This important line has now (August 2013) been linked to the Main Blackett Tree and it is reasonably certain that Joseph Blackett was a son of Cuthbert Blackett (1703-1778) and Alice Parmeley of Hamsterley. This would normally result in this page being removed, but in view of length of time it has taken to establish the link and the number of lines of descent involved, including Blacketts in East Anglia, Australia and New Zealand, we have decided to leave it in place and include an outline of how we have reached our conclusions. Additionally, we have not yet found a baptism – presumably a nonconformist one – for Joseph Blackett, nor have we yet found the links, if any, between him and the other branches mentioned towards the end of this page.

Joseph Blackett, who married Elizabeth Watson on 27 July 1771 in St. Oswald, Durham City, is described in parish records as a wheelmaker or spinnelwheel-maker.¹ In the 1771 marriage entry Joseph is shown as a widower and Elizabeth as a widow. Elizabeth’s maiden name was Morgan. She married her first husband, Richard Watson, an innkeeper, in St. Oswald, Durham City in 1769 but he died the following year. Elizabeth was buried in St. Oswald, Durham City in 1782 and Joseph then married Elizabeth Penny in 1794. She died in 1827 in Framwellgate. Joseph’s first wife was probably yet another Elizabeth, “wife of Joseph Blacket (papist)”, who was buried in Durham St. Oswald in 1770, though it is not clear whether the term “papist” was accurate, or simply signified a nonconformist.

In his book, My Name Is Blacket, Nick Vine Hall, partly relying on earlier research carried out by the late Cedric Blackett, showed Joseph to be the son of Henry Blackett (1705-1744) of Witton-le-Wear. This seemed to us to be unlikely. In an 1811 submission to the College of Arms the eminent historian and genealogist Robert Surtees shows this Henry as having had five daughters but no sons. This is confirmed by Henry’s Will dated 3 Oct 1744. Moreover, Surtees also refers to a Grant of Administration de Bonis Non taken out in 1787 by Katharine (b.1729), Henry’s eldest daughter, and her husband, Nicholas Clarke, covering the unadministered part of the estate of Henry’s grandfather, also Henry (1639-1704), there being no surviving male issue. Surtees goes on to state that “it seems pretty plain that all the male line of Henry… is extinguished.”

Henry’s family were Anabaptists, based around Witton-le-Wear. Despite lengthy research, we found no mention in Anabaptist records of a Joseph Blackett being excommunicated from their church and no record of Joseph’s baptism or birth in either Anabaptist records or the parish registers covering Durham City held at Durham Record Office, nor in the Witton or Hamsterley registers, despite Joseph’s burial entry stating that he was a native of Hamsterley. Both Cedric Blackett and the Hudleston papers held by Durham University show Joseph Blackett as having been born in 1733, but this may have been based on his being shown as aged 70 in the entry for his burial in the 1803 St. Oswald register. It is not clear whether or not both authorities came to their conclusions independently or whether one followed the other.

Assuming that the burial reference to Joseph being a native of Hamsterley born around 1733 was correct, this narrowed down the potential families considerably and the name of “Cuthbert”, which Joseph gave to two sons in succession (the elder died an infant) seemed significant. Despite St. Cuthbert being the Patron Saint of Durham, and therefore the name cropping up relatively frequently in the 18th and 19th centuries, only 31 Cuthbert Blacket(t)s, with or without a middle name, have been found.

Discounting Rev. Cuthbert Blacket, born in New South Wales, Australia in 1862 (who himself descended from a Hamsterley family), all but three of the remaining Cuthberts descended either from Joseph of Durham City or from Cuthbert Blackett (1703-1778) and Alice Parmeley of Hamsterley. Although Cuthbert and Alice married in 1726, we have found no earlier baptisms of their children before Rachell on 14 March 1737/8, followed by two more children, suggesting that there were more elder children, perhaps given nonconformist baptisms, during the first 12 years of Cuthbert and Alice’s marriage. That could of course include Joseph, and the hypothesis that all Cuthbert Blacketts stemmed from this line was supported by the fact that Joseph and Elizabeth’s 2nd and 3rd sons (baptised 1775 and 1777) were named Cuthbert, and their daughter (baptised 1778) was named Alice. The Cuthbert Blackett born in 1703 was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Blackett and Cuthbert Johnson, from whom the name “Cuthbert” presumably originally came.

There remained, however, those three exceptions. The first was Cuthbert Blackett, a journeyman mason aged about 30, living in 1841 in New Painshaw (sic) with his wife and three children plus a Sarah Blackett aged 68. The second and third Cuthberts were his grandsons, born 1878 and 1883. If Cuthbert the grandfather was from a different line, that would rule out the theory that there was only one line of Blacketts using the name of Cuthbert.

It now seems, however, that this Cuthbert Blackett was born Cuthbert Barker, the son of Anthony Barker and Sarah Blackett (1773-1846), the granddaughter of Cuthbert Blackett and Alice Parmeley, and that he and his mother had adopted her maiden name by 1841. This conclusion has been arrived at by an exhaustive process of elimination, examining all parish records and censuses for both Cuthbert and Sarah Blackett/Barker/Baker, and there seems little doubt that Cuthbert Blackett and Cuthbert Barker are one and the same person. That leaves just the two lines of Cuthbert Blacketts: the one descending from the illegitimate Cuthbert born 1703 in Hamsterley, and the Cuthberts descending from Joseph, born around 1733, also in Hamsterley. Given the other circumstantial evidence mentioned above there seems little doubt that these Cuthberts descend from the same line and that Joseph was the son of Cuthbert.

A few more facts about the family of Joseph may be of interest. Joseph had at least two surviving sons. By 1799, the elder son, Henry Brymer Blackett, had settled in Darlington, about 18 miles south of Durham City, where he was working as a machine maker at the time of his marriage. He remained in Darlington and continued his trade at least until 1851. His eldest son, Henry, took up a similar occupation but had moved to Barnard Castle by the early 1820s.

The younger son, Cuthbert, followed in his father’s footsteps as a spinnel wheel¹ maker and also moved to Darlington, where, like his brother, he married in 1799. By 1801, however, he had returned to Durham City, continuing his trade, and was living at Abbey Mill, Durham² from at least 1804 to 1820. Pigot’s directories of 1828/29 and 1834, however, show Cuthbert carrying on business (in partnership with Thomas Gainforth, who was probably his step-brother) as Blackett & Gainforth, carpet and worsted manufacturers of Framwellgate, and Cuthbert and Thomas, trading under the name of Blackett and Gainforth of Framwellgate, are reported in the London Gazette as having executed an indenture for the benefit of their creditors on 12 November 1839. It is possible that the worsted business had commenced at Abbey Mill as William Dean is shown as a worsted manufacturer of Abbey Mill in 1828/29 and, with Matthew Dean, in 1834, (they are shown as worsted manufacturers, living in South Street, Durham City in 1841). The premises may therefore have been used by Cuthbert Blackett for manufacturing worsted before Blackett & Gainforth moved into newly built premises on the east side of Framwellgate some time after 1823, and continued as a worsted mill after Cuthbert had moved. Interestingly, the previous occupant of the Framwellgate premises was Thomas Watson, the same surname as Cuthbert’s mother at the time of her marriage to Joseph Blackett in 1771. Cuthbert is shown in 1841 as a “worsted manufacturer” living in Framwellgate, Durham City, and in 1851 as a “retired worsted and carpet manufacturer.”

Cuthbert’s daughter Mary Blackett (1809-1891) drew the sketch of Durham Cathedral shown on the left, reproduced with thanks to Paul Dobson. Abbey Mill is clearly visible on the bank of the river. Some years later, Mary painted the view of the Cathedral shown next to the sketch. She gave the painting to her brother Henry when he emigrated to New Zealand (see next paragraph) to remind him of home, and the painting is now owned by the family of Phil Tomlinson, a descendant of Henry Blackett. A number of sketches by Mary plus other images can be viewed at Phil’s excellent site, Tomlinson & McCallum Family.

From 1852 onwards several of Cuthbert’s children emigrated to Australia and New Zealand (see Henry Blackett in Blacket(t)s Down Under), where their descendants still live. These included Cuthbert Robert Blackett and his wife Margaret (nee Mordey), and Ann Blackett and her husband Luke Forster.³ Additional important Blackett lines descend from Joseph Blackett and Elizabeth Watson, including some of the East Anglian Blacketts, and the line that includes Col. William Cuthbert Blackett C.B.E. (see A Blackett Aid to Miners). Despite the existence of the adjacent image of Margaret, nee Mordey, the wife of Rev. Cuthbert Robert Blackett, no image of her husband Cuthbert has been found. If you are aware of one please contact us.

The images on the left are believed to be of Luke and Ann Forster, painted in 1846, before they emigrated, and though they bear the annotation “J. Wood” (presumably the artist) and the 1846 date, no names of the sitters are shown. It is possible that copies were made and distributed amongst this branch of the family and if you recognise or have any information on the portraits that may help to identify the sitters please contact us. Sue Beatty, with whose permission the images are shown, hosts a very interesting and informative website on the Forster/Blackett family history.

No connection has been discovered between Joseph’s family and that of John Blackett, a joiner, who by his wife, Jane had at least six children baptised at St. Mary in the South Bailey (St. Mary the Less), Durham City between 1681 and 1703. For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Jane please click here.

An interesting connection has emerged between Joseph Blackett of Durham City and Joseph Blackett who married Ann Lister in 1793 in Welbury, Yorkshire. The latter Joseph was admitted to the Restoration [masonic] Lodge, Darlington in 1802, described as a farmer of Welbury, aged 33. Ten years later, around 1812, Henry Brymer Blackett, the elder son of Joseph Blackett and Elizabeth Watson, joined the same lodge, of which he was later Master on several occasions.⁴ This coincidence raises the possibility that Joseph was related in some way to Henry Brymer Blackett. However, Joseph did not propose Henry Brymer Blackett for membership of the lodge and Joseph is mentioned in the lodge minutes of 1803 as having joined aged 30, an innkeeper, but “he is not a member of this lodge”. It appears, therefore, that Joseph and Henry Brymer Blackett were not members at the same time and the Masonic connection may be no more than a coincidence. Joseph was a son of Joseph Blackett of Yarm, Yorkshire, and Barbara Smith and Joseph senior is now believed to descend from the Blacketts of Urra, Yorkshire, as shown in Blacketts of Yorkshire and Michigan, USA. That tree now forms part of the Main Blackett Tree due to the marriage of a later descendant.

Notes:

¹ “Spinnel” is an archaic form of the word “spindle”. It was already falling out of use at the beginning of the 19th century and in Cuthbert’s marriage entry and the baptismal entries for three of his children the word “spinning” is used instead.

² Abbey Mill is now known as The Old Fulling Mill, and is on the south-west of the peninsula beneath the cathedral. It is now a museum and part of Durham University. Formerly known as Jesus Mill, it was leased in 1792 “for the carding of wool and cleaning of cloth”. (Fulling mills were used for the beating and cleaning in water of cloth in order to make the fabric denser.) The 1794 St. Oswald burial record of John Southers/Sutherst describes him as “master of the jenny spinners at Abbey Mill”. Another Abbey Mill at one time stood on the opposite bank, but was destroyed by floods in 1771.

³ Despite the coincidence of Blackett/Forster names and the Australian connection, the connection, if any, between the family of Luke Forster and that of George Forster Blackett mentioned in Northumberland Blacketts below, after whom the town of Blackett, New South Wales is named, has not been established.

⁴ We are indebted to Tom Blackett for this information.

In 1663 John Blackett, the son of Nicholas, was baptised at Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland. He married Jane Cunningham in Bamburgh, in 1687 and settled in Beadnell, a coastal village a few miles to the south, where at least eight of their children were born. From this line descend a number of notable Blacketts, including Henry Blackett, the co-founder of Hurst and Blackett, publishers, (see Blacketts and Literature), James Douglas Blackett and his brother William Richard, (grandsons of James Blackett of Bamburgh, a Trinity House agent), who were members of the London Stock Exchange, (see Stock Exchange Blacketts), and George Forster Blackett, after whom the town of Blackett, New South Wales,now a suburb of Sydney, is named (see Blacketts Down Under). Another member of this line, Captain Alexander Anderson, who married the step-sister of John Blackett, also settled in New South Wales. Yet another member of this line, William Blackett, settled in Quebec, Canada, and at least one of his children moved to Massachusetts, USA.

These Northumberland Blacketts now form part of the main Blackett tree due to the marriage in 1950 of Elizabeth Eily Dennison, a descendant of Nicholas Blackett, to Francis Hugh Blackett, who later became the 11th baronet. However, the ancestral connection between Nicholas and the Blacketts of Woodcroft, Co. Durham has not yet been established.

It is believed that Nicholas had four brothers, Edward, Thomas, William and John, all of whom, (or all of whose descendants), have connections. These connections are tenuous and no baptismal records of any of the five “brothers” have been found, but it seems possible that branches of the family moved back and forth between Berwick Upon Tweed and locations further south in Northumberland, including Bedlington, a few miles north of Newcastle. All five possible brothers have been shown in the tree as sons of an unknown Blackett, but the connections between them may not be secure. This tree forms part of the main Blackett tree as it is connected through the marriage of a descendant.

One of the descendants of Nicholas’s brother John Blackett mentioned above, William Blackett, married Jane Lodge in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1756, where they had at least twelve children. Their elder children were baptised at a non-conformist church, but from 1769 the children of the marriage were baptised at St. Peter’s Parish Church in Leeds. In 1779 their youngest son James was born in the Woodhouse area of the city. James became a Wesleyan minister, and married Anne Catharine Randolph in 1810 in Bristol, Gloucestershire. James and Anne then moved to Warwickshire where their first two sons were born, two further sons being born in Staffordshire. Their second son, James, born 1812, married Ann Parker of Attleborough, Norfolk in 1839 and then moved to Yorkshire. Two of James’s grandsons, James William Blackett and his brother Charles Herbert (Bert) Blackett, together with their mother Emma, emigrated to the USA in 1891 and settled in New York State, USA.

Another son of William and Jane, William, remained in the Leeds area, but in 1854 his grandson, William Blackett Pollard, emigrated with his family to Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). William was in poor health and died the following year but his family remained in Australia.
(NB. At his burial in Leeds in 1795 William is described as a master mariner, which may appear strange, given the distance of Leeds from the sea. However the Aire and Calder rivers had been made navigable in 1699, linking Leeds with the Ouse and Humber rivers and with the sea.)

In 1786 John Blackett married Elizabeth Whitely in Bradford, Yorkshire, and had at least 6 children born in Leeds. The family were staunch Methodists. Around 1805 they emigrated to Albany, New York State, where John/Jonathan was naturalised in 1808, dying a few years later. The two eldest children moved to New York City and lived there for many years. At the age of 17 or 18 the youngest son William moved with his step-father and family to New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he married Sarah Eliza Stevenson in 1823, and in 1826 to New York City, where he ran a successful hardware store. In 1856 he moved to Clermont, Iowa where he established another store, and was subsequently joined there by his sons James and Henry. He finally established a store in Lawler, Chickasaw County, which his son Henry eventually took over. James’s grandson, Vernive Hill Blackett, ran one of America’s largest advertising agencies, which was responsible for the creation of the “soap opera”, as outlined in Blacketts in Politics.
The circumstantial evidence suggests that John Blackett was a son of William Blackett and Jane Lodge mentioned above, and was his son John, bapt. 1767, and he is shown in the tree as such.

It is possible that there is a further distant connection between these Northumberland Blacketts and the Blacketts of Wylam. On 4 October 1712 an advertisement appeared in the Newcastle Courant stating “Newham [a hamlet of Bamburgh] adv., to be sold, the estate of the late Mr. Ch. Blacket, deceased. Apply to John Blacket of Wylam, one of the trustees.” John was Christopher’s elder brother, and Christopher had inherited lands at Newham under the Will of their father, John Blackett, who had died in 1707. Not all of the Newham estate was sold, however, as Christopher’s son, also Christopher, of Haughton-le-Skerne, County Durham, died in 1738 possessed of a one third share of lands at Newham, most of which were let, other than Newham Hall and a small farm reserved for his own use. All of these were sold to the Duke of Northumberland by a Mrs. Blackett (probably Christopher’s widow, who had remarried) in 1789 for £11,500. In 1785 John Blackett Esq. had granted a lease of a farm in Newham, and John Blackett of Wylam sold Newham Hall, probably part of the same estate, to the Duke of Northumberland in 1789. The Duke thus became the sole owner of Newham. The link between the Bamurgh and Wylam Blacketts may be no more than a coincidence, however. In his 1707 Will John Blackett makes no mention of any of the Bamburgh Blacketts and it is not clear how he acquired the Newham estate.

The maritime connection suggested by James Blackett’s Trinity House connection, and the family’s later move to Wapping, then a strongly maritime area, strongly suggest that this family included the Captain J. Blackett who in 1776 built at his own expense two lighthouses off the coast of Bamburgh. (See Blackett Aids to Shipping). In 1825 Captain Blackett’s family sold the lease of one of the lighthouses to Trinity House for £36,484, more than enough to establish two members of the family on the stock exchange!

It is now believed that William Blackett, who married Jane Lodge in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1756 descended from the Northumberland Blacketts in the entry above and the details of this line are now included in the Northumberland Blacketts entry. William and Jane’s tree also forms part of the Northumberland tree, which is itself part of the Main Blackett Tree. However, this connection relies on circumstantial evidence, albeit strong, and the connection should be treated with care.

Isaac Blackett was born about 1590 and died 4 May 1642 in Tynemouth, Northumberland. His burial record states that he was of Chirton, Northumberland, but the only baptismal record of an Isaac Blackett around that time that we have found is that of Isaac baptised 25 July 1598 in Pittington, Co. Durham. Although this tree can now be connected to the main Blackett tree through the marriage of a descendant, no other connection has been found between Isaac of Chirton and Pittington around this period. Several generations of Isaac’s descendants lived in Tynemouth and neighbouring Longbenton and Newcastle-upon-Tyne and several generations later some descendants did move south of the River Tyne into Co. Durham. For a descendancy chart of Isaac Blackett please click here. See also Blacketts of Stockton-on-Tees and Whickham and Lamesley Blacketts below.

Around the end of the 17th/beginning of the 18th centuries a number of Blackett families begin to appear in Stockton-on-Tees parish records.

Roger Blackett and his wife Elinor had two children baptized there on 31 Aug 1688.

Ralph Blackett married Elizabeth Martin in nearby Billingham in 1701 and had at least three children born there before moving to Stockton, where their son Ralph was baptized in 1710. (NB. Their daughter Ann is now believed to have been the Ann Blackett who married Thomas Parcival/Percival in Stockton in 1730 from whom descend a large number of the Percivals and Moules previously thought to be descendants of Ann Blackett of Hamsterley.)

John Blackett and his wife Sarah had at least three children born in Stockton between 1715 and 1720.

And William Blackett died in Stockton in 1710, having had a daughter Margaret baptized there in 1707. (There is also a burial of a Jane Blackett in Stockton in 1720 who may have been William’s wife.)

If these four families moved into the Stockton area around the same time it is quite possible that they are connected. Roger was a very unusual name for a Blackett, and the only other Roger Blackett around this time we have discovered was Roger, the son of Ralph Blackett and a descendant of Isaac Blackett (see article above). This Roger was baptized in Tynemouth in 1656 and died in Edlingham, much further north in Northumberland, in 1696. Other members of this extended family moved south into County Durham, however, and it is possible that a branch moved down to Stockton, though we have found no proof of this.

NB. We are indebted to Steve Keown for his research into Stockton parish records.

Robert Collingwood Blackett (1807-1878) was born in London, the son of Peter Blackett and Mary. Mary Rumming, a spinster, had married Peter Blackett in 1804, but according to family legend she was, in fact, the daughter of Lady Elizabeth Russell. A shipwright by trade, Robert Collingwood Blackett was an accomplished violinist and artist. He was an early convert to the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and with his family emigrated to the USA in 1856, finally settling in Utah. Robert’s ancestry can be traced back to Alexander Blackett, who married Elizabeth Scotland in Gateshead, Co. Durham in 1707, but the lineage prior to that has not been established, although this tree now forms part of the Main Blackett tree, due to a later marriage. For a descendancy chart of Alexander Blackett please click here.

Robert Collingwood Blackett’s middle name was almost certainly bestowed in tribute to Admiral Lord Collingwood, who had been second-in-command to Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. As outlined in Naval Blacketts Admiral Collingwood was married to Sarah Blackett, but no link between her and Robert Collingwood Blackett has been found.

This branch of the family is now believed to include Robert Blackett, who married Sophia Dyball in Shoreditch, London in 1810. Sophia was baptised in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk in 1786, where a number of their descendants were subsequently born. According to family legend this Robert was a sailor and he or his family had had a ships chandler’s business in Newcastle before losing it through drink. Sophia’s son, Walter Jones Blackett, a musician born in 1826, was christened as such, but is shown as Walter Jones in several censuses, though his children were registered with the surname of Blackett.

Another line of descent from Alexander and Elizabeth Scotland includes several generations of Joseph Snowball Blacketts, who have had maritime connections over the generations. This line, who mostly live in the United States, was originally thought to descend from Isaac Blackett of Chirton, Northumberland (see entry above), but this now seems unlikely.

It is now believed that John Turnbull Blackett of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and New South Wales formed part of this line, though no conclusive proof has been found. John Turnbull Blackett died in Grong Grong, New South Wales, Australia on 8 August 1901. His death certificate shows him as aged 61, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, his parents’ surnames as Blackett and Turnbull, and states that he had lived in New South Wales for 28 years and Victoria for 17 years. He is said to have arrived in Australia at the age of 16.

The only likely marriage of a Blackett to a Turnbull in the Newcastle area that we have found is that of Alexander Blackett (1807-1879) to Jane Turnbull in 1830. However, Jane died in October 1839, presumably giving birth to her daughter, Jane Turnbull Blackett. No entry for a birth or baptism has been found for John Turnbull Blackett, but it is possible that he was given up for informal adoption by his father and reverted back to his name at birth at a later stage. Another possibility is that he was an illegitimate child of Alexander and Isabella Turnbull, sister of Jane, about whom nothing is known other than her baptism. We have found no evidence of this, however.

There may be a connection with Alexander Blackett, a mariner, who was born in Scotland 1766/67 and settled in Monkwearmouth, Co. Durham, though no baptism for him has been found. For a descendancy chart of Alexander Blackett and his wife Ann Watson please click here.

For more details of Robert Collingwood Blackett’s journey to Utah please click here.

In 1696 William Blackett (b. 1660/61, the son of William), a yeoman of Riding Barns, married Ann (Hearyington) Errington in Whickham, near Gateshead, Co. Durham. The family maintained their connections with the Whickham area over several generations, as did that of William’s brother John. For a descendancy chart of William Blackett, the father of William Blackett who married Ann Errington, please click here.

A second Whickham branch descends from Benjamin Blackett, who married Margery Sharper in 1730. Benjamin is now believed to descend from Alexander Blackett and Elizabeth Scotland of Gateshead (see their article- above).

A third branch, based in neighbouring Lamesley, descends from Luke Blackett of Tinker Row, who died in 1774. One branch of Luke’s descendants settled in Whitehaven, Cumberland. Luke Blackett is now believed to descend from the line of Isaac Blackett (see Isaac Blackett of Chirton and Tynemouth, Northumberland above).

The connection between all of these branches has not been established, nor that with Christopher, whose son Peter married Elizabeth Charlton in St. Mary-le-Bow, Durham in 1771, though Christopher and his wife Mary seem to have moved into the area from elsewhere. (Christopher’s tree can be connected to the main Blackett tree by the marriage of a descendant.) However, there is a strong possibility of a connection between all or most of them, given that many of their immediate descendants lived in the hamlets of Fellside and Lowhand.

NB. Francis Blackett (1687-1750), who married Elizabeth Stephenson at Whickham in 1716/7, is now believed to be the son of William Blackett and Rosamond Hopper, who married at Witton Gilbert in 1679. This William (1649-1706) is believed to be the son of Henry Blackett and Ann Trotter of Hamsterley and has therefore been connected to the main Blackett tree. Our thanks are due to Steve Keown for his researches into this.

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 Etherley, County Durham by the time of his marriage to Sarah Watson in 1841. The closeness of Etherley to Hamsterley, Cockfield and other villages with concentrations of Blacketts suggests that Frederick descended from one of these branches but no evidence has been found to support this. 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 in 1877. In 1887 their 2nd daughter, Sarah Flounders, married John William Wilson in Stark, Ohio. Both Sarah and John William were born in Toft Hill, Co. Durham, suggesting that the two familes knew each other. Moreover, John William Wilson was the grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, born around 1812 in Hilton, near Staindrop. Given the close links between these families and the fact that Frederick Blackett moved to Etherley it is possible that both he and Elizabeth Blackett were related, possibly as part of the family of John Blackett, who died in Hilton in 1822. No proof of this has been discovered however.
This tree now forms part of the Main Blackett Tree due to a later marriage, but for a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett and Emma Clarkson please click here.

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. (For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Anne Davison please click here.) This tree now includes, (through the 1817 marriage of Sarah Storey, John and Anne’s granddaughter), the family of Zachariah Blacketer, the son of Robert and Sarah, who was baptized in 1730 in Enfield, Middlesex. The name ‘Blacketer’ may not be derived from Blackett and could be a derivative of ‘Blackadder’, a number of instances of which crop up around this time, particularly in Scotland. However, in the case of some descendants of Zachariah the name became shortened to ‘Blackett’, and that name continued over subsequent generations, most of whom remained in and around London, although one branch moved to Jarrow, Co. Durham. For a descendancy chart of Zachariah Blacketer please click here.

The family of John and Anne Blackett settled in the East End of London, initially in Mile End Old Town and St. George in the East, but by the late 18th – early 19th century their descendants had moved the short distance to Shoreditch and were concentrated in a cluster of streets including New Inn Yard, George Yard and Swan Yard. Those addresses, together with the neighbouring Holywell Lane, crop up regularly in the baptisms, marriages and burials of two further lines of Blacketts:

(i) In 1766 Robert Henry Blackett, the son of John and Mary, was baptised in Bethnal Green, slightly east of Shoreditch. He married Sarah Brett, a widow, in 1785 in Shoreditch, and seems to have had three wives in all. This branch of the family, many of whom were weavers, lived in and around the East End of London for generations, though Robert’s great-grandson, George Frederick Blackett (1847-1925), had moved to County Durham by 1870. It is not known if there was a remaining family connection with the north east, or if George’s move was coincidental. It is now believed that Abraham Blackett, born 1770/71, who married Esther Carter in 1797 in Shoreditch, was also a son of John and Mary Blackett. In a Poor Law Settlement examination on 7 Aug 1797 Abraham states that he is aged 26 and the son of John Blackett, who had lived at Crab Tree Row, Hackney Road, Bethnal Green about 30 years previously. (We are indebted to Margaret Lewis for discovering this). Abraham and Esther had at least seven children before Abraham died in Bishopsgate Workhouse in 1820, Esther surviving until 1847. Their descendants remained in the Shoreditch and Bethnal Green areas for several generations. For a descendancy chart of John Blackett please click here.

(ii) John Blackett and Sarah Stuck had at least six children born in Spitalfields, London between 1776 and 1783 and a further four born in neighbouring Aldgate between 1785 and 1791. Here again, their descendants remained in the area of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Spitalfields for several generations, though their 2xgreat-grandson Frederick John Blackett emigrated to Alberta, Canada with his family in 1873. It is now believed that the John Blackett who married Sarah Stuck was a son of William Blackett of Deptford, Kent, himself the son of John Blackett as shown in Blacketts of Hampshire and Kent and he now forms part of that tree.

Given that these families were living in the same small area at around the same time, it is probable that they were all closely related to one another, but the precise relationships have not yet been established.

In 1702 John Blackett, a mariner and widower of Stepney, married Isabella Wright in the City of London. They had at least five children born in neighbouring Wapping, but no link has been found between them and the other London Blacketts. For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Isabella Wright please click here.

No connection has been established between the families mentioned above and the descendants of Benjamin Blackett, who died in Dog Row, on the border between Stepney and Mile End, in 1676. Benjamin’s son Thomas seems to have owned the close known as Dog Row, which is believed to be named after dog kennels that were originally located there. Thomas died in 1701 and by his Will left Dog Row to his wife Mary until his son Thomas became of age. Thomas senior’s widow married Joshua Naylor, a cheesemonger, within a year of her husband’s death and the younger Thomas and his sister, though still minors, accused Naylor of defrauding them in 1704. Thomas junior, who, with his siblings was born in Dog Row, seems to have regained the property by 1727. His uncle, another Benjamin, moved south across the River Thames to Southwark, where several of his children were born. For a descendancy chart of Benjamin Blackett of Dog Row please click here. Please also see Blacketts of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts for the probable Prince Edward Island descendants of Benjamin Blackett.

A little further to the west George Blackett, a house painter, married Sarah Carless in Soho in 1820. Sarah was born in Shropshire but all that is known of George’s birth is that the 1841 census shows him as not being born in Middlesex. He died in St. Pancras, London in 1847, as did Sarah in 1860. The couple had at least 9 children born in that part of London between 1821 and 1839. For a desecendancy chart of George Blackett please click here.

Please also see the details of Susannah Blackett of London in A ‘Foundling’ Blackett.

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. (Some sources state that he was sent out by the British Government to North America to buy lumber for the English shipyards in 1785, but his son Walter William was born in Limehouse, London in 1786.) In 1777 William had married Anne Martha Applequist (shown as Martha Applequest in the marriage record) in Bethnal Green, London. William and Martha settled in the island, and in 1790 were living in Launching, Lot 56. Shortly afterwards William and his family moved across Grand River to Annadale where William bought or leased 100 acres of land running alongside what is now known as Blackett’s Creek. William Blackett appears as head of a household in Lot 56 in 1798. Many of this family remained in Prince Edward Island, but William’s son Walter William Blackett (1786-1875) moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where he founded the settlement of Glace Bay (see Wikipedia article) where many of his descendants were born.

Walter William Blackett’s son, William Blackett, built a house on the shores of what is now known as Blackett’s Lake. Shortly before his death in 1925, William’s son Charles Wesley Blackett wrote a fascinating account of his immediate family history. For a transcript of it, for which we are grateful to Donna Long, please click here.

William’s granddaughter Diana Blackett (1816-1906), who married Michael Taylor of Nova Scotia, settled in Massachusetts, USA, and a number of her descendants were born there, as were a number of other descendants of William.

It is now believed that William Blackett was born in Rotherhithe, Surrey in 1750, the son of John Blackett and Mary and the grandson of Benjamin Blackett, who had earlier moved from his native Stepney south across the River Thames to Southwark. The evidence to support this is circumstantial (and should therefore be treated with caution) but is persuasive. Anne Martha Applequist married William Blackett, a widower, in Bethnal Green, north of the River Thames but she was born in 1748 in Rotherhithe, south of the river. The name Applequist was an extremely rare surname in the London area at the time and was probably Scandinavian, coming from the Swedish word for an apple twig – appleqvist. Martha’s father, Daniel Applequist had married his wife in St. Katherine by the Tower, on the north bank of the river but at least four of his children, including Anne Martha, were born in Rotherhithe before he and his wife moved back north across the river to Poplar in the parish of Stepney, where at least four more of their children were born. Anne Martha was baptised in St. Mary’s, Rotherhithe, where on 24 April 1750 her sister Elisabeth was baptised two days after William Blackett was also baptised there. Blackett was also an extremely rare name south of the river at the time and it seems probable that the two families may have been well acquainted with one another. Rotherhithe was a nautical area at the time and William is described as a shipwright at the 1783 burial of William John, his son by his first marriage, and at the baptism of his son Walter William in 1786.

Since the immediate ancestry of William Blackett has probably been established, his tree now forms part of that of Benjamin Blackett of Stepney. For further details of Benjamin Blackett please see the paragraph on him in London Blacketts.

Some sources show one of William and Anne Martha’s sons as being ‘John William’ Blackett, who died in 1895 aged 101. However, although we have not discovered the baptismal records concerned, it seems more likely that he was William , grandson of William and Anne Martha and the son of John Blackett and Elizabeth Scheverie/Cheverie. There is some circumstantial evidence in support of this. In 1798 the elder William appears as head of a Household of 7 people in Lot 56, (presumably farming the 100 acres mentioned in the first paragraph above). John was appointed as a Fence Viewer of Lot 56, Prince Edward Island in 1833 and died two years later. By his Will dated 24 August 1835 he bequeathed “the old homestead or the farm” of 100 acres (which he had presumably inherited from his father, William, his brother Walter having by then moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) to his eldest son, William, with the stipulation that William should provide for his mother (John’s widow, Elizabeth) and for his (William’s) brother George and sisters Katherine and Diana. One of John’s executors was Robert Robertson, probably the husband of his sister Mary.

The younger William appears a number of times throughout his lifetime. In 1826 he registered the boat “Success”; in 1849 William and John (presumably William’s son) Blackett of Grand River registered the boat “Swallow” which was built in the Grand River shipyard of William Blackett; in 1861 he is shown farming 55 acres (it is not clear what happened to the remaining 45 acres) in Lot 56; in 1871 he appears in Lovell’s P.E.I. Directory as a farmer of Annandale (in Lot 56); in the 1881 census as a farmer aged 82; in the 1891 census aged 97, living with his son William; and in his death notice dated 13 Apr 1895 as aged 101. He had made his Will in 1885, one of the witneses to which was Simon Chivirie (sic), probably the husband of his granddaughter Sarah Elizabeth Blackett. In May 2016 a grave marker was unveiled to commemorate a former ‘Mountie’, James Henry Blackett, a grandson of William. For details of the ceremony please click here.

If anyone can provide information that contradicts our assumptions above (or, better still, supports them!) please contact us.

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.

John died in Colombo in 1809, and his son, James Blackett (1808-1893), and his descendants went on to become coffee, and later tea, planters. A family link with tea planting in Sri Lanka continues to the present day. Some descendants eventually settled in Victoria, Australia.

Although John is believed to have been born in Hexham, Northumberland, his exact date and place of birth have not yet been established. A George Blackett (1769-1806), born in Walbottle, Northumberland, also served in the Royal Artillery as a Lieutenant, though he is not known to have served in Ceylon. George died in Charlton, Kent in 1806. For the moment John Blackett has been provisionally shown in the tree as the brother of George Blackett, and the son of another George Blackett who married Margaret Ferguson, a widow, in 1766 in Newburn. (The connection, if any, between Mary Ferguson’s former husband and Jane Elizabeth Ferguson mentioned above has not been established.) Some of the members of this wider family settled in Tynemouth. The inclusion of John of Ceylon in this family should be treated with caution

For a descendancy chart of the John Blackett of Newburn who may be the grandfather of John of Ceylon please click here.

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. They appear to have had at least 6 children born in Penrith or in the neighbouring village of Morland and their descendants were living in Penrith at least as late as 1687. For a descendancy chart of Edward Blackett and Helen please click here.

A further family lived at Sandford, near Warcop, Cumberland, where Nicholas Blackett married Elizabeth Bank in 1627. Warcop is less than 20 miles from both Barnard Castle and Middleton-in-Teesdale in Co. Durham and it seems likely that these Blacketts descend from Blacketts of County Durham. For a descendancy chart of Nicholas and Elizabeth please click here.

No connection has yet been found between these familes and John Blackett (bapt. 16 Oct 1670) of Appleby-in-Westmorland, probably the son of John Blackett (d.1719) and grandson of William, who married Julia, or Julia Ann, Bellas in 1702. John’s great-grandson, Thomas, b. 1747, lived for some years in Barbados, where his son, Stephen, was born in 1780. Stephen married his first cousin, Mary Blackett, born in Barbados in 1782, the daughter of William Blackett (b.1752 Appleby, Westmorland) and Rebecca Ross. The marriage took place in Appleby, Westmorland, England in 1808. No connection has yet been found between these Blacketts and other Blacketts who are known to have lived in the island around that time. Another great-grandson of John, John Blackett (1805-1856) moved to Shoreditch, London, where he married in 1837 Sarah Nicholson of Bampton, Westmorland. They had at least six children born in Shoreditch and the neighbouring Hoxton. This tree now includes the desendants of Joseph Edwin Blackett of Gateshead, formerly held as a separate tree.
For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Julia Bellas, please click here.

A number of prominent Barbadian Blacketts of mixed descent are believed to be descended from the Appleby, Westmorland branch of the Blacketts, including The Honourable and Right Reverend Monsignor Vincent Harcourt Blackett, a member of the Barbados Privy Council. The precise line of descent is, however, still being investigated.

Joseph Nathaniel Blackett, the son of John William Blackett and Mary Anna Nials was baptized in Barbados in 1857. He settled in London, where he married Eliza Papworth of Sutton, Cambridgeshire in 1893 and the couple had several children. No burial for Joseph has been found and it is possible he returned to Barbados or emigrated elsewhere. For a descendancy chart of John William Blackett and Mary Anna Nials please click here.

Seymour Blackett was born in Barbados in 1901. A merchant seaman, he settled in Cardiff, Wales, where he married in 1930. In 1940 he drowned after his ship, the S.S. Stokeseley of Cardiff, struck a mine and sank in the Thames estuary. For a descendancy chart of Seymour Blackett please click here. And in 1942 Mitchinson Blackett, an able seaman in the Merchant Navy was drowned (presumably near London, the place of his memorial entry). He is stated to be the son of Thomas and Ethel Blackett of St. Michael, Barbados, and may be the half-brother of Reginald Pericival Blackett, also a merchant seaman of St. Michael, Barbados, who jumped ship in the UK and remained in the country until his death in 1971. He is known to have had a brother Mitcheson, although Reginald’s parents were Thomas and Ruth. Reginald later changed his surname to Smith. For a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett of St. Michael, Barbados please click here.

For a possible connection to the Blacketts of south-west England please see Devonian and Cornish Blacketts.

A further line of Westmorland Blacketts descends from Thomas Bleckett (sic) who married Margaret Chappelhow in 1686 in Bolton, a few miles north-west of Appleby. The family of their eldest son Thomas seems to have moved south to Kendal by 1744, where two of his daughters were married that year. For a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett and Margaret Chappelhow please click here.

Finally at least four children of Stephen Blackett, a descendant of Luke Blackett (please see Whickham and Lamesley Blacketts) settled in Whitehaven, Cumberland where a number of their descendants were born. We have found no connection between these descendants and the other Cumberland and Westmorland Blacketts.

Preliminary work has started on compiling the family trees of various Blacketts in Barbados, though it is far too early to speculate on whether a connection will be found between them and the Blacketts of Westmorland mentioned above. Please click on the following names to see their descendancy charts:
Thomas Blackett and Elizabeth Howard Nightingale
Anthony Blackett
Thomas Blackett and Bentham Looney
Thomas Blackett and Ruthy Bella
Joseph Alfred Blackett
Isaac Blackett
Edward Blackett
Alexander Blackett
Richard Edward Blackett
Paul Blackett
James Thomas Blackett

It should be stressed that these charts are only preliminary, largely compiled from the LDS site and should be treated with care pending further research. If you can add details to them or have information on other Blackett families of Barbados please contact us.

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. For a descendancy chart of Jeremiah Blackett and Sarah Chelew please click here and for a descendancy chart of Ralph Blackett and Elizabeth please click here.

Interestingly, the only marriage around the time in question of a Jeremiah Blackett to a Sarah took place in 1800 in Madron, Cornwall, the bride’s name being Sarah Chelew. Both parties were expressed to be of Penzance (Cornwall) and were shown as a widower and widow. There was a further marriage of a Jeremiah Blackett, a bachelor, to Esther Harper, a widow, in Padstow on the north-west coast of Cornwall, in 1804, which produced at least one child, Joseph, baptised in Padstow on 27 Dec 1804. This Joseph later married Elizabeth Glanvill in Tintagel in 1827. However, since Jeremiah Blackett and Sarah Chelew had a daughter Eliza born in 1807 in Plymouth, where Sarah died in 1846, there must have been two Jeremiah Blacketts in the region at the time, unless the 1804 marriage of Jeremiah was bigamous. A Jeremiah Blackett was buried in Padstow in 1806 and another Jeremiah Blackett in Plymouth in 1807 and if these were the two Jeremiahs in question that would rule out the bigamy theory as above. (NB. FreeReg shows a transcription of the baptism of a Samuel Blacket, son of Joseph Blacket, husbandman, and Dorcas on 11 May 1841 at Crowan, Cornwall, but this appears to be a mistranscription of Samuel Bucket. Samuel is described as such in the Findmypast transcription and this is supported by censuses.)

There may be a connection to Peter Blackett (abt1762-1832) of Stoke Damerel, Devonport, Devon but none has yet been found. On his marriage in 1798 Peter Blackett is described as quartermaster of the ‘Beaulieu’. It is possible that he is one and the same as the Peter Blackett, baptized in Newcastle in 1769, the son of Alexander Blackett, a waterman, and grandson of Peter Blackett of Gateshead, himself a son of Alexander Blackett and Elizabeth Scotland, as shown in Alexander Blackett of Gateshead descendants above. No proof of this has been found, however.

Blackett is an uncommon name in Devon and Cornwall and Jeremiah Blackett even rarer. The only other instances of Jeremiah Blacketts in the UK we have discovered were based in Hampshire, and around Appleby and Murton in Westmorland. The latter may possibly provide the clue as to the Devon and Cornwall Blacketts. In the mid eighteenth century Thomas Blackett, the sixth son of Jeremiah Blackett (1708-1781) went to Barbados to work for Sir James Lowther. Jeremiah Blackett was agent for Sir James, a Westmorland landowner who also had estates in Barbados. Thomas Blackett eventually became a landowner on the island in his own right, ¹ and at least one brother, Stephen, lived there. Thomas is believed to have perished at sea en route from Barbados to Great Britain via Bermuda around 1792. It is possible that a member of the Barbados Blacketts landed in Cornwall and decided to settle there. This is no more than speculation, and perhaps a more likely explanation was that Jeremiah was a mariner from Westmorland who sailed the coastal routes down the west coast of England and settled in Cornwall. (Please see also West of the Pennines and Barbados.)

The earliest reference to a Blackett in Devon or Cornwall that we have discovered is the burial of Godfrei Blackett on 19 June 1631 at St. Ewe and All Saints, Cornwall.

¹ Information obtained from Cumberland & Westmorland Herald article.

William Blackett married Elizabeth 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.

No baptism for the first William Blackett has been found, but he is shown as aged 80 at his burial in 1818, which would put his birth at around 1738. For a descendancy chart of William Blackett and Elizabeth Barber please click here.

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. For a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett and Jane please click here.

This tree can be connected with the “main” Blackett tree through the 1929 marriage of Norman Blackett to Alma Hetherington, the granddaughter of Alice Blackett, and is therefore contained within the main Blackett tree.

Other Blacketts appear to have moved to Sedgefield from elsewhere. On 12 February 1760 Joseph Blackett married Ann Ainsley in Sedgefield. Both are stated to be of the parish but may have moved there from elsewhere. Pending the completion of further investigations Joseph is still shown as a child of John Blackett and Ann Storey but no baptism for him has been found and he may therefore have to be removed from this family.

And after their marriage in 1806 John Blackett, 1779-1852, and Ann Smith, 1777-1853, settled in Sedgefield. This John Blackett descends from the Blacketts of Houghton-le-Spring, Cox Green, Penshaw and Sunderland.

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.

Thomas and Margaret’s second son, Thomas, was born in Cox Green and was baptised in Houghton-le-Spring in 1746. He died, aged 82, at High Street, Bishopwearmouth in 1829. It seems likely that he was the Thomas, a butcher, who married Margaret Egglestone in 1793 in Sunderland. Margaret Blackett, a grandchild of Thomas Blackett and Margaret Egglestone, also died in High Street, Bishopwearmouth in 1834. Thomas’s nephew George, and George’s son were also butchers, as were other descendants of Thomas Blackett and Margaret Carter. (In the 1793 marriage bond George is stated to be 30 and Margaret 21. Their true ages at the time were 47 and 33 respectively!)

Thomas and Margaret’s third son, George, married Margaret Lawson in 1772 in Penshaw, where their son, Thomas, was born later that year. Thomas married Margaret Nicholson of East Herrington, now part of Sunderland, in 1800 and at least three of their children were born in Middle and East Herrington. These are now thought to include Thomas Blackett, who was born in East Herrington probably around 1820/21, whose family was formerly held as a separate tree. This Thomas Blackett finally settled in Ryhope, where most of his descendants also lived. He is probably the Thomas Blackett, agricultural labourer, living in Silksworth, Bishopwearmouth in 1841, but by 1851 he was working on the railways as a labourer and living with his first wife in Monkwearmouth. After his first wife’s death he moved to Ryhope, where he was living in 1861 with his second wife and children. He gave his age in 1861 as 35, rather than 40, but this may be due to his having married a second wife 17 years his junior. He was then described as “Station Master”, but this may have been a temporary position as by 1871 he was again describing himself as a labourer, and in 1881 and 1891 as a platelayer (foreman in 1881). His age at his death in 1898 was shown as 74.
No record of his baptism has been discovered, and this link should be treated with care. However, no other Blackett families living in Herrington around the time in question have been discovered and the circumstantial evidence seems conclusive.

By 1841 Thomas (born 1772), an agricultural labourer, and his wife Margaret were living at Red Briar, Framwellgate next to Joseph and Margaret Richardson, the parents of William Blackett Richardson. No link between these families has yet been discovered (see entry for Blackett Richardsons).

This tree has now been linked through a later marriage to Greatham Blacketts (see below) and the two trees have been combined. However, no link has been established between the earliest Blacketts in each of these two branches and for a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett and Margaret Carter please click here.

Joseph Byron Blackett, 1825-1905, 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.

Joseph senior was a child of the second marriage of Powell Charles Blackett (abt. 1791-1847) to Jeanne Gille, who was born in Belgium 1801/02. Powell Charles Blackett became a naval surgeon in 1809, but is shown as being on half-pay in the 1840 Naval List. His younger sister, Ann Harriot Blackett, was a governess, born in Marylebone, London in 1797/98, who died unmarried. Powell Charles, Mary Josephine and Ann Harriot were children of Arthur Blackett and Mary Barlow. Arthur Blackett was an apothecary in Mayfair, Westminster during the late 18th/early 19th century and although he was mentioned in the bankruptcy lists of 1794 he was still living in Mayfair as late as 1813. In his will, executed in France in 1818 he left the bulk of his estate to his two daughters and only a legacy of one shilling to his son Powell Charles Blackett. Interestingly in the grant of probate to the will Arthur is referred to as ‘Arthur Blackett otherwise Armetryding’, though the reason for this is unclear.

Powell Charles Blackett seems to have collected a number of artefacts during his time as a naval surgeon, which formed the basis of his private museum. After his death a number of these were acquired by The Cuming Museum in Walworth, London, whose catalogue c. 1850 includes the following items:

Please also see A Blackett Medical Device in Odds and Ends.

For a descendancy chart of Arthur Blackett and Mary Barlow please click here.

It is not clear whether the husband of the female poet Mary Dawes Blackett (see Blacketts and Literature, who died in 1792, is connected with the family of Arthur Blackett. Her husband seems, however, to have been a Roman Catholic, as Mary refers in her published letters, “The Monitress; or, the oeconomy of female life”, to the fact that her only daughter Catharine had been taken from her to be educated as a Catholic at a convent in Nice, France, whereas Mary is herself a Protestant. It seems likely that Catharine was born around 1773, but no baptism for her has been found, presumably because she was baptized as a Catholic. Mary seems to have been a widow for some time when the letters comprising The Monitress were written (around 1790). A grant of probate to the will of Thomas Blackett of King Street Bloomsbury, London, Gentleman, was issued to his widow Mary on 11 Oct 1773, but no burial for Thomas Blackett has been found, suggesting that he may have been buried as a Catholic. Mary continued to occupy the King Street property until at least 1781. However, the only likely marriage that has been discovered was of a Thomas Blackett, widower, to Mary Roberts, widow at St. George, Bloomsbury on 29 Dec 1772. No likely earlier marriage of a Mary Dawes to a Mr. Roberts has been identified. Mary is shown as Mary Ann Dawes Blackett at her burial in 1792.

It is possible that “Dawes” was an additional Christian name of Mary, rather than her maiden surname, but she nevertheless almost certainly descends from Rev. Lancelot Dawes DD,1580-1654, of Barton Kirk, Westmorland. For a chart of the known descendants of Lancelot Dawes please click here.

A further line of Catholic Blacketts descends from John Blackett, believed to be from Sunderland, who married Ann Middleton in Durham City in 1817. Ann was a Catholic and all 10 of the couple’s children were baptised into the faith. For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Ann Middleton please click here.

In 1802 Peter Blackett (1776-1845), a bricklayer, and Mary Basham (1775-1862), were married in Sculthorpe, a village a few miles inland from the north Norfolk coast. Branches of this family remained in Sculthorpe and the neighbouring villages of Burnham Thorpe, Syderstone and East Rudham for several generations, though some branches moved to the London area, and one branch of these settled in Chobham, Surrey. A number of Norfolk Blacket(t)s are shown in early Parish records by the name “Black”, possibly due to the East Anglian dialect at the time encouraging the “swallowing” of the final consonant.

Peter’s father, also Peter, was almost certainly the Peter Black (1730-1801), of Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, who married Mary Baker in 1754 in the village of Bale, about 10 miles east of Burnham Thorpe. This Peter appears to be the son of Jacobi (i.e. James) Black and Ann Thrower, who married in Burnham Thorpe in 1729/30. His daughter, Mary Blackett (1760-1852), was employed as a nurse to look after the younger siblings of Admiral Lord Nelson (see Naval Blacketts). For a descendancy chart of James (Black) Blackett and Ann Thrower please click here. Given the rarity of the surname Black/Blacket in the county at the time, there may also be a connection to Peter Black/Blackett, baptised in Aylsham, Norfolk in 1703, the son of another Peter who died in Aylsham in 1716, his wife, Sarah having died in the village in 1712. However, given the distance between Aylsham and Burnham Thorpe, this family has been shown as a separate tree. For a descendancy chart of Peter (Black) Blackett and Sarah please click here.

A further possible connection between the families shown above and that of John (Black) Blackett (1757-1832) has not yet been established, but circumstantial evidence suggests that there is one. John was born in Brancaster, the son of John and Elizabeth (Black) Blackett and settled in East Rudham after his marriage. John’s grandson William and his family moved to Rotherham, Yorkshire in the 1870s, where several of his descendants settled, possibly following the example of his mother, Elizabeth, (the widow of John’s son James), who moved to Yorkshire some time in the 1860s. One of William’s grandsons, Thomas, emigrated to Canada in 1911 with his wife and settled in Toronto, Ontario. For a descendancy chart of John (Black) Blackett and Elizabeth please click here.

It seems likely that any connection between at least some of the Norfolk Blacketts and those of Durham and Northumberland is due to the coastal trade between north-east England and East Anglia and London, with Blacketts settling in the coastal towns and then moving inland a few miles to the surrounding villages. This could be true of Francis Blackett (c.1752-1828), a master mariner of Lynn, Norfolk who seems to have married at least 4 times in the county. For a descendancy chart of Francis Blackett please click here.

However, Blacketts have lived in Norfolk since at least the mid-16th century. For example William Blackett, who was buried at Swannington, near Norwich in 1554 had at least three children born in the area, one of whose descendants, John Blackett, who was baptized in 1633 in Norwich, married in 1668 Anne Cosin, a niece of John Cosin (1595-1672) who was Bishop of Durham from 1660 to 1672. (This branch of the family are frequently shown in early parish records as “Blackhead”, suggesting that the name may have remained closer to the original “Blakheved” spelling of the Woodcroft Blacketts.) For a descendancy chart of William (Blackhead) Blackett please click here.

John Blackett, the son of Robert, was baptised at St. Margaret’s, Kings Lynn on 28 Nov 1570, where, on 10 Feb 1588/9, Oliver Blackett married Agnes Dobbynson. For a descendancy chart of Oliver Blackett and Agnes Dobbynson please click here.

John Blickett, born c1825 in Norfolk, appears in several censuses and electoral registers. He lived in Islington, Middlesex, with his wife Annie and family, and for some years in Iver, Buckinghamshire. Annie’s place of birth is shown as Jersey in 1871, but Lyme Regis, Dorset in 1881. ‘Blackett’ can occasionally show up in records as ‘Blickett’, particularly in the south and east of England due to the local dialect, and it is possible there is a connection with the Norfolk Blacketts. In the 1871 census the surname is shown as ‘Plickett’. The only likely marriage we have come across is that of John Brightwell Plackett who married Annie Nicholas in Islington in 1859. That John appears to be the son of Joseph Plackett who married Sarah Brightwell in Wellingborough, Northants. in 1826, and we have found no connection between that family and Norfolk. The connection, if any, to the Blacketts is therefore not certain, (to say the least!), but for a descendancy chart of John Brightwell Blickett/Plackett please click here. This should, however, be considered no more than tentative and John Brightwell Plackett may not be the same person as John Blickett.

John Blackett (1777/8-1858) was a clerk in the Ordnance at Harwich, Essex in 1841 and 1851 and was employed by the Ordnance as a store keeper as far back as 1814. According to the 1851 census he was born in “Middlesex, City of London”. The City of London did not form part of Middlesex and it is not, therefore, clear whether John was born in the City of London itself (i.e. the “Square Mile”) or in the surrounding area. Prior to his death he moved to Ipswich, Suffolk and was buried there.
John seems to have married at least three times, and by his marriage to Mary Clarke had a son Edmund Phipps Blackett (1830-1887) born in Harwich, who John seems to have named after the then head of the Ordnance Department, Hon. Edmund Phipps (see Odds and Ends). Edmund Phipps Blackett had at least five siblings, who were also born in Essex, and at least six half-brothers and sisters. After Edmund’s marriage to Adelaide Elizabeth Collings (1840-1896) in London in 1861 he and his family moved to Cambridge. For a descendancy chart of John Blackett please click here.

This was not the first Blackett connection with Cambridgeshire. Robert Blackett and his wife Anne had 7 children born in Sawston, south of Cambridge, between around 1600 and 1612. Some of this family remained in the county but one son, Arthur Blackett moved to London and married Ellen Barnes in Southwark, Surrey in 1627 before settling in the east end of London, where they had at least 6 children. For a descendancy chart of Robert Blackett and Anne please click here. (Our thanks are due to Steve Keown for alerting us to this family.)

George Blackett (abt 1743-1830) married Margaret Young in 1789 at Greatham, a village between Billingham and Hartlepool in Co. Durham. Many of George’s descendants were still living in Greatham as recently as the end of the 19th century. It seems likely, however, that George’s eldest son, Robert (1790-1846) moved south into Yorkshire, where he married Sarah Johnson in Oswaldkirk in 1814. By the birth of their daughter Harriot in 1820 Robert and Sarah had moved north again to Wolviston, Co. Durham, about two miles from Greatham, and their son Johnson Blackett was born in Wolviston in 1823. By 1841 Robert, a cartwright, was living in nearby Middlesbrough, where he died, aged 56, in 1846.
George Blackett’s great-great grandson, also George, lived for many years in Portugal, where he established a major business in the port wine trade. (See Blackett Port Wine.)
(NB. Prior to November 2011 Robert and Sarah Johnson’s descendants were shown as a separate entry in Can You Help Us?)

This tree has now been linked through a later marriage to Blacketts of Houghton-le-Spring, Cox Green, Penshaw and Sunderland (see above) and the two trees have been combined. However, no link has been established between the earliest Blacketts in each of these two branches and for a descendancy chart of George Blackett and Margaret Young please click here.

In 1808 John Blackett, a shipwright, married Ann Elliott in Portsea, Hampshire and at least three of their children were born in Portsea or neighbouring Portsmouth. Ann died in 1813 giving birth to their youngest son, John Elliott Blackett,and John senior may have moved away from the area, possibly to Stockton, Durham, where his son John Elliott Blackett, also a shipwright, was living in the early 1840s, or to Deptford, Kent, where John Elliott Blackett subsequently moved to.

There is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that John Blackett was a younger son of William Blackett who married Ann Brooker in Alverstoke, just outside Portsmouth, in 1776. William and Ann subsequently moved a few miles north-west to Fareham, Hampshire where their son William was born in 1776/7, followed by Thomas in 1781/82, though Thomas was not christened until 1792. William, who became a mariner, settled in Woolwich, Kent, about 4 miles east of Deptford around 1813. Thomas became a baker and also moved to Woolwich around 1814 and both brothers had children born in Woolwich.

It is also possible that John or William originated from Deptford, Kent, like Portsea a town with maritime connections. Blacketts were certainly living in Deptford from the early 18th century, where John Blackett is believed to have had at least seven children born, one of whom, William, became a mariner. It is now believed that this William was the father of John Blackett (Bapt 1751/2) of Deptford, Kent, formerly shown in London Blacketts. No definite connection has however been found. For a descendancy chart of John Blackett of Deptford, the father of William, please click here.

For a descendancy chart of William Blackett and Ann Brooker please click here.

There may also be some connection to another John Blackett, a postman, who lived in Wimbledon, Surrey from at least 1803 until the death of his wife there in 1817. He then remarried in Deptford later that year and lived in Lewisham, about two miles south of Deptford, until his death in 1836. For a descendancy chart of this John Blackett please click here.

Given the maritime connections of Portsmouth, Portsea and Deptford it is quite possible that some or all these branches stem from Blacketts elsewhere in England who became seafarers.

In 1841 Thomas Blackett (1840-1888) was living in North Shields with Jessie Blackett, aged 60, who was born in Scotland, Ann aged 20, Margaret aged 10 and Jessie aged 4. Thomas married Christen Atchinson (1840/41-1902) in 1862 and their family remained in North Shields before moving to Yorkshire and finally to West Hartlepool. In 1881 Thomas was living there, his occupation being shown as a carpenter and mastmaker.

Thomas is now believed to be the illegitimate son of Jessie Blackett, the daughter of George and Jessie Blackett, and Jessie senior, who was also known as Jane or Jean, would therefore have been Thomas’s grandmother. George Blackett had died aged 60 in 1833 in Tynemouth. This line may run back to John Blackett of Earsdon by North Shields, but the connection is not completely secure. For a descendancy chart of George Blackett and Jane/Jean/Jessie please click here.

John Blackett (1783-1854) was born in Longwitton and baptised in Hartburn, not a great distance from the Blackett seat of Wallington, Northumberland. His parents were Michael Blackett and Mary Maslingham. His baptismal entry refers to him as “John illegitimate son of Michael Blackett and Mary Maslingham of Long Witton.” A Michael Blackett is also shown as the father of “William Blackett or Spearman”, who was born in Hartburn four years previously and whose mother was Isabel Spearman, and a Michael ‘Brocket’ (sic?) of Rothley was the father of the illegitimate John Brocket, baptised in Hartburn in 1782, whose mother was Mary Middlemas of Long Witton.

John Blackett’s seven children and at least three of his grandchildren were born in Longwitton or neighbouring Hartburn. One branch of this family emigrated to New Jersey, USA in 1851.

We have discovered nothing further about this Michael Blackett. Given the proximity of Longwitton and Hartburn to the Blackett seat of Wallington it is possible that Michael was an illegitimate son of Sir Walter Blackett, who was reputed to “spread his favours” liberally around the area, particularly amongst women of lower rank. No proof of this has been discovered, however. To see a descendancy chart of Michael Blackett please click here.

George Blackett, a smith, and his wife Mary had at least four children born in Low and High Angerton, just south of Hartburn. No connection has so far been discovered between George and the Michael Blackett mentioned above. For a descendancy chart of George Blackett and Mary please click here.

This line can now be traced back to Richard Blackett, who died in 1590 in the hamlet of Urra, near Kirkby, Yorkshire, who married Maud. The couple had at least three children, including William, whose son, Richard Blackett, married Muriel (Miriall) Harrison in Ingleby Greenhow, Yorkshire in 1637. Their son, also Richard, married Anne Appleton in nearby Kirkby in Cleveland in 1672 where they had 10 children. Robert Blackett (1796-1835), a descendant of Richard, emigrated to North America in 1834, but died in Toronto, Canada, en route to the United States, where his family settled in Michigan. A number of descendants of these Blacketts still live in Michigan. The descendants of Richard and Muriel are now believed to include Peter Blackett of Whitby, Yorkshire, who was formerly shown in a separate tree. Richard and Muriel also had a son William, who converted to Quakerism, and whose descendants settled in Whitby and Scarborough, Yorks. (Our thanks are due to Steve Keown for his research into Quaker records and the records of the chapelry of Bilsdale, Yorks.)

There is now believed to be be a link between these Blacketts and the Joseph Blackett of Welbury, Yorkshire as shown towards the end of Joseph Blackett of Durham City-. However, since a baptism for Joseph has not been found, the precise relationship should be treated with caution. Additionally, no definite link has been found with the John Blackett who married Dorothy Applegarth in Richmond, Yorkshire in 1703 as shown in Blacketts of Yorkshire, South Australia and New Zealand. Once again, our thanks are due to Steve Keown for his further researches.

It is possible that the Richard Blackett who died in 1590 descended from a younger son of the Blacketts of Woodcroft, Co. Durham, amongst whom the comparitively rare name of Richard crops up several times. However, no proof of this has been found and it is not known why a member of the family should settle in Urra, which lies forty miles west-south-west of Woodcroft. Additionally, a John Blackett, who was Perpetual Vicar of Helmsley with Sproxton, Rievaulx and Carlton 1548-1552, was managing the iron smelting at Rievaulx Abbey in 1545. He was at the time Vicar of Scawton, about 12 miles south of Urra, but it is not known if there is a connection between Rev. John Blackett and Richard.

This branch now forms part of the Main Blackett Tree due to a marriage of a descendant but the ancestry of Richard who died in 1590 has not been established. For a descendancy chart of Richard Blackett and Maud please click here.

In 1703 John Blackett married Dorothy Applegarth in Richmond, Yorkshire. Four of their children were born in the village of Kirkby Ravensworth, a few miles to the north of Richmond.

John is now believed to have been born in Gayles, near Kirkby Ravensworth, in 1676, the son of Richard Blackett, who in turn is believed to be the son of Robert Blackett, who died in Gayles, near Kirkby Ravensworth in 1629/30.

It was from the John Blackett/Dorothy Applegarth branch that John Blackett (1769-1848) moved to London, later to be joined there by his younger brother Joseph (see Blacketts and Poetry). Although most of John’s children remained in London, his youngest son, Ebenezer Edward Blackett (1821-1905), emigrated to South Australia, where he married Matilda Puddy (1829-1897) in 1852. Their son, Rev. John Blacket (1856-1935), became a Methodist minister and well known author (see Blacketts and Literature). A further branch, the family of Thomas Crosby Blackett (1829-1905) emigrated to New Zealand.

John Blackett, who died at Melsonby In 1668 is now believed to be the nephew of Robert Blackett, who died in 1629/30 at Gayles. In his will Robert refers to his two children, Richard and Anne, therefore presumably ruling out John as a third child. The two hamlets are, however, only four miles apart, and their proximity plus the occurrence of the name Richard in both families suggest that they were closely related. It is also possible that this branch moved from Staindrop, Co. Durham, which is less than 10 miles north of Melsonby. In the absence of further evidence, however, John is shown as the son of an unknown brother of Robert Blackett, both of them being sons of another Unknown Blackett. For a descendancy chart of this Unknown Blackett please click here.

The Blackett family of Gayles may also be closely connected to that of Thomas Blackett, who married Frances Gill in 1698 at Downholme,Yorkshire, about six miles south of Gayles. Little is known of this Thomas, though he may be the son of Thomas Blackett and Elizabeth (who was buried in Downholme in 1705). Thomas the younger had four children by Frances, and after her death in 1711 he married Dorothy Gill, possibly the sister of Frances, in Downholme in 1712. Dorothy bore him at least a further two children, all baptized in Downholme. DNA research by a correspondent known to be linked to the Blacketts of Woodcroft indicates a blood link also to this family, though in the absence of full written records the exact relationship is not known. For a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett of Downholme please click here.

In Rookwood cemetery in Lidcombe, Sydney, New South Wales is the grave of George Henry Blacket (he seems to have dropped the 2nd “t” from his name), together with his wife, Sarah Elizabeth, and youngest son William. George Henry was born in 1867 in the Penrith district of New South Wales and was the son of James Blackett and Rachel (nee) Campbell, who emigrated from Scotland to Australia some time between 1849 and 1853. George Henry is believed to descend from Malcolm (Blakater) Blackett and Jennet Cairns, who married in St. Ninians, Stirling, Scotland in 1726. Malcolm was the son of Malcolm Blaketer, but the line back from that Malcolm is not known.

For a descendancy chart of Malcolm (Blakater) Blackett and Jennet Cairns please click here.

James Blackett, the father of Robert Johnson Blackett born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1814, is now believed to be the James Blackett of Hexham (1791—1852) who married Catharine Johnson in 1812. This tree, formerly held separately, now forms part of Hexham, Northumberland and Liverpool Blacketts.

In 1733/4 Robert Richardson married Hannah Hopper in Medomsley, near Ebchester. Their son Robert Richardson married Ann Re(a)dshaw in St. Oswald, Durham City in 1777, where their youngest son, Blackett Richardson, was born in 1801 at Brome (sic) Hall. Blackett Richardson died in 1823 but the Christian name of Blackett was given to several members of the extended Richardson family over the 19th century, including (William) Blackett Richardson (1824-1895), who emigrated to New Zealand in 1859 and subsequently settled in New South Wales, Australia. He was baptised Blackett Richardson and seems to have added the “William” subsequently.

The reason for the original adoption of Blackett as a Christian name is not known, although one family rumour is that it derived from two elderly Blackett ladies living close by the Richardsons, who may have been godparents to Blackett Richardson. However, no godparents are mentioned in his baptismal record and we have come across no other instance of the surname of a godparent being adopted as a sole Christian name. However, in 1841 the family of Joseph Richardson, a farmer and an elder brother of Blackett Richardson 1801-1823, was living with his wife and children, including a son Blackett Richardson, aged 7, in Red Brier (sic), Framwellgate, Durham City, next to Thomas Blackett, an agricultural labourer and his wife and their married daughter Margaret Cook and her children. Thomas Blackett was the grandson of Thomas Blackett and Margaret Carter (see entry for The Blacketts of Houghton-le-Spring, Cox Green, Penshaw and Sunderland). Also living close by was (William) Blackett Richardson mentioned above and his parents and siblings.

Although the circumstances could suggest a family relationship between the Richardsons and the Blacketts, none has yet been found, other than the fact that Barbara Robinson (1804-1871), the aunt of (William) Blackett Richardson mentioned in the first paragraph above married William Blackett (1801-1865) in 1824. This William Blackett was the son of Cuthbert Blackett (see Joseph Blackett of Durham City-). It may be no more than coincidence, but William’s brother Henry (1820-1907) emigrated to New Zealand in 1858, one year before (William) Blackett Richardson did likewise, as mentioned above.

For a descendancy chart of Robert Richardson and Hannah Hopper please click here.

It is seems possible that George Richardson (1895-1981) may descend from the Blackett Richardsons mentioned above, though no connection has been established. It had been thought that this George had died in 1955 in Southampton, Hants. but that entry shows him as George R. Richardson. That is probably the George Richard Richardson who served in the Durham Light Infantry in WWI, who is shown as having different parents from the George who married Ellen Louisa May Humby in 1920 in Southampton. The father of that George is shown as the son of William Blacket Richardson deceased, a collier, of whom nothing else is known. George was apparently raised in a Salvation Army family who disapproved of his enlisting in the Royal Marines in the First World War. He was demobbed in Portsmouth, Hampshire in 1920 and settled in Southampton. To complicate matters further, the only birth of an Ellen Louisa May Humby we have discovered shows her as being born in South Shields, Co. Durham in 1897, whereas the censuses show her birth as in Southampton, Hants.

A George Edward Blackett Richardson, the (presumably illegitimate) son of Jane Richardson, was baptised in 1868 in Whickham, Co. Durham, but nothing more is known about him.

Out of all the family lines connected to the Blacketts that we have encountered, that of the Mitford/Midford family is one of the most complex and enigmatic. The results of our research outlined below, and the conclusions we have drawn from them, inevitably rely in part on conjecture and we would welcome any further evidence to clarify the precise relationship. In the meantime our conclusions and the nature of the family relationships shown in the tree should be considered tentative and not entirely secure. We have recently (March 2016) discovered a little more about this line, causing us to redraw some of the relationships, though with some hesitation as the evidence, though persuasive, is circumstantial.

1. In 1772 Francis Mitford married Elizabeth Gibson in Astbury, Cheshire. Francis and Elizabeth, who appears to have been nearly 40 years younger than Francis, had already had at least four children born between 1766 and 1771, presumably while the previous wife of Francis, Margaret Yardley, a widow whom he had married in 1761, was still living. Several of Francis’s descendants were given a Christian name of Blackett, and his youngest son, Michael Walter Blackett Mitford was the godson of Sir Walter Blackett (1707-1777), who bequeathed him a legacy of £100 in his will. It seems clear, therefore, that Francis descends from Michael Mitford of Earsdon, Northumberland, the son of Christian Blackett and grandson of Sir William Blackett (1621-1680). Michael Mitford had a son, Francis, who was baptised in Earsdon in January 1700.

2. There has been some confusion over Francis Mitford/Midford of Cheshire. He appears to have been married at least three times and had married his 2nd wife, Margaret Yardley, in the neighbouring hamlet of Swettenham in 1761. The Marriage Allegation and Bond dated 5 May 1761 describes them as Francis Midford, of Cambden [Chipping Campden], Gloucs., gentleman age of forty years and upwards, widower, and Margaret Yardley, of Kermincham in the parish of Swettenham, Chester [i.e. Cheshire], aged twenty five years and upwards, and a widow. (Please see para 4 below for a possible reason why Francis gave his address as Cambden.)

From the approximate ages, it would seem on the face of it that Francis was born in or before 1721. That would make him a son of the elder Francis. However, no suitable baptism around that time has been found for him, (other than the Francis Mitford baptised in 1722 in Hexham, Northumberland, the son of George Mitford. That Francis, a surgeon, seems to have remained in Northumberland and died in Hexham in 1767).

A Francis Midford died in Congleton, near Astbury, Cheshire in 1777. No age is stated, so that could be either Francis senior or junior. No other suitable burial has been found, either in Northumberland, Cheshire, or in London, where it is known that Francis senior was apprenticed in 1716. The absence of both a baptism and a burial thus raises the question of whether there really were two Francis Mitfords. We have now concluded that there was only one, i.e. Francis born 1699/1700. Our conclusion is based on the following:

(i) the suggestion that there was a second Francis born around 1721 relies solely on the wording of the 1761 Marriage Allegation and Bond, i.e. “forty years and upwards”. Unlike the more common “21 years and upwards”, (which had legal significance), a higher age can often be an approximate guide to the age of a party to a marriage, but occasionally in Marriage Licences the age preceding “and upwards” can be far less than the actual age, particularly where the ages of the two parties differ considerably. However, for a differing view on this point please see Fiona Mitford’s excellent research paper by clicking here.
(ii) Margaret Yardley, widow, is stated to be 25 years and upwards but no earlier marriage of a Margaret to a Mr. Yardley has been found in the area. However, in 1754 Margaret Manwaring./Mainwaring, spinster, married George Yardley, widower, in the City of London. Margaret is shown as of Islington parish. George Yardley, believed to be a Citizen and Merchant Taylor of London, died in 1760 in Islington.
(iii) the name of Mainwaring would have been well known to Francis Mitford. Swettenham, where Francis and Margaret married in 1761, is 4 miles from Peover Hall, Over Peover, where Sir Henry Mainwaring (1726-1797), great-great-nephew of Christian Blackett and Robert Mitford, was then living. A branch of the Mainwarings was based near Swettenham, which was their parish church and was where many of them were baptised and buried, and the two branches of the Mainwaring family, being just a short distance apart, would no doubt have visited each other regularly. Francis was the 2nd cousin 1xremoved of Sir Henry Mainwaring, and it would be surprising if he was not well acquainted with the Mainwarings, both of Peover and of Swettenham.
(iv) for Margaret Yardley to have been in Swettenham in 1761, the year after her first husband’s death, infers that she had strong connections with the village. The only suitable baptism we have found is of Margaret, the daughter of James Mainwaring, baptised at Swettenham in 1718. Margaret was not the only Cheshire Mainwaring to have married in and around London, and she seems to have returned to her home village after the death of her first husband. She would, however, have been aged 43, at the 1761 marriage where she is described as a widow of 25 years and upwards. ¹
(v) it seems, therefore, that Francis decided to state younger minimum ages for him and for Margaret (which he was legally entitled to do, because of the wording “and upwards”). Whether he did so because he and Margaret had not told each other their true ages, or for some other reason, can be only speculated at. However, the coincidence of names, family connections, places and dates strongly suggests that it was this Margaret Mainwaring who was the 2nd wife of Francis Mitford. For him to have understated her age so significantly also removes any confidence in his stated minimum age also being approximately correct. The scenario outlined above does rely on conjecture, however, and our conclusions should be treated with caution. However, it does explain the absence of a baptism or burial for a second Francis Mitford.

3. While some doubt must remain over whether there one or two Francis Mitfords, what does seem to be clear is the line of ancestry stretching back from Francis born 1699/1700. However, what is not clear is the connection, if any, between Francis Mitford, who descended from the Mitfords of Seghill, Northumberland, and two other notable branches of the Mitford/Midford family, where circumstantial evidence suggests a possible link. There is, however, more than one possibility.

4. The first of these is the link to the Mitfords of Mitford, Northumberland, a branch that contains several notable descendants including James Smithson, after whom the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. is named, and the “Mitford sisters” (see link to Wikipedia article), who included Diana Freeman-Mitford who married Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists prior to World War II. On his marriage in 1761 Francis Mitford gave his address as Cambden [Chipping Campden], in Gloucestershire, more than 80 miles from the village of Swettenham where the marriage took place, but only a few miles from Batsford Park, the home at the time of Elizabeth Edwards Freeman (nee Reveley), great-granddaughter of Barbara Mitford, a descendant of the Mitfords of Mitford. (Batsford was subsequently bequeathed to the Freeman-Mitfords.) We have found no link between the Mitfords of Mitford and the Seghill line later than the 14th century, (other than the probably unimportant reference outlined in paragraph 7 below). However we have found no other connection between Francis Mitford and the Chipping Campden area to explain his presence there at the time of his marriage in 1761.

5. The circumstantial evidence for the second link is a little stronger, and there are two possible versions of this. At his 1761 marriage Francis Mitford is described as a widower, aged at least 40, but no evidence of his first marriage has been discovered. In a letter dated 14 May 1918 from William Mitford of Toronto, Canada, to Daniel Midford, both descendants of Francis Mitford of Cheshire, William Mitford states that “our great-great grandfather, Francis Mitford” married a Miss Ogle of Kirkley Hall, a sister of the Very Rev. Newton Ogle, Dean of Winchester. Other references to the marriage have been found, though not the Christian name of Miss Ogle. If her marriage was to a descendant of this Mitford line she may have been the first wife of Francis.

6. The possible alternative version stems from the family of the well-known author Mary Russell Mitford, the daughter of Dr. George Midford and Mary Russell. Dr. Midford (who adopted the spelling of “Mitford”²) was widely believed to be related to the wealthy Ogle family of Northumberland, whom he visited with his daughter in 1806. To describe him as a “colourful character” is somewhat of a euphemism. Virginia Woolf in her biography “Flush” states that he, “in conformity with the canons of the Heralds College, chose to spell his name with a t, and thus claimed descent from the Northumberland family of the Mitfords of Bertram Castle…. But the mating of Dr. Mitford’s ancestors had been carried on with such wanton disregard for principles that no bench of judges could have admitted his claim to be well bred or to have allowed him to perpetuate his kind.” (It gets even stronger later on, as Virginia Woolf warms to her theme!) What is known, however, is that he was born in a relatively modest town-house in Hexham, Northumberland, the son of Francis Midford, also a surgeon of Hexham. On completing his medical studies he gained an introduction through Newton Ogle to his future wife, Mary Russell, who was 10 years his senior and descended from the family of the Dukes of Bedford. His wife brought to the marriage a not insubstantial inheritance which George Mitford subsequently squandered, as he did a further £20,000 won on the Irish lottery in 1797, when his daughter picked the winning numbers. (Eventually her only remaining possession bought out of these winnings was a Wedgwood dinner service bearing the Mitford crest – please see paragraph 8 below.) He was constantly running into debt throughout most of his life and spent time in a debtors’ prison.

7. Given his character, or lack of it, it might be supposed that George Midford invented his family links with the Ogles, as well as his Mitford ancestry, but they seem to have been credible enough, at least to his daughter. In Mary Russell Mitford’s account of how her parents met she states: “Dr. Ogle, Dean of Winchester, was related to the Mitfords, as relationships go in Northumberland, and having been an intimate friend of my maternal grandfather, had no small share in bringing about the marriage between his young cousin and the orphan heiress.” George Midford seems to have been a child of the 1756 marriage of his father Francis to Jane Graham, and if Francis had had a previous marriage to Dr.Ogle’s sister, George would have been Dr. Ogle’s step-nephew. The use of the word “cousin” in those circumstances would perhaps have been a little unusual, but Mary Russell Mitford clearly believed there to be a close family relationship between her father and Dr. Ogle. The truth of this is supported by the 1806 visit to the Ogles, copious details of which are contained in her diaries. Although Mary Russell Mitford and her father saw much of her father’s cousin Lady Alicia Aynesley (nee Alicia Midford), who also had Ogles in her ancestry, their companion and host for most of the extended visit was Nathaniel Ogle³ , eldest son of Dr. Ogle, who had died two years previously, and they met other members of the extended Ogle family. Nathaniel remained a close friend of George Midford after the visit. (In her account of the Northumberland visit, Mary Russell Mitford does briefly mention refusing a dance to “my cousin Mitford of Mitford” at a ball at Alnwick Castle, but the reference to “cousin” may mean no more than that there was an assumed, though undefined, family link with that branch of the family.) This version of the relationship between the Mitfords and the Ogles is supported by Burke’s Commoners, (though the usual care should be taken in relying on that publication, which Oscar Wilde described as “the greatest piece of fiction in the English language”). More importantly, George Midford’s grandfather, George Mitford (1694-1750), yet another surgeon of Hexham, by his will devised lands in Kirkley to his wife for life. As mentioned above, the Miss Ogle who married Francis Mitford was of Kirkley Hall. Interestingly, this George Mitford is almost certainly the “George Midford of the Towne and County of Newcastle upon Tyne Barber Chyrugion [surgeon]” who was left a legacy of £5 “for a token” in the will dated 17 March 1711/2 of Robert Mitford of Seghill (1645-1713), the husband of the Christian Blackett mentioned in paragraph 1 above.

8. There is one more piece of evidence linking the family of the Seghill Mitfords (i.e. the descendants of Robert Mitford and Christian Blackett) to the family of Mary Russel Mitford. A plate believed to be a part of the Wedgwood dinner service bought out of Dr. George Midford’s lottery winnings (see paragraph 6 above) is still held by a descendant of the Seghill Mitfords living in Canada.

9. As indicated in paragraph 3 above the line of descent from the Blacketts and the Mitfords of Seghill appears secure. It follows therefore that for the 1918 letter mentioned in paragraph 5 to be correct, i.e. that the Francis Mitford who was a descendant of the Blacketts was the same Francis Mitford who married Miss Ogle, the line of ancestry back from Mary Russell Mitford must at some point join up with the Seghill line. No evidence to support that has been found. It seems clear that Mary Russell Mitford’s grandfather was Francis Mitford (1722-1768), a surgeon of Hexham, and that his father was the George Mitford, also of Hexham, the barber surgeon mentioned in paragraph 7. (This George was also the grandfather of Lady Alicia Ayneseley, Mary Russell Mitford’s 1st cousin 1xremoved, who accompanied her on the 1806 visit to Northumberland. George was also the father of Catherine Fenwick, who was widely known at the time as Mary Russell Mitford’s aunt, though she was in fact her great-aunt.) Several sources show this line of Hexham surgeons as descending from the Mitfords of Tyne Mills, Hexham. It is however possible that George senior did not descend from the Tyne Mills Mitfords, but was an estranged son, or possibly a grandson, of Robert Mitford and Christian Blackett (perhaps explaining the token legacy of £5 left to him in Robert’s will, as mentioned in paragraph 7 above). We have not had the courage to show this possible connection in the tree, nor a post-medieval connection, if any, between the Seghill and/or the Hexham Mitfords to the Mitfords of Mitford, pending further evidence emerging. Moreover, although it is our belief that there is a relatively close link between the Francis Mitford who married Miss Ogle of Kirkley and the family of Mary Russell Mitford, we have not shown this link, particularly as it is not known for sure which Miss Ogle married Francis Mitford, nor which Francis it was, i.e. Francis of Earsdon or Francis of Hexham.

If you have followed the tortuous logic above without losing the will to live and can shed any further light on these complex relationships please contact us. We are grateful to Nick Mills and Fiona Mitford, whose knowledge of the Mitford family is far more extensive than ours, for supplying us with information. The research on which the more recent conclusions this article are based is, however, our own and any mistakes can be laid at our door and not theirs.

¹ There is another possible Margaret Manwaring. i.e. Margaret born 21 Feb 1730 and baptised 7 Mar 1730 in neighbouring (to Islington) Bloomsbury, the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Manwaring. However, the Swettenham connection remains more persuasive.

² The spelling of Mitford/Midford seems to have been interchangeable over many generations. As far as possible we have tried to follow the spelling shown in baptismal records.

³ Nathaniel Ogle was the brother-in-law of the playwright and poet Sheridan and had also been acquainted during his army service with the poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge (see also the reference to Coleridge on the Sockburn Hall page).

In 1787 John Blackett married Mary Hutchinson in Ponteland, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland. At least five of their children were baptised there. Most of their descendants remained in the Newcastle area but their grandson John Blackett, a shoemaker, moved to the USA. John’s daughter Ann married Peter Ditchburn Sherwin in 1871/2 and many of their descendants were born in Pennsylvania.

For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Mary Hutchinson please click here.

In 1858 William Alexander Blackett married Margaret Madden in Victoria, Australia. They had at least 9 children in Victoria before moving to Tasmania around 1877/78 where a further four children were born. William’s marriage record shows him as being born in Germany, the son of Alexander Hal Blackett, a sailor, and Mary Jane. The 1876 birth record of his son Francis Arthur Blackett, however, shows his place of birth as Montreal, Lower Canada. It is not clear which, if any, of these entries is correct, nor is anything further known of Alexander Hal Blackett.

For a descendancy chart of William Alexander Blackett and Margaret Madden please click here.

No connection has been found between William Alexander Blackett and the family of James Blackett of Ballarat, Victoria. For a descendancy chart of this James Blackett click here.

John Alexander Blackett was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne around 1830. No baptism for him has been found but his marriage entry shows his father as William, a blacksmith.

On his marriage in 1853 and at the baptisms of his children he was shown merely as John Blackett, but at his death in 1880 was shown as John Alexander Blackett, and his youngest son was christened James Alexander Blackett in 1864. Since James died when he was a few months old this could have prompted his father to adopt the middle name of Alexander. John’s son, William Fenton Blackett also gave the middle name of Alexander to two of his sons by his first marriage.

John, a tailor, married Grace (nee) Petty in 1853 in Bradford, Yorkshire, where his 9 children were born. He died there in 1880.

For a descendancy chart of John and Grace Blackett please click here.

Michael Blackett was buried in Hamsterley, Co. Durham on 12 Sep 1724. He was a lawyer and seems to have been married five times. Administration to his estate was granted to his widow, Elizabeth “of Southside Parish of Hamsterley” in 1724. He is probably the Michael Blackett who appears in the Hearth Tax Rolls in 1666 and in the Halmote Court Surrenders (mainly of copyholds in Cockerton and Evenwood) 1669-1709 and in Licences to demise, mainly covering Darlington, Newbottle and Wolsingham 1677-1706, and possibly one covering Lynesack and Softley dated 1718, though this may relate to his son Michael, who was also a lawyer.

Although the tree covering the line of descent from Michael can be linked to the main Blackett tree through a marriage of a descendant, no baptismal record has been found for him, and his relationship to the other Blacketts living in and around Hamsterley at the time has not been established. For a descendancy chart of Michael Blackett please click here.

The connection has now been established with a larger line of Blacketts (please see Blacketts of Yorkshire and Michigan USA).

In 1768 Thomas Blackett married Ann Rowland in Hexham, Northumberland. Their son John had at least five sons: James (formerly held as a separate tree), John (who was the father of Hudson Blackburn Blackett, also formerly held as a separate tree), George, Thomas and William. William moved to Liverpool, Lancashire, but some of his descendants eventually settled in County Durham. We have not so far discovered a baptism for Thomas senior.

For a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett and Ann Rowland please click here.

In 1786 Frances Blackett was baptised in South Shields, Co. Durham, the daughter of William Blackett and Ann, who had at least two more children baptised in South Shields. Frances married Roger Mould in Bishopwearmouth in 1802 and their descendants remained largely in the South Shields area. We have not identified the William Blackett in question. For a descendancy chart of him and Ann please click here.

The relationship, if any, between that William and John Blackett, who was baptised in neighbouring Heworth in 1742, has not been discovered. John was a son of the second marriage of John Blackett to Margaret Morrow in 1740, and married Mary Mayors in Jarrow in 1775. His descendants settled in South Shields.

For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Mary Mayors please click here.

In 1818 Catherine Blackett was born in South Shields, the daughter of Thomas, a mariner, and Mary. We have not yet been able to identify either Thomas or Mary. For a descendancy chart of Thomas Blackett please click here.

In 1605 Robert Blackett married Elizabeth Jackson in Chester-le-Street, Co. Durham. At the baptism of their daughter Isabell in 1606 Robert is shown as of Urpeth (a village a little north of Chester-le-Street). Between 1607 and 1614 four children of George Blackett, also described as of Urpeth, were baptised at Chester-le-Street. It seems likely therefore that Robert and George were brothers, though their parents have not been established. Some of George’s descendants remained in Chester-le-Street for several generations, though one branch, descending from George’s son Francis, eventually settled in Durham City.

For a descendancy chart of the unknown Blackett believed to be the father of Robert and George please click here.

In 1784 John Blackett was born in Hilton and baptised in Staindrop, Co. Durham. The marriage of his parents, John Blackett (1738-1822) and Anne (died 1793) has not been identified, but John senior was almost certainly the son of Christopher Blackett and Mary Davison, who married at Bishop Middleham in 1735. Christopher and Mary then moved to Embleton, North Biddick and Chester-le-Street, and had at least seven children. John senior and Ann also had three elder daughters, Ann, Mary and Jane, before moving from Winston to the neighbouring parish of Staindrop. Ann died in February 1793 and in September of that year John senior married again, to Eleanor Thirkell. The family was by this time based at Hilton, about two miles east of Staindrop, and at least four children of John and Eleanor were born there.

Christopher Blackett, the father of John senior died at Rickleton Engine, Washington in 1786 but his parents have not been identified. This branch of the family is connected to the main Blackett tree through a marriage of a descendant. For a descendancy chart of Christopher Blackett and Mary Davison please click here.

In 1836 Elizabeth Blackett of Hilton married William Sutton at Staindrop. She is shown in censuses as being born at Barnard Castle around 1812 but no baptism has been found for her and it seems likely that she was the illegitimate daughter of John Blackett or another member of this family. Elizabeth and her descendants form part of the Main Tree due to later marriages, but for a descendancy chart of her please click here.

In 1763 John Blackett, a smith, and Mary Fatkin married in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. They had at least eight children who remained in the Newcastle and Longbenton area. It is not clear whether this John Blackett was born in Newcastle or whether he had moved there from elsewhere in Northumberland or the neighbouring counties.

For a descendancy chart of John Blackett and Mary Fatkin please click here.

In 1742 Edward Blackett married Jane Bell in Brancepeth, Co. Durham. The couple had at least six children born in Brancepeth between 1743 and 1752 but had moved to nearby Cornsay, Lanchester by the time of their deaths. A baptism for Edward Blackett has not yet been identified. It is possible that Edward, a yeoman at his death, descends from Richard Blackett, who died at Lanchester in 1676. This is supported by the fact that in 1645 lands and tenements called Stobilee, close to Lanchester, were let to Henry Blackett, possibly the Henry Blackett (1606-1676) of Witton Castle, who was Richard’s father. However no proof of a line of descent down to Edward has been found.

For a descendancy chart of Edward Blackett and Jane Bell please click here.

Martha Blackett is believed to have married Henry Haigh some time before 1711. The couple had at least six children baptized between 1711 and 1723 in the villages of Ovenden and Elland, near Halifax, Yorkshire and their son Rev. Joseph Haigh (1714-1795) named one of his sons William Blackett Haigh (1767-1846). The name was also given to several later descendants.

A baptism for Martha Blackett has not been discovered, though she is believed to have died at Rishworth, near Stainland, Yorkshire and been buried at St. Mary’s Church, Elland, Yorkshire on 18 April 1738. Henry also died at Stainland. The assumption that Martha’s maiden name was Blackett is, however, tenuous.

Branches of her descendants settled in Lancashire and some in Texas, USA.

For a descendancy chart of Martha Blackett and Henry Haigh please click here.

John Blackett, a miner, probably born around 1830, appears in the 1861 and 1871 censuses with his family. In those censuses his place of birth is shown as Darlington, Co. Durham. In the 1881 and 1891 censuses, however, his place of birth is shown as Crook, about 16 miles to the north-west. He died in 1894 at Chester Moor, Chester-le-Street, aged 62.

No baptism around the relevant time has been found for this John Blackett in either Crook or Darlington and John has not been found in the 1841 and 1851 censuses.

For a descendancy chart of John Blackett please click here.

The John Blackett who married Margaret Robson is now believed to be one and the same as John Blackett, the son of William Blackett and Elizabeth Gowland, who was baptized at Stanhope in 1754, the only John Blackett baptized there around that time. John also had an illegitimate son, Michael Blackett, baptized at Stanhope in 1780, and presumably later moved north to Northumberland. He now forms part of the Main Blackett tree.

At least one family of Blacketts lived in Buckinghamshire from the late 1400s in and around Bicester and Aylesbury and surrounding villages until at least the late 18th century. This line may descend from William Blaket, a miller, of Bicester, who was a defendant in the Court of Common Pleas in 1489 and 1490. However, we have not yet established a line of descent through parish records, so this line should be treated with care. The connection, if any, with the Blacketts of north-east England or other branches of the family has not yet been established. At least one of these Blacketts, John Blackett, the son of Richard Blackett, yeoman of Aston Sandford, was apprenticed to a London vintner on 6 Mar 1637/8. It is not clear whether he remained in London, however.

For a descendancy chart of William Blackett/Blaket of Bicester, Oxon. please click here.

The ancestry of Joseph Edwin Blackett has now been established. This tree has now forms part of the descendants of John Blackett and Julia Bellas as shown in the 3rd paragraph of West of the Pennines and Barbados.