who were distant cousins of William. William’s family were yeomen, and reasonably well-off, and understandably the inhabitants of Weardale occasionally confused them with the more wealthy branch of the family. In 1772 an announcement in the local newspaper of the marriage of William’s sister Jane (see below) to Lt. Charles Caldwell referred to her as “sister to Sir William Blackett Esq of Helmington”.

No record of William marrying has been found. Nevertheless, despite presumably being a respectable member of Weardale society, in his later years he fathered four illegitimate children between c. 1773 and 1787 by Mary Stephenson, of whom little is known. William and Mary seem to have had some scruples about having (probably) their first illegitimate child, as William Blackett (later known as William Stephenson Blackett or William Blackett Stephenson) was baptised in Chester-le-Street, 16 miles from Hamsterley in 1773. (William senior is stated to be “of Stokesley Hall” and Mary is described as “Mary Blacket”.) However, William’s remaining three children were baptised in Hamsterley. All four were mentioned in his Will, as was Mary Stephenson.

Things started to go wrong for William Stephenson Blackett in 1791 when he was charged with destroying “a great number of trees” in the plantations of Anthony Leaton at Hoppyland. William’s motives are not known, but the London newspapers reported that he was delivered up to justice by his father for the sake of a reward of ten guineas (£10.50), despite William senior being “a man who is, or has been, possessed of an independent fortune”. (NB. Two years later Hoppyland was destroyed by fire, believed to be arson, though no evidence has been found of William being suspected of any involvement.)

The reference to William senior “having been” possessed of an independent fortune may be significant, implying that his finances had deteriorated. His reasons for selling Helmington in 1792 are unknown, but must have been compelling as Helmington had been owned by his family for more than 100 years. Shull and the neighbouring Shipley comprised a substantial farming estate. In their 1758 report the Commissioners for the Hamsterley Inclosure show the annual value of lands owned by “Mr. William Blackett of Holmindon” (sic) as amounting to £90/4/7 3/4d – (£79/19/7 3/4d freehold and £10/5/- copyhold). This exceeded the value of the lands at Hoppyland owned by “John Blackett Esquire”, the last of the wealthy Blacketts of Wylam to own Hoppyland, which are shown as £89/10/- (£86/10/- freehold and £3 copyhold). East (or High) and West (or Low) Shipley were, however, mortgaged and demised by William in 1767 for a consideration of £650. In addition, in 1772 William Blackett was taken to court to produce an inventory of the goods of the late John Nicholson, his first cousin 1xremoved, of whose estate he was administrator. Five years later the deceased’s uncle sued William to revoke and re-grant the Letters of Administration to the deceased’s estate.

In 1796 William senior made his Will, leaving legacies of £1,500 each to his natural (i.e. illegitimate) sons Thomas and John and £1,000 to his natural daughter Ann, all on condition that they attained the age of 21. He also left £20 per year to Mary Stephenson, the mother of his children, and the residue of the estate to his eldest son William Stephenson Blackett. On the death of William senior in 1799 the executors named in the Will (the first of whom was Sir John Eden, himself a descendant of a Blackett, who was a wealthy landowner in the area and an ancestor of Anthony Eden, Prime Minister 1955-1957) renounced Probate, and Letters of Administration with the Will Annexed were granted to William, the eldest son and residuary legatee. This put William in the driving seat, but that may have turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing. William senior’s estate, probably largely comprising land, was recorded in the grant of Administration as being between £2,000 and £5,000, a handsome sum but probably insufficient to pay his debts and provide for the legacies totalling £4,000 plus a fund to support the £20 per year to Mary Stephenson, much less leaving anything over for William, the eldest son, as residuary legatee. To make matters worse, as all of the beneficiaries under the Will were illegitimate, they would not have qualified for exemption from Legacy Duty, which would thus have been a charge on the residuary estate.

William would therefore have found himself in 1799 in the position of holding Shull as administrator of his father’s estate, but with potential liabilities hanging over him for the legacies totalling £4000, payable as and when his siblings attained 21. (Thomas became entitled to his £1500 in 1803, and a further £1500 when his younger brother John died in 1806 before reaching 21, and Ann, who married John Greenwell in 1801, to £1000 in 1804.) This is almost certainly why William sold Shull. At his marriage in September 1800 to Frances Marshall, an illiterate woman of North Bedburn, William is described as “yeoman”, but by the time of the baptism of their eldest son, William Thomas Blackett, in April 1801, William had become a “forgeman“, a profession which all four of his sons subsequently followed. It is possible therefore that Shull was rented out between these two dates, but in December 1801 William is described as “of Shull” at the baptism of his illegitimate son George, whose mother was Margaret Wilson, a single woman. (George Wilson was probably conceived at the time that William’s wife was heavily pregnant with their eldest child.) What is known for certain is that William executed a lease and release of Shull, together with allotments on Hamsterley Common on 28 August 1807, followed by an assignment of the lease for 1000 years on 13 January 1809. A purchase price of £2,748/19/- for Shull in 1809 is shown in the ledger of the Backhouse family, now held in the Barclays Bank archives in Manchester.¹ It is known that William was living at Chatterley, two miles north-west of Shull, in 1806. (NB. William is said to have established a business in Wolsingham manufacturing shovels and spades. His youngest son, Hugh Marshall Blackett, was running a similar business in Walk Mill Green, Wolsingham in 1871.)

Early in 1812 William commenced a prison sentence in Durham gaol, where he was to remain until his death 27 years and 7 months later, three-quarters of which he served as a voluntary inmate. His incarceration was reportedly due to a Chancery suit for the non-payment of legal costs and he certainly seems to have been in financial difficulties in the years following his father’s death. The Chancery suit appears to have commenced in 1808 when William applied to the court for the return for cancellation of a bond for £316 which he claimed had been obtained from him fraudulently. According to his testimony, in 1806 Benjamin Liddell called at his home in Chatterley demanding payment on a bill of exchange for £150 drawn by William. William was at that time “very much embarrassed in his circumstances”, even though he was seized of freehold estates (Shull?) worth much more than needed to pay all his debts. Liddell therefore threatened to bankrupt him unless William signed a bond for twice the amount of the bill of exchange plus interest, and William, fearing that he would be ruined if he did not comply, duly obliged. It was subsequently held that the bill of exchange was a forgery, but by then William’s bond had been passed on to third parties, who were taking legal action against him for the amount of it. He therefore applied to Chancery for its return.

The evidence of the defendants in William’s Chancery suit is unknown and no further papers concerning the case have been found. However the Chancery Court was notorious for the length of time and excessive costs of its suits, (an example of this, the fictitious case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, crops up regularly in “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens) and it could well have been the costs associated with the case that resulted in William going to gaol.

His time in gaol seems to have been reasonably comfortable. He enjoyed conjugal rights and fathered his two youngest children during his incarceration. The elder of these was Elizabeth Wolfe Blackett, born 1818/19. Her middle name was almost certainly a tribute to General James Wolfe, who was killed whilst capturing Quebec from the French in 1759. The village of Quebec, 8 miles from Wolsingham, was so named when its fields were enclosed in the same year that the general was killed. William would have grown up on stories of the illustrious general as his Aunt Jane (see para. 2 above) was the sister-in-law of Lt. Col. Henry Caldwell, who served at Quebec under Wolfe and was mentioned in the general’s Will.

The birth in 1822 of William’s youngest son, Hugh Marshall Blackett, prompted William and his wife to have three more of their children belatedly baptised that year, including John Samuel Romilly Blackett, born 1807. He was presumably named after Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818), a chancery barrister who became Solicitor General. He introduced a reform in 1809 whereby prisoners in custody for non-payment of money or costs ordered by the Court of Equity became entitled to a subsistence allowance of 6d per day. This allowance may explain William’s corpulent appearance in the sketch drawn by Joseph Bouet (see above and parent article) and in the 1827 portrait below, perhaps commissioned by William, which is now held at The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, and can be viewed by appointment. (NB. On the back of the portrait is a label stating “William Blackett… Entrance of Durham Jail/Prisoner for debt June 1812/ died in prison January 5th 1840/ Painted by Kinkley…/ a Lawyer… in Durham/ …1878”. It is not clear whether the portrait was painted posthumously or whether the label was added later.)

William’s relatively benign conditions in gaol may have encouraged him to remain there after his formal sentence expired, but by the summer of 1839 his health had deteriorated and his fellow-inmates were complaining at the smell from a putrefying sore on his leg. He died in gaol the following January.

The fortunes of his family ran along differing paths. His brother Thomas, who with his wife is interred in the tomb at Hamsterley, was a farmer, owning 160 acres of land in Low Shipley in 1851. Some of Thomas’s children were reasonably prosperous and one of his grandsons became Rector of Smethcote, Salop. Thomas’s daughter Mary, who is also interred in the tomb, fared less fortunately, marrying in 1874, at the age of 49, Baker Greenwell, a farmer 16 years her junior. By 1881 Baker was unemployed and the couple were living in South Bedburn. Mary died at the end of 1883 and in 1890 Baker married Mary Harling, who must have seemed like a child bride in comparison to his first wife, being a mere 4 years older than him. (She is described in the 1891 census as “police constable”!)

William’s sister Ann, who had married John Greenwell, moved to the London area some time before 1822 and lived for many years in Bethnal Green. Her descendants seem to have been respectable working people (two grandsons became safe-makers), but her daughter Mary died unmarried in Bethnal Green workhouse in 1894.

Two of William Stephenson Blackett’s children followed in their grandfather’s unconventional (by the standards of those times) footsteps. Mary Ann Blackett had five illegitimate children between 1823 and 1834, the father of whom is not known. (One of these children, Jane, had an illegitimate daughter, Frances, and another of Mary Ann’s children, Frances, had a son, Thomas, born out of wedlock before she married William Bland.) And Hugh Marshall Blackett had six children by Elizabeth Jane Wheatley, whom he never married, presumably because Hugh’s wife, Mary Ann Lockey, was still living.

The real mystery, however, remains Mary Stephenson and why William Blackett never married her. No record of her baptism, nor of her burial has been found and it is not known whether she and William were prevented from marrying through one or both of them being married to someone else.

¹ We are indebted to John Lavis of Shull for the information on the sale of the property.

Agincourt and All That

Sir John Blaket, “the hero of Agincourt”, is shown in many publications, including Burke’s Landed Gentry, as being one of the Blacketts of Woodcroft and Wylam, and the grandfather of Nicholas Blackett. Much is known of Sir John. He is listed among the retinue of King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415. He had charge of one man-at-arms and six archers during the battle, and was knighted by the King shortly afterwards. According to the expenses claim he put in, (a copy of which is held at the Public Record Office), Sir John received a total of £54 7s 8d in cash and “precious objects” for him and his men, though there seems to have been a later dispute with the King over various items that should have been returned. Sir John died in 1430, and his tomb is in the Chapel of the Blessed Mary at Icomb, Gloucestershire. Icomb, (pronounced “Ickum”), is the village where the original Tom, Dick and Harry lived.
All of which is very exciting and glamorous, except that we have found no evidence that he had any connection whatsoever with the Blacketts of North-East England. The Wills of Sir John and his son Edmund, together with the Writs of Diem Clausit Extremum issued after the deaths of Edmund and Sir John’s last wife, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s Inquisition Post Mortem have been examined and contain no mention of any property in North-East England, nor the names of any of the Blakheved (as the name was then spelled) family who are known to have lived at, or owned, Woodcroft at that time. It seems that Sir John has been confused with John Blakheved (1360-1418) who died “fuit seisitus de Wodecroft”, and indeed some references to Sir John erroneously show his date of death as 1418. The 45th Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 1884, contains an unbroken line of Inquisitions Post Mortem passing down Woodcroft to each successive heir. This starts with the Inq. p.m. of Richard Blachved (sic) dated 30 November 1349 and extends down to that of John Blakheved dated 24 January 1462/3, whose heir was John, aged 24. Sir John Blaket does not appear in this line of ownership of Woodcroft. It seems that his forbears had been based in central southern England for some time, as on 12 October 1335 King Edward III sent to the escheator for the counties of Southampton (i.e.Hampshire), Wilts., Oxford, Berks., Bedford and Buckingham an order confirming John Blaket as the rightful heir of the estates of his father, another John Blaket. Sir John Blaket is known to have had estates in that part of the country. The only 13th century reference to a “Blaket” in connection with north-east England that we have discovered is the following reference in the Patent Rolls for 1276:

“Biccleston (”Bicclesdon") (Northumberl.) ; appointment of John de Reygate and William de Northburgh to take the assise of mort dancestor arraigned by Agnes daughter of Radulph de Bicclesdon against William Blaket, touching a mesuage and land in."

The male line of Sir John seems to have died out with his son Edmund, who died in 1444. Nonetheless, there has been a family belief in a connection to Sir John since at least as far back as the early 19th century, and if anyone can provide information enabling us to establish a link please contact us.

The Surtees Connection

This silhouette is the only known image of Robert Surtees as an adult. (Courtesy of The Surtees Society)

In 1801 Alice Blackett (1781-1827) married Anthony Surtees, a fourth cousin of Robert Surtees, the great historian and genealogist of North East England. Robert Surtees was born in 1779 in Durham and trained as a lawyer, though he never practiced law. On the death of his father in 1802 he inherited the family seat of Mainsforth Hall, near Sedgefield, and lived there for the rest of his life. (It was demolished in 1962.)

By 1804 he was gathering material for what would become “The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham”. The first volume was published in 1816 and three further volumes followed, the last of which was published posthumously in 1840.

Although he did not enjoy robust health, Surtees and his wife, Ann Robinson, whom he married in 1807, enjoyed entertaining, and their guests at Mainsforth frequently included the novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott. Surtees had a well-developed sense of humour, and was good enough at writing ballads to deceive Sir Walter into thinking that “The Ballad of Featherstonehaugh”, which Surtees had written himself, was an ancient song. Sir Walter included it as such in his “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border”, along with two other “forgeries” by Surtees, and even went so far as to include in the 1810 edition a memorandum by “my friend and correspondent R. Surtees” purporting to explain many of the “ancient” references in the ballad.

In January 1834 Surtees complained of a cold, and complications developed. He died at Mainsforth on 11th February with Ann at his bedside. Later that year, The Surtees Society was established in his honour. It is the oldest historical publishing society of its type in England.

In addition to his published works, Surtees conducted a vast amount of genealogical research, including much on the Blackett family. In 2007 a bundle of old Blackett family papers was acquired at auction, and found to include several Blackett family trees compiled by Surtees. These have enabled us to ascertain the links between the various major branches of the family and combine them into the tree which forms part of this site. The original papers have since been donated to Durham University. [i]

Robert was not the only author to bear the name Surtees. His fourth cousin once removed, Robert Smith Surtees (1805-1864), the second son of Anthony Surtees and Alice Blackett, was a well known author of many humorous books on fox-hunting and country life, some of which are still on sale today. In 1885 his younger daughter, Eleanor, married John Gage Prendergast Vereker, 5th Viscount Gort. Their elder son, John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker VC, the 6th Viscount, (widely known as “Lord Gort”), became a Field Marshal and was Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France in 1939-40. He is credited by most commentators with responsibility for saving the BEF from likely capture by withdrawing most of his forces to Dunkirk. As Winston Churchill later said of Lord Gort’s decision: “At this moment here was the only hope of saving anything from destruction or surrender.” [ii]

[i] Details can be found in Durham University’s handlists. (When the page opens please click on “Add.MSS.1601-1650”)

[ii] “The Second World War” by Winston S. Churchill.