PARENTAGE
The situation of Sedbury (plate I.), rising to an elevation of about 170
feet between the Severn and the Wye, opposite Chepstow, was very
beautiful, and the vegetation rich and luxuriant. My father purchased
the house and policy grounds from Sir Henry Cosby about 1826, and it was
our home till his death in 1873. He retained Tyldesley, his other
property in Lancashire, with its coal mines, but we did not reside
there, as the climate was too cold for the health of my mother and for
the young family.
[The original purchase was called Barnesville, and earlier still
Kingston Park, and it consisted of a moderate-sized villa with the
immediately adjoining grounds. The property was added to by purchases
from the Duke of Beaufort, and it was renamed Sedbury Park after the
nearest village. To the house the new owner added a handsome colonnade
about 10 feet wide, and a spacious library. Sir Robert Smirke, the
architect of all the improvements, was the man who designed the British
Museum, the General Post Office, &c.[3] Barnes Cottage on the property,
at one time ‘Barons Cottage,’ was kept in habitable repair because it
secured to the estate the privilege of a seat in church.]
About sixteen miles from Sedbury Park are still to be seen the
interesting ruins of the Great Roman station of this part of the
country, Caerwent or the white tower, the Venta Silurum of Antonine’s
“Itinerary.”[4] Its trade and military importance were transferred to
Strigul, now known as Chepstow, after the Norman Conquest. Sedbury Park
is believed to have been an outlying post of this chief military centre,
and it was occupied by soldiers “guarding the beacon and the look-out
over the passages” of the Severn. Considerable finds of Roman pottery
(plate XI.) were discovered about 1860, while drains about 4 feet deep
were being cut near to the Severn cliffs. They consisted chiefly of
fragments of rough earthenware—cooking dishes and cinerary urns, &c.
There was also a small quantity of glazed, red Samian cups and one piece
of Durobrivian ware and great quantities of animals’ teeth and bones,
but no coins (p. 174). After the death of my father it was found that
much of the best ware had been stolen.
My father (plate II.) is well known for the high place he takes amongst
our English County historians, as the author of “The History of the
County Palatine, and City of Chester,” published in 1818. He came of the
old Lancashire family of Ormerod of Ormerod, a demesne in the township
of Cliviger, a wild and mountainous district, situated along the
boundaries of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The varied watershed
(transmitting the streams to the eastern and western seas); the beauties
of the rocks and waterfalls; the shaded glens, and the antique
farmhouses (where fairy superstition still lingered till the beginning
of the past century), have been written about by Whitaker in his
“History of Whalley.”[5] There, in the year 1810, in an elevated
position, amongst aged pine and elm trees, and surrounded by high garden
walls of dark stone, the mansion, (plate XXVIII.)—since greatly enlarged
by the family of the present proprietor—stood in a dingle at the side of
a mountain stream, which rushed behind it at a considerable depth.
Beyond the stream, the rise of the ground to the more elevated moors
includes a view of the summit of Pendle Hill, of exceedingly evil repute
for meetings of witches and warlocks, and congenerous unpleasantnesses,
in the olden time.
[Illustration:
PLATE II.
GEORGE ORMEROD, ESQ., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A.,
OF SEDBURY PARK, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, AND TYLDESLEY, LANCASHIRE,
FATHER OF MISS ORMEROD.
_From a painting after Jackson, date circa 1820._
(_pp: 11, 14._)
]
The family of Ormerod was settled in the locality from which they took
their name, as far back as the year 1311, the estates continuing in
their possession until, in 1793 (by the marriage of Charlotte Ann
Ormerod, sole daughter and heiress of Laurence Ormerod, the last of the
generation of the parent stem in direct male descent), they passed to
Colonel John Hargreaves; and by the marriage of his eldest daughter and
co-heiress, Eleanor Mary, with the Rev. William Thursby, they became
vested in the Thursby family,[6] represented until recently by Sir John
Hardy Thursby, Bart., of Ormerod House, Burnley, Lancashire, and
Holmhurst, Christchurch, Hants. Sir John showed thoughtful,
philanthropic feeling to his Lancashire district, by presenting the land
for a public park to Burnley, and, in connection with his family, he
also gave the site for the neighbouring “Victoria Hospital.” In 1887, he
served as High Sheriff of Lancashire, and was created Baronet. Dying on
March 16, 1901, he was succeeded by his eldest son, John Ormerod
Scarlett Thursby, of Bankhall, Burnley, who, in his surname and
baptismal names, keeps alive the connection with the old family stock
and the families with which the last two co-heiresses of Ormerod were
connected by marriage. With these matters of possessions, however, the
collateral branch of Ormerod, of Bury in Lancashire (from the special
founder of which my father was descended in direct male line), had
nothing to do. From Oliver Ormerod, who became permanently resident at
Bury shortly after the close of the seventeenth century, descended his
only son, George Ormerod of Bury, merchant. From him descended George
Ormerod (an only child), who died on October 7, 1785, a few days before
the birth of his only child—my father—yet another George Ormerod. In a
mere statement of the names of the representatives of successive
generations, of whom no specially distinguishing points appear to have
been recorded, there is, perhaps, little of general interest. But
possibly some amount of interest attaches to the proofs of
representatives of one family having lived quietly on from generation to
generation in one locality since the early part of the fourteenth
century. The connections and intermarrying of the Ormerods with many of
the Lancashire families of former days give the subject a county
interest to those who care to search out the genealogical, historical
and heraldic details given at great length in my father’s volume of
“Parentalia.” Here and there some member of the family appears to have
come before the world, as in the case of Oliver Ormerod, M.A., noted as
a profound scholar, theologian, and Puritan controversialist, and author
of two polemical works—one entitled “The Picture of a Puritan,”
published in 1605, and the other “The Picture of a Papist,” published in
1606. Oliver Ormerod was presented to the Rectory of Norton Fitzwarren,
Co. Somerset, by William Bourchier, third Earl of Bath, and afterwards
to the Rectory of Huntspill in the same county, where he died in the
year 1625.
Something, however, occurred in 1784 of much interest to our own branch
of the family, leading subsequently to great increase of property, and
likewise in some degree, connecting us with the Jacobite troubles of
1745. This was the marriage of my grandfather with Elizabeth, second
daughter of Thomas Johnson, of Tyldesley. Thomas Johnson (my great
grandfather) having married, secondly, Susannah, daughter and co-heiress
of Samuel Wareing, of Bury and Walmersley, got with her considerable
estates, inherited from the Wareings, the Cromptons of Hacking, and
Nuthalls of Golynrode. On the occasion of the march of Charles Stewart
to Manchester in 1745, “Tyldesley”—to use the form of appellation often
given from property in those days—suffered many hardships. As one of the
five treasurers who had undertaken to receive Lancashire subscriptions
in aid of the reigning monarch, King George the Second, and as an
influential local friend of the cause, he was one of those who suffered
the infliction of domiciliary military visitation, and also threat of
torture by burning his hands to induce him to give up government papers
and money in his possession. I have still in my house (1901) the large
hanging lamp of what is now called “Old Manchester” glass, which lighted
the dining-room when my great grandfather stood so steadily to his trust
that although the straw had been brought for the purpose of torture (or
to terrify him into submission) extremities were not proceeded to. He
was ultimately left a prisoner on parole, in his house, until released
in December, 1745, in consequence of the retreat of the rebel army. But
disagreeable as this state of things must have been at the best, it was
to some degree lightened by kindness (or at least absence of unnecessary
annoyance) on the part of the Jacobite officers, of whom stories
remained in the family to my own time. One especial point was their
kindness to my eldest great aunt,[7] then a little child, whom they used
to take on their knees to show her what she described as their “little
guns.” The drinking of the healths of the rival princes, which probably
often led to a less peaceful ending, was mentioned by my father in his
History of Cheshire, as a notable instance of consideration.
[Illustration:
PLATE III.
FAMILY GROUP—GEORGE ORMEROD AS A CHILD; HIS MOTHER SEATED BEHIND HIM;
HER BROTHER, THOMAS JOHNSON, ESQ., OF TYLDESLEY, LANCASHIRE,
STANDING; AND THEIR MOTHER SEATED ON THE RIGHT.
_Composition from miniature, circa 1780._
]
“On one occasion when the Scotch officers who caroused in their
prisoner’s house, had given their usual toast KING JAMES, and the host
on request had followed with his, and undauntedly proposed KING GEORGE,
some rose, and touched their swords; but a senior officer exclaimed, ‘He
has drunk our Prince, why should we not drink his? Here’s to the Elector
of Hanover.’”[8]
During the disturbed time, when any one bearing the appearance of a
messenger would assuredly have been seized with the papers which he
carried, the difficulty of transmitting information was met by the
employment at night of two greyhounds trained for the service. The
documents were fastened to the animals and thus carried safely to the
adherent’s house, from which as opportunity offered they could be passed
on. The greyhounds, having been well fed as a reward and encouragement
to future good behaviour, were started off on their return journey. In
the present day this plan of transmission would very soon be discovered,
but in those times the nature of the country, the nocturnal hours
chosen, and also the deeply-rooted superstitions of the district, all
helped to make the four-footed messengers very trusty carriers.
In 1755 Thomas Johnson served as Sheriff of Lancashire. He died in 1763,
leaving a widow (who survived him until 1798), one son, and three
daughters—the only survivors of a family of eleven children, of whom
seven died in infancy, three on the day of their birth. Of the four
children who reached maturity, Elizabeth, the second daughter (plate
III.) married my grandfather, George Ormerod of Bury, at the Collegiate
Church, Manchester, on the 18th of October, 1784. He died in 1785, a
fortnight before the birth of my father, who was the sole issue of this
marriage.
My father, George Ormerod (plate II.), heir to his grandfather, was born
October 20, 1785. He was co-heir of, and successor to the estates of his
maternal uncle in 1823, and sole heir to his surviving maternal aunt in
1839. He was D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., and a magistrate for the
counties of Cheshire, Gloucester, and Monmouth. On August 2, 1808, he
married my mother, Sarah, eldest daughter of John Latham, Bradwall Hall,
Cheshire, Fellow and sometime President of the Royal College of
Physicians, Harley Street, London.[9]
My grandfather in the female line, John Latham, M.D., F.R.S. (plate
IV.), the eldest son of the Rev. John Latham, came of an old family
stock, and was born in 1761 in the rectory house at Gawsworth, Cheshire.
He was educated first at Manchester Grammar School, and thence proceeded
(with the view of studying for orders) to Brasenose College, Oxford, but
the strong bent of his own wishes towards the medical profession induced
him to alter his plans, and he took his degree of M.D. on October 10,
1788. “His first professional years were passed at Manchester and
Oxford, where he was physician to the respective infirmaries. In 1788 he
removed to London, was admitted Fellow of the College of Physicians, and
elected successively physician to the Middlesex, the Magdalen, and St.
Bartholomew Hospitals. In 1795 he was appointed Physician Extraordinary
to the Prince of Wales, and reappointed to the same office on the
Prince’s accession to the throne as George IV. In 1813 Dr. Latham was
elected President of the College of Physicians; in 1816, founded the
Medical Benevolent Society; and in 1829 finally left London, retiring to
his estate at Bradwall Hall, where he died on April 20, 1843, in the
eighty-second year of his age.”
He indulged in the practical pleasures of country life, and maintained a
home farm, on which he kept a dairy of sixty cows. He was a man of great
force of character and of decisive action. On one occasion a man who had
been told that if he returned he would be summarily ejected, came back
to crave an audience. On being reminded of the fact he pleaded, “Oh!
doctor, you do not really mean it.” “Yes, I do,” was the prompt reply as
an order was given to the butler to turn the intruder out.
[Illustration:
PLATE IV.
JOHN LATHAM, ESQ., M.D., F.R.S., PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY TO GEORGE
IV., MATERNAL GRANDFATHER OF MISS ORMEROD, IN HIS ROBES AS PRESIDENT
OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, 1813 TO 1819.
]
Dr. Latham married, in 1784, Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the
Rev. Peter Mayer, Vicar of Prestbury, Cheshire, by whom he had numerous
children, of whom three sons and two daughters lived to maturity. My
mother, his eldest daughter, survived him, as did also her brothers. Of
these the second son, Peter Mere Latham, M.D., of Grosvenor-street,
Westminster, one of Her Majesty’s Physicians Extraordinary, was long
well known as an eminent consulting physician regarding diseases of the
chest, until his own severe sufferings from asthma obliged him to retire
to Torquay, where he died on July 20, 1875.
From our being related to John Latham and his wife, Mary Mayer (although
in point of rank the difference was so enormous between the head from
whom we could trace and ourselves), it is permissible to allude to our
connection with the family of Arderne of Alvanley, and consequent
descent from King Edward the First and his wife, Eleanor of Castile.
This gave us our claim of “founder’s kin” in the election to the “Port
Fellowship” of Brasenose College, to which distinction in my time my
brother— Rev. John Arderne Ormerod—was elected. He was the last Port
Fellow on the above foundation. The record of each generation will be
found in the genealogical table of “Arderne” in my father’s
“Parentalia,” and also on reference to the pedigrees of the many
families of which members are named in the “History of Cheshire.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------