Joseph Byron Blackett (1824/25-1905), who married Caroline Mary Cutler in 1857, was a London physician and surgeon, as was his younger son, Edward (1870-1948). Although Joseph’s place of birth is shown in the censuses as Westminster, no baptismal record has been found. This is almost certainly because the family were Catholic, as Joseph’s elder brother, Charles (1822-1861), became a Catholic priest and his sister, Ellen, became a nun. Joseph’s eldest son, Joseph (1858-1936), also became a Roman Catholic priest.

In 1737 Thomas Blackett married Margaret Carter in Houghton-le-Spring, Co. Durham, where at least six of their children were born. Their eldest son, John, (1740-1822) married Hannah Reed in 1774. John and Hannah had at least 11 children born in Cox Green and Penshaw, some of whom remained in the area, some settling in Sunderland and some moving some miles south to Sedgefield. A member of this branch, Thomas (1807-1878), a grandson of John, moved to London and then to Kent, where his daughter Elizabeth Jane Blackett married James William Rand and had at least 6 children.

On 8 Dec 1737 John Blackett married Ann Storey at Sedgefield, Co. Durham. Branches of this family continued to live in Sedgefield for several generations. John appears to have been one of at least seven children, most of whom married in Sedgefield (or in one case at Durham Cathedral who was stated to be of Sedgefield parish) between 1733 and 1741, who were children of Thomas Blackett and Jane. A marriage for Thomas and Jane in Sedgefield has not been found, and they may be a family who moved from elsewhere.

William Blackett married Elisabeth Barber in Deal, Kent in 1762, and the couple had at least seven childen who were baptised in Sandwich and Dover, elsewhere in the county. In the 1870s their great-grandson William Thomas Blackett emigrated to New Zealand. Another great-grandson, Leonard Patterson Norris, emigrated to Victoria, Australia where at least seven of his children were born between 1857 and 1873.

Frederick Blackett was born in Hull in 1821/22, the son of Thomas Blackett and Emma Clarkson, who married in Hull in 1819, but had moved to County Durham by the time of his marriage to Sarah Watson in 1841. A number of Frederick’s descendants settled in County Durham but his second daughter, Ann or Anna (1844-1913), married Henry Flounders (1836-1904) in 1866 and emigrated to Ohio, USA between 1876 and 1879, where some of their descendants live to this day.

At least two Blackett families lived in Devon, mostly in and around Plymouth. William Blackett (1791-1853), the son of Ralph Blackett and Elizabeth, had at least six children born in the city, and the splendidly named Sampson Blackett (1802-1887), the son of Jeremiah Blackett and Sarah Chelew, had at least four children born there. The links between these families have not been found, nor which branch of the Blacketts they descend from.

Blacketts have lived in Cumberland and Westmorland for several centuries. In 1430 an attorney for Robert Blaket appeared at the Court of Common Pleas in Westminster to obtain 40 shillings (£2) owing to Blaket by William de Osmoderlawe of Ermynwaye, Cumberland [probably Armathwaite in modern-day Cumbria). The earliest family we have come across, however, is that of Edward Blackett, who was buried in in Penrith on 2 Feb 1582 and his wife Helen, who died a month later.

In 1803 John Blackett (abt. 1785-1809) enlisted in the Royal Artillery. He married Jane Elizabeth Ferguson at Woolwich, Kent in 1805 and his daughter Mary was baptised there in 1806. By 1808 he was stationed in Colombo, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, (Britain having recently taken over the island from the Dutch), where his son James was baptised that year.

Towards the end of the 1780s William Blackett arrived in St. John’s Island, soon to be renamed Prince Edward Island, and now a Canadian province.

Blacketts have lived in London since at least the late 1500s, and over the following centuries their numbers have been swelled by Blacketts migrating from the provinces, particularly from north-east England. Many of them became weavers following the boom in silk-weaving that commenced in the late 17th century. One branch descends from John Blackett, a seaman who married Anne Davison in Tynemouth, Northumberland in 1750, and who moved to London some time between the births of their daughter Anne in 1755 and their son William in 1759.