Volume 18 Number 2 June 2003

A few month’s ago Jill Dudbridge gave me her collection of photocopies of early Blencowe documents; we agreed that it would best be deposited at the Northamptonshire County Records Office, along with the transcriptions we had already lodged there. Jill had visited virtually all the Records Offices and libraries in Britain that were likely to hold Blencowe documents and had purchased photocopies of all of those she could locate. There are five or six hundred — some 30-40 lbs. of paper! The collection is uniquely valuable because, in the last decade, family history research has become so popular that archivists and librarians are reluctant to risk damaging documents by exposing them repeatedly to the brilliant light of the photocopier. If you want to study a document now you have to do it right there in the reading room, and few of us can spare so much time away from home.

For the photocopies to be useful to others they need to be catalogued, otherwise they cannot be linked to the individuals in the Blencowe database. It is a rather tedious job and I have been slow to make a start but have at last gone through the first hundred. Taking a new look at them I have come to realise the enormous task it had been to get them into an easily readable form.

When I first started to try and trace my family history I went to the Oxford County Records Office and found that there were a number of early Blencowe documents to be seen. However, they were written in ‘Secretary Hand’ and were more or less unintelligible. I obtained a photocopy of one, bought a booklet on early hand-writing and set about working my way through the puzzle. It was slow going, but not too difficult; indeed, if you look at the cover picture you could persuade yourself it was easy — James by the grace of God King of England Scotland  etc. — but this was a clear copy of a beautifully written document. The copy of the Deeds of Blencow Hall (above) — To all Xytian (Christian) people to whom this present writing shall come etc. — written in 1630 is not so clear but still readable. When I came upon a document in Latin I had to admit defeat; it was impossible to recognise a word by its ‘shape’ and going through it letter-by-letter didn’ t help, I had only just managed to scrape through High School Latin — in 1939!

At this point I got to meet with Jill, saw her collection of transcripts, and learnt that Mike Walton was transcribing (and translating) them for her. Mike, not a classicist but a research biochemist, had not only learnt to read Secretary Hand, he was tackling the Latin as well! It was a staggering task, many of the pages were faint, smudged, torn, worn, even scorched here and there — and spelling as well as hand-writing was pretty varied. The end result was a couple of thousand pages of typescript and provided the information for much of the ‘English’ section of the Blencowe book.

I undertook the more mundane task of typing the transcripts into a standard format and preparing an index; a complete set is now at the Northants Records Office. When I’ve finished the present job anyone going there should be able to read the transcript of a document and hopefully see what the original looked like.

Some unusually fine and dry spring weather tempted us to spend a week in the Lake District. In the wettest part of England, we not only enjoyed unbroken sunshine but the daffodils made famous by Wordsworth’s poem were at their very best.

I set out to find the church at Edenhall where Christopher Blencowe became Vicar in 1535. The little village lies in lush farmland between the mountains of the Lake District and the Pennines, its church was nowhere to be seen! The village street was empty; I went to a good-sized hotel to ask: its dining room tables were set out for a large lunch party but the staff had apparently all sailed away on the Marie Celeste! Eventually I found a broken sign pointing “To the …urch” and, half a mile down a narrow lane, there it was standing alone in the middle of a field. One end of the churchyard was knee-deep in daffodils and as I walked through them a cock pheasant ‘exploded’ from beneath my feet.

The list of Rectors and Vicars showed Christopher’s name and date along with that of the earliest incumbent dated 1203. The romanesque door of the church suggests that the building may well be as old as that. It was strange to stand there and remember that Christopher had played a small part in the Pilgrimage of Grace and that I have actually handled the books he left to the Queen’s College in Oxford.

The church is clearly in regular use but why is it located out in the middle of nowhere? Had Edenhall been a ‘plague village’ where the residents all died and a new village sprang up nearby, or had the local landowner decided he didn’t like the look of the place, knocked it down, and built a new village for his tenants? Maybe some of our northern members can do a little research and tell us about it.

When Christopher died in 1665 he left three children: John, Elizabeth and Hugh, all under age. Nothing certain is known of their fate, but Hugh may have died at Storrington, way down south in Sussex, in 1609 and perhaps his son (another Hugh) Hugh was the ancestor of Christopher Blencowe, pictured with his mother Loretta in our newsletter of Winter of 2001, whose forebears farmed nearby.

April brought several visitors to Oxford. Cathie Mullins, of Spokane WA, and her son Nathan came to see me whilst travelling to London and Paris. We had plenty of time to talk whilst making a walking tour of the historic centre of the city. We were able to enter several of the colleges but Oriel College, with its connections with the Blencowe family, was closed and we had to content ourselves with a picture of its ancient gateway.

Next to arrive was Noel Blincoe of Pacifica CA. Noel had been on an extensive trip including an adventurous walking tour in the mountains of central Spain. Needless to say, he was fighting fit and set a cracking pace as we walked around town.

In early June Jill Dudbridge came with an America friend and asked to take a trip to Sulgrave Manor, the ancestral home of the Washington family. Extensive additions have been made since the Association went there during the 1993 Reunion and it is well worth another visit. An attractive restaurant and visitor centre has been built and just a week before our visit a lovely garden planted by the English Herb Society had been opened. It includes a flower bed of ‘Herbs the Emigrants took to America’ and another ‘Herbs the Colonists brought back to England’.

We went on to Marston St Lawrence but found the church was closed, except for essential services, whilst a new organ is being installed.

News has come from Australia of the passing of three senior members of the Blencowe family of Armidale NSW. The youngest of the three, John Thomas (‘Jack’) Blencowe passed away on 24 February at the age of 82. The little church at Nowendoc was filled to overflowing when he was laid to rest in a typical Australian country churchyard, surrounded by gum trees, cattle and the sound of the songs of magpies.

Jack was the son of William Leslie Blencowe and Cecilia Wright. In 1937 the family moved from ‘Middle Farm’ to ‘Wild Cattle Creek’ in 1937; while on a cattle buying trip with his father in 1941, a serious car accident claimed his father’s life and left him with severe injuries from which he made a slow recovery. Jack worked as a manager on a property east of Guyra where wife Edna Hicks had three of their children.

In 1962, having failed to sell ‘Wild Cattle Creek’ at £2 an acre (about US$6.00 in those days!), he returned to work the property himself. With a lot of hard work and innovative husbandry he turned the farm into a valuable enterprise. Just the day before he died he was pleased and proud that a pen of his cows and calves had topped the market at the sales at Gloster.

Only two weeks later Jack’s cousin, Olive Ruth Hardman, died peacefully at the age of 94. More than a hundred relatives had attended her ninetieth birthday; she had 5 children, 20 grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren and 2 great-great-children. Olive, known as ‘Tot’ in the family was the youngest daughter of Joshua and Alice Blencowe.

Over a period of many years ‘Tot’ accumulated an enormous collection of dolls and toys; her favourite was a bride doll by Cuno & Otto Dressel dating from the late 1800s. Her philosophy in life was to make the most of every day: Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but gets you nowhere!

Just as Pat McClenaghan was preparing the papers for this note Tot’s elder sister Phyllis Myhill passed away. The eighth child, she was born on 14 June 1905 and died just one month short of her 98th birthday. At her memorial service in St Peter’s Cathedral in Armidale her daughters Jean, Nancy and Deborah remembered that it would have been the 69th anniversary of Phyllis’ marriage William Edwin Myhill. Phyllis was always proud that she was the traditionally lucky 7th daughter of a 7th daughter and her family of 5 children, 17 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren believed that luck was passed to them!

Jack, ‘Tot’ and Olive were grandchildren of Joshua Benjamin Blencowe who emigrated to Australia from Buckingham in the 1850s and whose ancestry can be traced back directly to the 14thC Adam de Blencow of Cumbria.

Frances Forbes wrote of the death of her father, another senior member of the Blencowe family in Australia. George Francis Blencowe passed away at Nowra NSW aged 92 years.

George was the eldest child of George Henry and Edith Agnes Blencowe. Born born in 1911 at Tamworth NSW, his family moved to Leeton in 1922 where he and his family were pioneers in rice farming in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. In later life he joined the Rice Marketing Board and was extremely active in social and cultural affairs in Leeton. He married Emma Caldecott Day in 1940, and they had five children, Wilfred, Allan, Noel, Maurice and Frances.

George and Emma retired to Nowra in 1975 where he continued his interest in the Rice Industry and the documentation of the its pioneering years.

George’s Australian branch of the family also descends directly from Adam de Blencow, through John Blencowe (1798-1887) and his wife Mary Drinkwater who emigrated from Brackley to Tasmania in 1830. The family moved to Adelaide in 1838. Naming their eldest son George (1824-1907) started a tradition and first-born sons George Henry (1859-1940), George Henry (1884-1953) and George Francis (1911-2003). The sequence was broken by naming Wilfred, born in 1941, who is now the senior member of the family.  Wilfred, a concert pianist, is now living in Belgium.

George Donald Heath: Members of the Association will all wish to join me in sending our condolences to Tricia Heath whose husband Don passed away on 17 February. Don worked as a manager for the Yorkshire Post, one of Britain’s most prestigious provincial newspapers. A man of many interests: music, gardening, computing, classic films, the countryside — especially his beloved Yorkshire Dales. Don &s; Tricia were also keen caravanners and are the only members to attend one of our gatherings  towing their own accomodation!

We were fortunate to enjoy the company of Don and Tricia at three of our Association Reunions.

Peter Blencowe had written telling me of the birth of his fifth grandchild; with so many sad events to be recorded in this issue I wrote and asked him to tell us something of this thriving young generation of Blencowes, he wrote:

“After the publication of ‘The Blencowe Families’ I was asked why there was very little mention of present day members of the family. The answers I gave were first that the book was primarily a history of our ancestors, and second that it would be invidious to name some who are alive and not others.

In Chapter 4 of the book, I recalled that the 540 years of Blencowes at Marston St Lawrence ended in 1988, with the death of Lawrence Blencowe. This is true but the Marston St Lawrence direct line is continued by the descendants of my great grandfather, John Jackson Blencowe of Marston House. His third son was the Rev’d Alfred Blencowe who married Sophia Louise Walcot, and though they had seven sons, the next generation saw only two male Blencowes: my cousin Jim, (who has a son Clive and grandson Ben), and myself.

Not to be outdone my wife Anna and I have four children, John Charles Walcot Blencowe, Rupert Duncan Walcot Blencowe and two daughters, Lucy and Emily. The first three are already married and producing the next generation while Emily, with her husband-to-be is getting married in July and they have just bought a house in Chailey. Those who study family history will know that the village of Chailey has been home to a branch of the family since the 17th Century, so she will be reminded of her ancestry by the Blencowe memorials in the Parish Church.

To date Anna and I have five grandchildren, Alice, Imogen and William who are the children of Rupert and his wife, Lucy Henrietta, and our daughter Lucy and her husband Iain’s children, Iona and Flora. As Iain’s work carries him to foreign parts, Iona was born in Buenos Aires and Flora in Istanbul so with Argentinian and Turkish passports along with their British ones, these grand-daughters are somewhat cosmopolitan. Our family hope that the Family surname is carried on in the 21st century lies, at present, with William Peter Walcot Blencowe, aged 4, who you can see in this family group taken on a cold day last Christmas.

Another cheerful item got missed out from the last issue. Belated congratulations to Helen and Bob Simpson, who celebrated their eightieth birthdays. The entire family assembled for a special surprise party at Thanksgiving.

Not on the Titanic!

A letter from Frank Blincow of Hailsham in Surrey should have been mentioned in the last issue. Frank, one of our large group of descendants of John Blencowe, parish clerk of Whilton, sent some fascinating details of his family.

‘Henry Blincow (1856-1937 – my grandfather)  served his apprenticeship at Rugby with the London & North Western Railway. A fireman/driver, he was posted to Willesden Junction in NW London, where he spent his working life.

His eldest son Harry (1887-1912) was a valet to Lord Astor and went to America on the ship before the Titanic to prepare the house for their Lordships’ visit. Lord Astor was lost, but Lady Astor survived. Harry died in America but was returned to Willesden and buried there.

My Aunt Lilian was a court dressmaker employed by the Bowes Lyons (the family of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) and latterly by Lord and Lady Bevan whom she visited in Kenya at the time of the Mau Mau rebellion.

My Uncle Stanley returned from service in WWI and opened a grocer’s shop in NW London that eventually expanded to a chain of six stores. My father William Frank served in the Royal Field artillery in WWI, was wounded and shipped home in 1917. He became a lithographic printer for Phillips, the well-known map publishers.

My late sister Lilian emigrated and her family is flourishing in western Australia.

Blincoes of Harpers Ferry

Teri Kelley has written again about her ancestor Mary Blincoe who was born 29 August 1827 near Harpers Ferry WV and married Abner Thomas there 12 March 1845. She is now pretty sure that Mary was indeed the daughter of John Blincoe and Nancy Dillow, making her an addition to the six children shown in the tree (Fig. 15.4) in our book. She has also found that ‘Jalut’ recorded as a boy was in fact ‘Julia’, a girl. This, of course, allows her to trace her ancestry dirctly back to ‘The Immigrant James’.

Marilyn M. Astle, wrote from the Persian Gulf whilst the war was still in progress; things are still by no means stable in the area and her letter gives some idea of ‘life at the sharp end’:

‘We have had a few e-mails from family & friends wondering if we are okay here at this time; a general update might be in order. In brief we still feel safe and are optimistic we can remain until vacation time at the end of June.

The Canadian consulate is providing periodic updates and we have the updates from the consulates of other countries available as well. The most strongly worded messages are from Australia (they have troops in Iraq and previously were caught off guard by the Bali nightclub attacks) and the US. The college system has set up a daily conference call among the vice chancellor and the directors of all 11 colleges to share information on the situation. So far the only reports are of a couple of antiwar posters at one college and some graphic war photos e-mailed to staff by a student at another college. Two of the universities in this country have had fairly low-key antiwar protests. There have been no street demonstrations by the general public in the UAE over the Iraqi situation whereas people were allowed to demonstrate in support of Palestine during previous flare-ups there. As you likely gather from media coverage there is a lot of anger in the Arab world over the war on Iraq. However, the UAE has troops in Kuwait (including brothers and husbands of our students) so the UAE leadership is playing this out carefully. The official word from the leadership of the UAE and the college system is that the UAE is a safe place and it is business as usual.

Of course it is up to each person and each family to make their own assessment and people vary in their responses to such matters. We are trying to keep a low profile by avoiding public gatherings, hotels, etc. and I no longer walk to work. The local hotels have been full of American service personnel for some time and there have been more planes than usual taking off from Fujairah airport in recent weeks. We have made some preparations in case it should it be necessary to leave suddenly. Otherwise we just carry on one day at a time. Sometimes it is stressful. One of our staff has relatives in Baghdad and she talked with them last Wednesday. She said during the 1991 Gulf War she was unable to contact them for 9 months as all communications were disrupted. We get a TV channel from Iraq along with one from every other Arabic country. CNN disappeared a few weeks ago though BBC World is still there.

To illustrate normal daily life, as of Friday we had four plumbing/water problems in our villa that are gradually being addressed this week. The septic tank needed pumping out, the air conditioner in the living room was leaking and had soaked one corner of the sofa, one water heater was leaking, and water was leaking out from under the stove that turned out to be from a pipe joint that had given way. The solution to the last problem was to bash off several of the new ceramic tiles on the kitchen walls to reach the leaking pipe. This morning water coming through the repaired pipes had a strong chemical smell apparently due to the glue used on the pipes. This is consistent with what we learned in our early days in Al Ain. When someone comes to repair something in your house count on them creating two more problems!

Meanwhile spring has arrived here. After a couple of windstorms this month (the shimaal wind is reminiscent of the Chinook of southern Alberta and heralds warmer weather) that made our bougainvilleas look like sticks, they and some of our other shrubs are sprouting new leaves and flowers. It has rained a fair amount the past week. Late this afternoon dark cloud and thunder gave way to a torrential downpour and I drove home through flooded streets, as Fujairah has no storm sewers. We had best enjoy the rain, as the hot weather is not far away. ’

Warmest wishes,
Marilyn

Gerald Leslie Blencowe of Lynchburg VA wrote: “Where’s my family?”

‘My name is Gerald Leslie Blencowe. My fathers name was Alan Geddins Blencowe, his sister’s name was Helen. My grandfather’s name was Frank Blencowe, a druggist in Lynchburg Virginia. My grandmother’s maiden name was Ada Geddins. I have a picture of my grandfather holding my father and his sister, photographed by Blencowe photographers in Lynchburg VA. The address for my grandmother was High Street in Staunton VA.

I know of two first cousins of my father Harry Dawson and Leonard Dawson, Leonard can be found in Who’s Who of 1941 as Ambassador to Portugal.

My father was born in 1900 and died in 1975. My mothers name was Ruby E. Carr, she was born in 1907 and died in 1998.’

Gerald was, of course, one of the family of Thomas Henry Blencowe who had settled in Lynchburg VA in the 1870s and another direct descendant of Adam de Blencow. It was good to be able to put him in touch with his relatives there and elsewhere in the State.

Shirley Pollard wrote from Melbourne seeking information on Lawrence Cave Blencowe who had married Dorothy Cooper in 1914 and died on the Western Front in June 1917 as an Infantry Lieutenant. Lawrence was the son of the Rev Charles Edward Blencowe of Marston St Lawrence, did I know of any family contacts? Of course, this was an easy one and I passed it along to Peter Blencowe in Hampshire whose father was Lawrence’s cousin.

Messages went back and forth on the Internet and the story turned out like this:

Edward Augustus Cooper was born in London and studied at Cambridge before coming to Australia to further his studies at Melbourne University; Laura Griffith married him in Launceston Tasmania in 1888. Edward and Laura returned to England and their daughter Dorothy Priestley Cooper was born at Tunbridge Wells in 1890.

The Coopers moved to Yorkshire where they ran Orleton School, a boarding school at Scarborough; Lawrennce Blencowe was appointed an assistant master there. Edward died in 1914 and Dorothy married Lawrence soon afterwards.

Dorothy’s sons Lawrence and Oswald were the last two of the Marston St Lawrence branch of the family.