Richard SKRINE [16539]

  General Notes:

Richard Skrine
Baptism Date: 3 Apr 1691
Baptism Place: Saint Paul Covent Garden,Westminster,London,England
Father: John Skrine
Mother: Elizabeth
FHL Film Number: 845241

Richard Skrine
Record Type: Marriage
Marriage Date: 24 Jul 1718
Marriage Place: St Anne and St Agnes, City of London, London, England
Spouse: Elizabeth Christmas of Cobham SRY
Register Type: Parish Register

Richard Skrine
Event Type: Burial
Burial Date: 5 Jan 1737
Burial Place: Cobham, St Andrew, Surrey, England

Will Proved 13 Jan 1737
Richard Skrine of Bathford
By his executor, heiress and relict Elizabeth Skrine.

Skrine of Warleigh
Chapter 3-B
The Skrines of Warleigh Manor
Richard Skrine, of Warley Manor, co. Somerset, gentleman, only son and heir, was matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, 29th October 1706, aged 15 years; and later he was a student of the Middle Temple. He proved his father's Will (under a power reserved) 9th April 1712, being then aged 21; and his mother's Will 29th January 1714, being then aged 22. He was, therefore, born between 30th January and 8th April 1691.
He was twice married; and died 29th December 1737 at the age of 46, leaving a son and heir, Richard Dickson Skrine, by his second wife. His Will is dated 7th August 1734, and was proved (P.C.C. 20 Brodrepp) 13th February 1737-8 by his widow Elizabeth. It is a very short and simple document leaving everything to his wife, whom he appoints sole executrix. His son was still only 18 years old at his death.
A letter from Charles Huntley Skrine (b. 24th October 1848, d. December 1924, son of the Rev. Clarmont Skrine) to his uncle H.D.S., written from 61, Chandos Street, Strand, W.C., 7th November 1893, contains the following interesting observation: "In an old-fashioned hostelry in Southampton Row called the Red Lion there is an old newspaper framed on the wall in which I read: "The London Evening Post, No. 1580. From Thursday December 29th to Saturday December 31st 1737. On Thursday night died at his Lodgings in the Old Baily, Richard Skrene Esqr. of Warley near Bath in Somersetshire; a Gentleman of known Honour and Integrity, and greatly lamented by all who had the Happiness of knowing him."'
Ref: http://www.jimvallance.com/02-family-folder/skrine-family-folder/ainley-walker-book/skrine-book-03.2-chptr-3-b.html

  Research Notes:

This history is completely unverified.

Skrine of Warleigh
CHAPTER 3-B
The Skrines of Warleigh Manor

The facts have recently been made plain by the kindness of the Rev. Henry G. Downing Liveing.

Richard Downing, second husband of Elizabeth Dickson, appears to have been the son of Captain Downing of the Guards, of whom mention is made in Pepys' Diary under the years 1666 and 1667.

Their son, Dickson Downing, b. 1701, and bur. 6 July 1745, m. Bridget Baldwin, and had, with other issue, a s. George Downing, bapt.1727. George Downing became Prebendary of Ely, 1779; his wife was Catherine Chambers (d. 1802), daughter of Nathaniel Chambers of Grey's Inn, - barrister-at-law, belonging to a family of Kendal. George Downing, barrister-at-law, s. of the Rev. George Downing was b. 1762 and d. 1800. His wife was Mary Alston, b. 1761 and d. 1842. Catherine Mary Downing, da. of the above, b. 1798 and d. 1872, married in 1821 Edward Liveing, surgeon, of Nayland, co. Suffolk, b. 1786 and d. 1843. They had a numerous family of which the sons were Professor George Downing Liveing, President of St. John's College, Cambridge, who died without issue; Edward Liveing, M.D., F,RX.P., Physician to King's College Hospital and Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians, who had issue the Rev. Henry George Downing Liveing with two other sons and two daughters; and Robert Liveing, Esqr.

RICHARD SKRINE, of Warley Manor, co. Somerset, gentleman, only son and heir, was matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, 29th October 1706, aged 15 years; and later he was a student of the Middle Temple. He proved his father's Will (under a power reserved) 9th April 1712, being then aged 21; and his mother's Will 29th January 1714, being then aged 22. He was, therefore, born between 30th January and 8th April 1691.

He was twice married; and died 29th December 1737 at the age of 46, leaving a son and heir, Richard Dickson Skrine, by his second wife. His Will is dated 7th August 1734, and was proved (P.C.C. 20 Brodrepp) 13th February 1737-8 by his widow Elizabeth. It is a very short and simple document leaving everything to his wife, whom he appoints sole executrix. His son was still only 18 years old at his death.

A letter from Charles Huntley Skrine (b. 24th October 1848, d. December 1924, son of the Rev. Clarmont Skrine) to his uncle H.D.S., written from 61, Chandos Street, Strand, W.C., 7th November 1893, contains the following interesting observation: "In an old-fashioned hostelry in Southampton Row called the Red Lion there is an old newspaper framed on the wall in which I read: "The London Evening Post, No. 1580. From Thursday December 29th to Saturday December 31st 1737. On Thursday night died at his Lodgings in the Old Baily, Richard Skrene Esqr. of Warley near Bath in Somersetshire; a Gentleman of known Honour and Integrity, and greatly lamented by all who had the Happiness of knowing him."'

Richard Skrine married firstly; Anne, daughter of Peter Delmas, Esqr., of Welwyn, and Catharine his wife, who died 18th June 1713 in her 25th year. There is an inscription to her memory in Digswell Church, near Welwyn, Herts. By her he had a daughter, Anne, about whom the following facts have been ascertained.

She was the only child of Richard Skrine's first marriage. She married John Barlow, and is mentioned, under Barlow of Slebetch, in an English Baronetage printed in 1741 (vol. iv, 617). John Barlow, who came of a family of active cavaliers, "was advanced to the dignity of a baronet, 29 Car. II ... His second wife was Catherine, daughter to Christopher Middleton, of Middleton-hall, in Carmarthenshire, Esq: by whom he had issue: (1) Sir George, his successor; (2) John, who married twice, first, Anne, daughter to Simon, lord viscount Harcourt, lord-chancellor of Great Britain, by whom he had a son, George; secondly, Anne, daughter of Richard Skrine, of Warley, in Somersetshire, Esq: (by whom he left a daughter, Anne), and died Nov. 1739".

Richard married secondly; Elizabeth, widow of Gainsford Christmas, Esqr., only daughter and heir of the Rev. William Weston, rector of Cobham, co. Surrey, by Elizabeth, née Lowfield, his second wife. Her settlement before marriage is dated 23rd July 1718 (see Chapter VI).

The name Gainsford Christmas recalls an interesting entry in the Verney Letters (1930), vol. i, p. 43, in a letter, 18th July 1699, from Nancy Nicholas to Sir J. V. as follows:

"Cousin Betty Gainsford that married herself to one Mr. Christmas, a Minister at Aching Aby, near Sir Hugh Stukeley's, is now come to the paternal estate of her father in Surrey, 'tis called Crohurst Place."

Mr. Gainsford Christmas was probably the son of this marriage.

The Westons of Surrey were an important family about whom information will be found in Chapter VI; but the following extracts may conveniently be introduced here.

In the Victoria County History of Surrey may be found the following statement regarding the advowson and rectory of Cobham:

"In 1549 it (the advowson) was leased to William Fountayn and Richard Moyn; and in 1558 granted to William Hammond, who presented in April 1558. He conveyed it ultimately to James Sutton, who died 1594. His son James presented in 1615. According to Manning and Bray his son James settled the rectory on his marriage with Catherine Inwood in 1622. Their only surviving
child Catherine married first her cousin, Sir William Inwood; and secondly the Rev. William Weston on whom she settled the rectory, and died 1692. Her (sic) only child Elizabeth married Mr. (Richard) Skrine, and alienated part of the rectory, but on her death left the rest with the advowson to her first cousin Henry Weston of West Horsley."

Note - Elizabeth Skrine was only child of the Rev. William Weston; but was the daughter of his second wife Elizabeth, née Lowfield, and not of his first wife as above stated. (See E. W. Brayley's Surrey, vol. ii, p. 81, and contemporary documents.)

Thomas Allen's History of Surrey says of the advowson that "it descended to Mrs. Weston, widow of William Weston, and Mr. and Mrs. (Richard) Skrine, who in 1720 conveyed that part of the rectory which is in Downside, with some exceptions, to Mr. John Hall."

In the MS. Catalogue of Deeds at the Library of the Surrey Archeological Society at Guildford is a "Lease for a year, 11th May 1730, Elizabeth Weston of Cobham, widow, and Richard Skrine of Warley, co. Somerset, and the Hon. James Fox of East Horseley".

In the Calendar of Surrey Deeds at the Minet Public Library, Camberwell, No. 2608 (1759): Details of rents of properties in Chertsey and Church Cobham sold by Mrs. Skrine to Henry Weston. The date shows that she survived her husband for many years; but the precise date of her death has not yet been ascertained.

The last of the Cobham property, the house known as Pyports, was eventually sold by Mrs. Skrine's grandson, Henry Skrine, who had resided there for some time.

RICHARD DICKSON SKRINE, of Warley Manor, co, Somerset, of Belmont, Bath, and of Pyports, Cobham, co. Surrey, Esqr., J.P., only son and heir, was born 19th May 1719, and dying 9th February 1791, at the age of 71, was buried at Bathford. According to the account left by his grandson, Henry Skrine, he was educated in London. It appears that he had a house in Belmont, Bath, where he frequently resided.

He married by licence 7th April, 1752, in Bath Abbey Church, Elizabeth, only surviving child and heir of John Tryon of Collyweston, co. Northants., eldest son of Samuel Tryon of Collyweston. She survived her husband for several years, dying 25th May 1800, aged 74. She was buried at Lymington, co. Hants, where she and her daughter Elizabeth had for some time resided.

On the wall of the north aisle of Lymington church is a mural tablet, erected by her son Henry, and bearing the following inscription :

"To the memory of Elizabeth Skrine widow of Richard Dickson Skrine of Warley in Somerset: daughter and heiress of John Tryon of Collyweston in Northamptonshire: died at this place May 25, 1800, aged 74."

"Elizabeth Skrine her daughter, full of grief for her loss, soon followed her mother to the grave - dying June 13, 1800, aged 33."

"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided."

"This stone is erected to their memory by an afflicted son and brother."

There were three children of the marriage:
1. Henry Skrine, son and heir.

2. Sarah, who was married at Bathford church, 13th September 1777, to Robert Still, Esqr., of Mere, co. Wilts, a descendant of Bishop Still, the witnesses in the register being her father and her brother. In the church at Mere there is a hatchment bearing the arms of Still impaling those of Skrine; and there are also Still monuments.

3. Elizabeth, spinster.

It is a point of interest that when the son Henry was matriculated at Christ Church in 1774, his father, Richard Dickson was described as of Cobham, Surrey, and not as of Warley. It is probable, therefore, that Pyports House, which had come into the family by the Weston marriage a generation earlier, and may still be seen to be a place of some importance by the visitor to Cobham, was the principal place of residence of the family at this period. This fact, together with that of the house in Belmont, Bath, helps to explain how the old Manor House at Warleigh came to be allowed to fall into decay, especially as we shall see that in the next generation Henry Skrine can hardly have lived there at all.

Richard Dickson Skrine's Will is dated 5th February 1780, and was proved 1st April 1791 (P.C.C. 196 Bevor). It is a long and somewhat complicated document with much cancelling and interlineation, so that when it was proved, Henry Skrine, heir and executor, and Thomas Lockwood of the parish of St. Mary-le-Bow, Middlesex, Esqr., had to appear (2nd April 1791) to take oath and swear to the writing of the testator. Besides his wife and children, he mentions his son-in-law Robert Still, a grandson Nathaniel Tryon Still, his worthy relation St. George Molesworth, his worthy cousin William Lowfield, Esqr., his worthy friend and trustee John Forbes of Aldermanbury, his godson Lawrence Porter, Esqr., his old friend Ann Cottle, and his worthy friend Mary Barnard.

St. George Molesworth and John Forbes are made trustees for his daughter Elizabeth; and reference is made to the leasehold estate of Fishery House, Ferry Fishery, bought of Lord Webb Seymour for three lives. There are one or two references to losses owing to the bankruptcy of "poor Mr. Bate", on which, however, 16s. in the pound has already been recovered. Under date 13th January 1790 he mentions having purchased tontines of £100 each for his daughter Elizabeth, his grandson Nathaniel Tryon Still, and his grandson Henry Skrine. His directions about his burial are precise and detailed: he is to be buried in a little vault to be built in Bathford churchyard in the east part, against Mr. Tyndale's wall of his field about midway between the corner and the hill going to Mr. Chapman's farm. Over the vault is to be erected a tomb of Portland stone, which is to be surrounded with the door and iron rails which are in the Parkhouse.

HENRY SKRINE of Warley Manor, co. Somerset; of Dany Park, Crickhowell, co. Brecon; and of Pyports, Cobham, co. Surrey, Esqr., L.L.B., educated at Winchester College, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, 24th January 1774, aged 18 years; B.C.L. 1781; barrister-at-law of Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, called to the Bar 1782. He was High Sheriff for co. Brecon in 1795. He died 27th February 1803 at the age of 47, and was buried at Walton-on-Thames, co. Surrey: M.I.

He married firstly, 14th March 1787, Marianne elder daughter of John Chalié, Esqr., of Mincing Lane, London, and Wimbledon, Surrey, by his wife Susanna daughter of Matthew Clarmont, Esqr. (twice Governor of the Bank of England). She was born 26th July 1767; and died at Warley in April 1788, three months after the birth of her son Henry. She was buried at Bathford parish church - Mural Tablet (there is a family tradition that Henry Skrine himself composed the following inscription, still to be seen in Bathford Church on this tablet erected by him in memory of his wife, Marianne: "Conjugi nunquam futis plorandae Hoe, inane licet, tamen ultimum Amoris confecerat officium, Anno nuptiarum vix exacto Maritus heu! Superstes. MDCCLXXXVIII").

He married secondly, 26th April 1790, at St. George's, Hanover Square, Letitia Sarah Maria daughter and heir of John Harcourt, Esqr., of Dany Park, Llangattock, co. Brecon, by his wife Letitia Sarah Maria daughter of Charles Milborne, Esqr., of Wonastow Court, co. Monmouth. She was born at Wonastow Court 20th September 1762, and dying 24th January 1813, aged 50, was buried at Walton-on-Thames, having had issue two sons and five daughters (see Harcourt Skrines, below).

Henry Skrine is sometimes referred to as "the tourist" or "the topographer", since one of his favourite occupations was in making and describing long tours. In the Dictionary of National Biography (vol. 52, p. 359) he is described as having chiefly spent his time in travelling through Great Britain, and in recording his experiences. It is there stated that "the records of his expedition to the north of Scotland in 1793 are of especial interest, for at that period the country was little known". His published works were: (1) Three Tours in the North of England and in Scotland; London 1795, 4to, (2) Two Tours through Wales; London 1798, 8vo, 2nd edition 1812, and (3) Rivers of Note in Great Britain; London 1801, 8vo (c.p. the Gentleman's Magazine, 1803, vol. i, p. 382).

The following extracts of earlier date from his private French Journals are of interest :

Journal, September 1788.

Versailles: I happened to be there on a Sunday, when the Royal family were visible to the public, and the State Apartments being all thrown open, I had an opportunity of seeing the King and Queen pass through them to their separate Masses in the Chapel.

His Majesty was attended by his two brothers, Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois, and did not exhibit any of those Royal traits with which fancy is apt to grace her Monarchs, his figure being mean and uninteresting, his manners awkward in the extreme, and the marks of last night's ebriety being still visible in his countenance.

The Queen was accompanied by Mme. and Mme. Elizabeth, and amply made up for her consort's want of dignity in the state and hauteur of her deportment. Her air and figure were majestic and commanding, and her countenance betrayed all the pride of the Austrian Family, with all the beauty which should adorn the daughter of Maria Theresa. Odious to the people by her interference in politicks, she repays them scorn for scorn, and her public exhibition of contempt and hate towards the French nation displayed the finest pantomine I was ever witness to. All this was repeated in the course of their dinner, to which the public are admitted as spectators, and thus the folly of Louis XVI and the pride of his Queen are once every week exposed to the eyes of their subjects.

The Trianons: They were both ill-kept, and seemed somewhat neglected. The new front of the great palace appeared to much advantage as we returned to it by the Grand Avenue, and I could not help wishing for the magic of a Brown to level those terraces and demolish those parterres which fettered the genius of the place, and restrained the imagination of every Beholder.

Journal, September 1789.

In the midst of these calamitous scenes I arrived at Versailles, where through the obliging address of one of the Deputies, to whom I was recommended, in spite of the late prohibitions against the admission of strangers, under the Presidency of the Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre, I took my seat disguised as one of the Members of the Assemblée Nationale, and perhaps was the only Englishman who gave two regular votes as a constituent of the Legislature of France.

The debate happened to be important, being no other than the memorable discussion of the King's refusal to sanction the Decrees of 4th August, which produced the peremptory address that He had not sufficient firmness to resist.

Mirabeau, Mounier, Lally Tallendal, and all the principal orators with whose style I was familiar by anticipation, seemed to exert their utmost powers, yet the deficiency appeared greater than the Infancy of the Assembly, or the hasty manner in which it was constituted would warrant. The confusion was extreme, and in vain did the President apply to the bell with which he was armed, to produce order; a thousand tongues were heard at once, and indecent torrents of applause or censure drowned the voices of the speakers. But the most serious evil appeared to be a spirit of discord which prevailed in the Assembly, and seemed fomented from without; various and clashing interests either provoking an open contest, or privately trying to undermine the fabric, while the public opinion, wavering and uncertain, seemed hardly satisfied with the exertion of its Agents.

The two visits to France during which these Journals were written took place after the death of Henry Skrine's first wife Marianne, whose son was born at Warleigh. But where he resided during his first marriage, and whether he ever actually practised at the Bar has not as yet been ascertained. He appears to have had a house in Green Street, Grosvenor Square, at one period, and there the eldest son of his second family was born.

After his second marriage he resided a good deal at Dany Park, Brecon, which his wife inherited, and he was High Sheriff of Brecon in 1795. On his father's death in 1791 Warley Manor became available; but we do not know the date at which his mother and sister retired to Lymington, and probably the old house was by this time not an attractive place of residence.

Subsequently he made his country home at Pyports House, Cobham, Surrey, where he's still remembered as Mr. Skrine, "the tourist." This house he presently sold, and moved to Walton-on-Thames where his two youngest daughters were born in 1797 and 1799 respectively; and there he died in 1803.

In Thomas Allen's History of Surrey, under Cobham, it is stated that "Mr. Skrine, the tourist, had a house (Pyports) near the church which he sold to Mr. Freeland, to whose descendant it now (1830) belongs". Pyports House is just opposite "the shingled spire of Cobham" which Mr. Skrine referred to in his Rivers of Great Britain.

In the church at Walton-on-Thames, over the vestry door, is a curious and interesting mural monument to Henry Skrine, which is mentioned in Shoberl's "Description of Surrey", circa 1812, and more, fully described in E. W. Brayley's "Topographical History of Surrey" (vol. 2, p. 327), "A small pyramidal tablet of white marble, placed over the vestry door, records the memory of Henry Skrine, esq., L.L.B., of Warley in Somersetshire, who died at Walton on the 27th of February, 1803, aged forty-seven, and was buried near the south porch in the churchyard. Below the inscription is a bas-relief of a large oak overshadowing (or skrine-ing, i.e. screening; c.p. the family motto, Tutamen) some younger trees, two or three of which are divested of foliage, which are said to refer to some deceased members of his family. His widow, Letitia Sarah Maria, daughter of Mr. Chalié, an eminent wine-merchant of London (sic: but she was in fact Letitia Harcourt his second wife), died at the age of fifty, on the 24th of January 1813, and was interred near the remains of her husband." The tablet is by J. Bacon, junr., of London.

In such scattered records as can be recovered Henry Skrine appears to us as a man of culture and of literary tastes; and one with wide and varied interests in the world at large, who took delight in travelling and in describing what he saw; one, too, who possessed that gift for friendship which goes so far to make life easy and comfortable. His books are full of references to friends and "aimiable" persons, some of whom are readily to be identified. At one period he seems to have been specially intimate with his "aimiable relation" Mr. Lockwood of Hall House, Hambledon, with whom the connection was through the family of his Weston grand-parents. In his Rivers of Great Britain, he writes:
"I must break the thread of my description here, to speak in grateful remembrance, with a merited degree of enthusiasm, of the friendly and hospitable reception I for many years found at the Hall-house of Hambledon (on Thames), then occupied by my aimiable relation Mr. Lockwood, when it was constantly the seat of cheerfulness and good-humour, dispensing to a numerous family and assemblage of friends all the choicest blessings of society."

Again: "the classic ground of Hall-Barn, the old seat of the Waller family" . . . "everything here perpetuates the memory of the poet (Waller)" . "The house also was the seat of hospitality in the life-time of its late worthy owner, Mr. Waller, where, during a long course of years, I experienced the same kindness and attention which I before commemorated at Hambledon, both these neighbouring families being nearly allied, and keeping up the pleasantest intercourse with each other."

The relationship of these families to one another and to Henry Skrine, as well as his, and their connections with a number of others whom he visited in the course of his various tours, can readily be followed in the short Weston pedigree and references inserted for this purpose under WESTON in Chapter VI.

Before leaving this subject, it is appropriate to quote also, from the "Rivers of Great Britain", Henry Skrine's own description of his home at Warleigh and its surroundings (p. 236):

"I must not here let a fear of the imputation of egotism or vanity restrain my noticing the enchanting position of that little territory which became mine by descent, and was eminently improved by the taste and attention bestowed on it by my late most excellent father. Warley is situated on a gentle eminence above the Avon, beneath a rocky hill, thickly cloathed with wood towards its base, and descending almost perpendicularly to the house, so that the public road is obliged to be carried on a shelf above it. The mansion, which is inconveniently irregular in old buildings, with a modem front, looks to the south, commanding a valley of about four miles in length, the boundary of which is an extensive chain of woods descending abruptly from the borders of Wiltshire, and enriched with much magnificent timber. A small, but beautiful lawn, expands towards the river, and fine clumps of oaks and elms mark the various undulations of ground in front of the woods, interspersed with cottages, while the Avon, precipitating itself from a broad basin down a wear in full front, rolls beneath the slope in which the gardens descend. The opposite hill rises still more abruptly, terminating to the north in some bold cliffs above Hampton, which front the ancient camp of Salesbury, impending over Batheaston, and the pleasantly-clumped grounds of Mr. Whittington on the more distant borders of Gloucestershire. About midway in this ascent, immediately overlooking Warley and the river, the pleasing village of Claverton seems to hang suspended, where its large Gothic mansion (renowned in the civil wars) and its little church, with the pyramidal tomb of the late much esteemed Mr. Allen, are striking objects; neither is its parsonage less pleasing, the little grounds of which are laid out in a truly classic taste by the Rev. Mr. Graves, the friend and literary rival of Shenstone, where that worthy veteran closes the placid evening of his days in the retirement he has so happily embellished, deservedly beloved and respected."
proceed to next chapter

CHAPTER 3-C
The Skrines of Warleigh Manor

I t would be an interesting speculation, how much Henry Skrine's own tastes and character owed to that same "worthy veteran" the Rev. Mr. Graves, whose preparatory school at Claverton he attended in his early years. Henry Skrine's Will, (P.C.C. 484 Marriott), is dated at Walton-on Thames, 8th June 1800, witnessed by Thomas D'Oyly, Clerk, William Clement and William Adams, and was proved by his widow and relict, Letitia, with four codicils, 20th May 1803. The executors were the widow, Letitia, Nicholas Ridley of Gray's Inn, and John Calthorpe Gough.

Later (5th July 1825) an administration was granted to the Rev. John Harcourt Skrine, the Will having been left unadministered by the widow Letitia Sarah Maria Skrine.

This Will refers to an earlier Will of 17th May 1790, executed during his father's lifetime, and since superseded and destroyed, (of which the executors had been Nicholas Ridley, Thomas Manners Sutton and John Gough), and to the four codicils, dating from 7th July 1791 onwards, which remain operative. He speaks of "having now (1800) laboured under a state of very painful and often alarming ill-health for near nine years (the issue of which is still uncertain after two vain expeditions in 1799 to Cheltenham and Weymouth)", and says "I now take advantage of every present interval of tranquility to revise, etc.". His anxieties for the welfare of his young second family were increased by his responsibility for a considerable portion of the unnecessarily large dower which his father had promised his elder sister on her marriage, and to which Henry, then a young and quite inexperienced man had subscribed his signature. Besides funded property, of which he gives details, he mentions freehold property in Walcot, Bath, and freehold farms at Dorking and elsewhere in Surrey, in addition to the family estates which, of course, passed to his eldest son, Henry, along with certain personal gifts.

HENRY SKRINE, eldest son and heir (see below).

HARCOURT SKRINES, issue of Henry Skrine and Letitia his second wife.
a. Rev. John Harcourt Skrine, Clerk in Holy Orders, of Teddington, co. Middlesex, born 6 May 1791 at Green Street and baptised at St. Marylebone Church, London. Married 15 August 1815 at Richmond, co. Surrey, to Eleanor, youngest daughter of Henry BALDWIN Esqr. of New Bridge Street, London, and Richmond, Surrey.

Issue:

(1) Rev. Harcourt Skrine, Clerk, Rector of Sunbury-on-Thames, born 3 July 1817 at Hampton, Middlesex, and baptised at Teddington; matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, 27 October 1836, aged 19 years: B.A. 1840, M.A. 1843; died 14 November 1886.

He married Louise, 4th daughter of the Rev. W. GREENLAW, Rector of Woolwich, and gd. da. of Sir Robert BAKER. She died 27 October 1912.

Issue:

(i) Katherine Louisa, spinster, died 24 May 1935 at Northolt, Sunbury on Thames, and there buried.

(ii)Charles Harcourt Skrine, died at sea 1882, s.p.

(iii)Alfred Harcourt Greenlaw Skrine, died 1880, s.p.

(iv)Eleanor Frances of Northolt, Sunbury - on - Thames, spinster.

(v)Mary Mildred, spinster, died 1917.

(2) Charles Henry Skrine, born 28 November 1821 at Teddington; matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, 20 February 1840.

(3)Ellen Maria, born 11 January 1826 at Teddington, spinster.

b. Thomas Henry Skrine, born 30 May 1792; died unmarried at Muttras in Bengal, August 1815.

c. Isabella, born 14 May 1793, and baptised at St. Marylebone, London, died unmarried in 1870.

d. Letitia, born 22 June 1794, and baptised at St. Marylebone, London, died in infancy.

e. Anne, born 18 July 1795, and baptised at St. Marylebone, London, died 28 November 1795, and buried at St. Marylebone.

f. Henrietta, born 20 July 1797, at Walton-on-Thames, and there baptised. Married the Rev. Edward Butler; died without issue 1832.

g. Catherine, born 19 July 1799 at Walton-on-Thames; died there September 1814, and there buried.

HENRY SKRINE, only child and heir of Henry Skrine, Esqr., by his first wife Marianne, of Warleigh Manor, co. Somerset, of Portman Square in the parish of St. Marylebone, and of Stubbings House, co. Berks, Esqr., born 23rd January 1788 at Warleigh Manor; educated at Westminster School; matriculated gentleman-commoner of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 5th December 1804, aged 16 years (as son of Henry Skrine of London, armiger); died in London 10th September 1853, aged 65; and buried 17th September following in the family vault in Stubbings churchyard. Over the vault stands a massive tomb with an inscription, and heraldic carvings displaying the arms of Skrine and Spry. His Will is dated 15th March 1826, and was proved 8th December 1853 in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.

He married 21st January 1812 at Westbury-on-Trym, co. Glos., Caroline Anne, daughter and eventually sole heir of the second marriage of the Rev. Benjamin Spry, Rector of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and Prebendary of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, by Catherine his (second) wife, daughter of the Rev. Richard Huntley of Boxwell Court, co. Glos. She died at Stubbings, 18th July 1867, aged 73, and was there buried on 25th July in the family vault. She bore her husband nine children.

Henry Skrine left a Memoir of his Life for the use of his children, which was found among his papers at his death, and is still preserved. The Memoir is written in a religious and sententious tone, and much of it is concerned with the philosophy of life and conduct, particularly in relation to the upbringing of his children; but parts of it are of considerable interest as family history. The narrative is somewhat sombrely coloured by the writer's own introspections; and by the unfortunate and miserable experiences of his unhappy early life, when owing to his father's remarriage and busy occupations, and later ill health, he was left almost entirely in the hands of his grandparents and aunt, and was in fact very much in the position of an orphan child.

The following account is summarised from the more historical parts of the Memoir.

It begins with his grandfather, Richard Dickson Skrine, who married the heiress of "General" Tryon of Collyweston, co. Northants, and who, he says, had received his education in London, and subsequently lived at Warleigh on a family estate of (then) about 400 valuable acres of land. He was a magistrate, and he had a house in Belmont at Bath as well as the manor house at Warleigh.

Of his father Henry Skrine he says that he was a barrister of Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn (which seems to suggest actual legal practice); and that he married the elder daughter of a thriving wine-merchant in Mincing Lane of the immigrant Huguenot family of Chalié, who had married his first cousin Susanna Clarmont. (Mr. Chalié was, in fact, something more than "a thriving wine-merchant", being a very wealthy man of repute and position; and a friend, for example, of the Prime Minister, Pitt). Matthew Clarmont, the father of Susanna (the Mme. Chalié this narrative), was a man greatly respected in his day, and of such position as to have been elected Governor of the Bank of England for two years in succession. This branch of the family was originally noble in France, from which country the whole connection was driven by that Act of Louis XIV which revoked the Edict of Nantes. John Chalié's home was at Wimbledon, and his two daughters were highly educated and accomplished ladies, the younger of whom married William Garthshore, Esqr., M.P. for Weymouth, seven years after the marriage of her elder sister to Henry Skrine, senior.

The young Henry, whose mother, never recovering from her accouchement, died before he was three months old, and whose father married again two years later, lived alternately with his grandparents at Wimbledon and at Warleigh, until he was six years old. He says that until that date his only times of happiness were at Wimbledon; since at Warleigh his father's unmarried sister, his aunt Elizabeth, used to whip him very severely. Of his aunt Sarah, who had married Mr. Robert Still of Mere, we hear nothing in the Memoir.

At the age of six he was sent to a small private school at Mitcham but his health was not good there, and he was soon removed to the Rev. J. G. Hannington's at Hanwell. Mr. Hannington prepared boys for Eton, and had usually about fourteen pupils, most of whom were sons of the nobility, or of persons in high political or official station. He gives the names of a number of his schoolfellows of the former class, e.g. Lord Dartmouth and his brother, Lord Saltoun and his brother, Lord Beverley's brother, etc. The education provided consisted chiefly in a thorough grounding in the Classics; but the discipline was severe. Mr. Hannington, though a kind-hearted man with gentlemanly feelings, was passionate, "nor could there have been more floggings and beatings". Bullying was rampant too; so that young Henry's six years here were years of misery, except for the happy holidays with his grandmother at Wimbledon. He adds "my father came to see me sometimes; but seldom".

On leaving Mr. Hannington's at the age of twelve, he refused to go to Eton from fear of meeting there the boys who had bullied him so cruelly already. He was, therefore, sent to Westminster "where Mr. Garthshore, a Scotchman in high favour with Mr. Pitt, and a friend of Dr. Vincent (the Headmaster) had great influence". Here he spent

halcyon days and also greatly enjoyed passing some of his holidays with the Garthshores at Weymouth, where his aunt constantly took him out with her into society when he was fourteen years old. But this happy association was broken by Mrs. Garthshore's early death.

Henry's health again became unsatisfactory; so he was taken away from Westminster after only a year and a half, and given a private tutor, who proved to be rather a stern and unsympathetic preceptor. At this period his father died (February 1803); and then in August came the sudden loss of his grandfather, John Chalié, who died of an apoplectic stroke in his city office, where he was discovered in a seizure with his head resting on an open Bible on the table before him. A new disaster was the death of Mrs. Garthshore who, on hearing the news of her father's death, herself succumbed in giving birth to her child. The child quickly followed its mother to the grave, and Air. Garthshore overwhelmed with grief at his loss gradually went out of his mind and became hopelessly insane.

The unfortunate Mme. Chalié, Henry's grandmother, now felt herself to be very much alone in the world; and though her brother-in-law, Matthew Chalié, most kindly gave her all the assistance possible in her business affairs, she began to rely more and more completely on Henry's tutor - a young man of about 24 - who had now taken Holy Orders, and had been brought in to live in the house with his pupil. But Henry, who had at first given him his full youthful confidence, had been repelled by the sternness of his criticism and censure, and his constant disparagement, and withdrew more and more within himself.

After some two years and more of this regime, broken only by a tour of six weeks each summer into the west country and Wales in the company of his tutor, Henry was entered as a gentleman commoner at his tutor's College, Corpus Christi, in December 1804, shortly before his seventeenth birthday. Here he had an allowance of £500 a year, with a horse and a servant.

Following on the death of his father and grandfather two important law-suits had to be undertaken by Mme. Chalié. As the result of the first of these she found that she was entitled to only one half of her husband's fortune, the other half passing in equal shares to Henry and the heirs of the living child that had been born to Mrs. Garthshore. Thus it came about that one fourth of the estate eventually passed into the hands of Mr. Garthshore's cousin, a Mr. Maitland.

The other action had to be fought on Henry's behalf by Mine. Chalié, who was one of his guardians under the Court of Chancery, to recover from his deceased father's estate the £10,000 which bad been his own mother's marriage portion. His step-mother hoped, (as he says), by retaining it to persuade him, when he should come of age, to relinquish this money to her and her children. The suit was, however, decided in Henry's favour.

At Oxford his life was probably agreeable enough at first. He had been admitted as one of the six gentleman-commoners of Corpus in the place of "the late Lord Dudley", who had just gone down, and he seems to have liked his companions. But unfortunately they all left the College during his first year, and were replaced by others some of whom proved less to his liking. Among them was a Mr. Johnson, whose father was a man of property in the Isle of Axholme, with whom and with whose family he maintained his intimacy after leaving Oxford. There was the son of Mr. Gore-Langton, the Member for Somerset, whom he found rather reserved and silent; but whose granddaughter was afterwards to marry Henry's eldest grandson. There was also a Mr. X., the son of a brewer at Windsor, and heir to £8,000 a year, who had been expelled from Christ Church; a Mr. D., son of an officer in the East India Service; and there was an Irishman who, in his second year, insulted Henry publicly and unforgivably in the presence of guests by exclaiming (probably when half-drunk) "does the nephew of a wine-merchant presume to argue with a gentleman?" Henry's practical reply was the contents of a tankard thrown in his attacker's face. A bitter quarrel ensued which, though formally made up by the intermediation of friends, resulted in a permanent estrangement.

This insult was never forgotten; indeed it seems to have rankled throughout Henry's life, and he refers to it again several times later on in the Memoir, but also takes pleasing pride in having treated this man with kindness and consideration in later life when he had fallen on evil days. On another occasion at Corpus, when he was giving the customary wine party to the whole College, unfriendly spirits converted it into a scene of wild uproar and ragging, which became alarming. Obviously there must have been a certain lack of social success in his College life; and it would be remarkable indeed if such youthful experiences, following on the over-discipline and terrorisation of his infancy and boyhood, had not produced a profound effect on the character of a proud, shy, and delicate young man. In a youth of so sensitive and highly-strung a temperament as his they seem to have led to a reserve amounting almost to suspicion. However, in middle age he acquired a kindly and humorous outlook, not unfortunately reflected in the Memoir.

Henry's third year at Oxford was marked by another disaster in the occurrence of a grave accident which nearly cost him his life. Hurrying home one day from hunting, and endeavouring on a tired horse to overtake the servant, who had become weary of waiting at the appointed place and had gone on, he was heavily thrown. He lay unconscious for days, and was paralysed on the left side. Recovery was very slow, and he had to take an "aegrotat" degree. When he was at last able to travel his grandmother took him away to various watering places, and subsequently he made a tour in Wales. In the autumn (1808) he visited the Johnson family, above referred to, at Exmouth, and then took a lodging in Bath to be near his grandmother who now had a house at Bathford.

In January 1809 Henry came of age, and began to be more independent. After making some stay at Harrogate, he proceeded to London and took chambers in the Albany. Next year he visited Harrogate again, and then Cheltenham, returning to his chambers in London where he fell ill and was laid up for two months. On recovering he gave up the chambers and went down to Bathford to his grandmother, who presently persuaded him (probably in 1811) to build a new Manor House at Warleigh, and undertook to help him by paying half the cost. This project, he tells us, absorbed half his income until its completion in 1815. The architect was Mr. Webb "of Staffordshire".

Meanwhile he had visited Cheltenham again in 1811, and saw much of the Johnsons who were staying there at the time. At their house he met and quickly became deeply attached to his future wife, Miss Caroline Anne Spry -"we met in September, and married in the following January two days before my birthday (21st January 1812)". After their marriage the young couple lived first at a cottage which they hired at Middle Hill, near Bath; but they soon moved to Ashley House, a mile distant, on the road from Bath to Chippenham. After this they took a wedding tour visiting among his new relations, and returning home for his wife's approaching lying-in. The first child, a boy, who was named Henry Hume, died in a few months from croup. In the following year they moved to Bath, purchasing a house at 8, Catherine Place, and here a second son was born (February 1814).

Probably at this time the relations of Henry and his young wife with Mme. Chalié were not altogether as cordial and affectionate as they might have been, nor their attentions as frequent as the old lady would have wished. At any rate she now invited to visit her in Bathford a son of the French branch of her family (Clarmont). He came at once, and soon completely won her regard, so that she determined to return with him to France.

The first that Henry knew of it was by the receipt of a letter telling him that she had quitted Bathford, and was on her way to France; and explaining that her sudden departure without making her plans known to him was meant to obviate the pain and grief of leave-taking. At the same time she sent him a present of £1,000 for furnishing the drawing-room at the new Warleigh, which was now approaching completion; and she left him the contents of her Bathford house. But her journey towards France was interrupted, when she had got no further than Winchester, by the news of Buonaparte's return on his escape from Elba. Subsequently she went on to Rochester where she fell ill. Henry visited her there, and their relations became again very friendly and affectionate; and after her recovery and permanent establishment in France (at St. Cloud) she continued to keep in touch with him in affectionate correspondence. Some five years after this she died (at Boulogne), and was buried in Père-la-Chaise cemetery in Paris, 2nd March 1821. Her pencil portrait by Dance is at Warleigh Manor.

Henry Skrine and his family went into residence at the new manor house at Warleigh in or before 1816, and the house in Bath was sold. The date 1816 is entered in the Memoir in pencil in the writing of H.D.S.; but as he himself (H.D.S.) was born 22nd May 1815, and is said to have been born at Warleigh (and baptised at Bathford), there is still some uncertainty as to the exact date when the new house came into occupation.

Old Mme. Chalié died in 1821, (though the Memoir wrongly gives the date as 1820), and at her death it was found that most of her fortune was entailed on Henry's children; but that she had already given away to the French Clarmonts by Deed of Gift somewhere between £30,000 and £40,000. About this time Henry and his wife became dissatisfied with Warleigh Manor as a place of residence. The near neighbourhood of Bath, as it was at that date, gave rise to constant trouble and anxiety with the household staff; the climate was damp, and the children often seriously ill; and in 1819, Alfred, the second son died. Accordingly the decision was taken to move, and in 1821 a house was bought at Felpham, near Bognor, where they went to live. Henry tried to sell Warleigh, but happily without success, and after having it in hand for several years, he let it to Mrs. Ricardo who proved an excellent tenant.

Shortly after (in 1825) he bought Stubbings House, Berks, near Maidenhead, and part of the estate from Lord Dorchester and moved his family thither. Later on (1833-34) he added to the property by the purchase of Stubbings farm, which he very much improved and let to Mr. Lawrence. At Stubbings the family lived a very retired life at first, neither seeking nor encouraging much acquaintance with their neighbours; but they also had a house in London, in Portman Square, where also lived at this time (at No. 47) Mr. John Harman, who became a near connection through his mother Marianne, a sister of Mr. William Mills of Saxham Hall, co. Suffolk (see Chapter VI).

Mr. Skrine subsequently bought other property in the neighbourhood of Stubbings, as shown by two extracts from the Victoria County History of Berks, as follows :

Vol. iii, p. 127-8. "The Manor of Great Bradley was sold in 1837 by Edward Francis Colston to Henry Skrine."

Vol. iii, p. 125-6. "The Manor of Cookham was purchased in 1849 of Mrs. A. M. Vansittart by Henry Skrine of Stubbings and Warleigh."

After they had lived at Stubbings for about fifteen years, Mr. Skrine decided to build a church there for the use of his family and the convenience of the residents in that portion of Bisham parish. Accordingly he purchased land at Camley Corner from G. H. Vansittart, Esqr., of Bisham Abbey, and a Corner Stone was laid 1st May 1849 for the Church of St. James the Less at Stubbings. The church was consecrated 16th April 1850 by the Right Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford; and it was served at first by the Rev. Edward Thring (afterwards Headmaster of Uppingham, and the schoolmaster of many Skrines), and by the Rev. G. N. Hodson incumbent of Cookham Dene. Mr. Skrine next proceeded to build a vicarage and to endow the living, to which his second surviving son, the Rev. Wadham Huntley Skrine was presented, and went into residence 5th November 1852. The pious founder died in 1853; and in 1854 his widow gave the East window in his memory, his two eldest sons Henry Duncan and Wadham Huntley at the same time giving two other windows (St. Philip and St. James).

Twenty years later, in 1874, the parish of Stubbings was created (16th October) out of parts of Bisham, and Cookham parishes. The first vicar died in 1880; and twenty years later his eldest son the Rev. Herbert Henry Skrine was instituted as fourth vicar, and held the living until his resignation 5th February 1919. The presentation is still held by a member of the family, though the Stubbings property has since been sold.

The children of Henry Skrine and Caroline Anne his wife were:
a. Henry Hume, born 12 December 1812 at Ashley House, near Bath, and died 6 April 1813; buried at Bathford.

b. Alfred John Hume, born 25 February 1814 at 8, Catherine Place, Bath; died 6 March 1819 at Warleigh Manor, and buried at Bathford, M.I.

c.Henry Duncan, born 22 May 1815.

d.Susanne Caroline, born 8 July 1816.

e.Emily Anne, born I October 1817.

f.Wadham Huntley, born 22 October 1818.

g.Clarmont, born 28 January 1820.

h.Frances Catherine, born 31 May 1825.

i.Mary Anne Agnes, born 1 April 1830.

To Henry Duncan Skrine, eldest surviving son and heir, we shall return after giving an account of the marriages and issue of the younger children.

CHAPTER 3-D
The Skrines of Warleigh Manor

SUSANNE CAROLINE, eldest daughter and second surviving child, born 8th July 1816 at Warleigh Manor; died 2nd November 1886. She married 27th February 1840 George Jordan HARRIES, Esqr., of Priskilly Forest and Heathfield, co. Pembroke, born 27th September 1815, and died 8th August 1865. He was eldest son of John Hill Harries of Priskilly and Tresissillt, co. Pembroke, J.P. and D.L., High Sheriff 1800, by his wife Frances, 4th daughter and coheir of Barret Bowen Jordan of Neeston, co. Pembroke. There were four children of this marriage, all sons. (For further pedigree see Harries of Tregwynt in L.G.)

EMILY ANNE, second daughter and third surviving child, born 1st October 1817 at Warleigh Manor; died 13th September 1846. She married 6th May 1840 at Bisham parish church, co. Berks., Walter Rice Howell POWELL, Esqr., of Maesgwynne, co. Carmarthen, J.P. for cos. Carmarthen and Pembroke, and D.L. for the former, for which he was High Sheriff 1849; M.P. for Carmarthen 1880-1885, and for West Carmarthenshire 1885-1888; eldest son and heir of Walter Rice Howell Powell, Esqr., of Maesgwynne, by his wife Mary, daughter of Joshua Powell of Brislington. He was born 4th April 1819, and died 25th June 1889.

They had Issue:
i. Caroline Mary, of Maesgwynne, born 23 February 1841, succeeded her father on his death in 1889, and died spinster 30 March 1896, when her nephew George Powell Roch succeeded to Maesgwynne.

ii.Walter Rice Howell Powell, born 1844, and died 1885 during his father's lifetime.

Mr. Powell married secondly, 1851, Catharine Anne Prudence, second daughter of Grismond Phillipps, Esqr., of Cwmgwilly, co. Carmarthen, by whom he had a daughter: Emily Catharine, whose son George Powell Roch eventually succeeded to Maesgwynne. (For further detail see under Roch of Maesgwynne and Butter Hill in L.G.)

Rev. WADHAM HUNTLEY SKRINE, second surviving son, Clerk in Holy Orders, Vicar of Charlton, Pewsey, co. Wilts., and later first vicar of St. James's Church, Stubbings; born 22nd October 1818 at Warleigh Manor, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, 19th October 1837, aged 15 years, B.A. 1841, M.A. 1846; died 5th February 1887 at Camley, Maidenhead Thicket, Maidenhead; buried at Stubbings Church.

When he was presented to the living of Stubbings the vicarage had only just been built by his father, and still stood in a ploughed field. He himself laid out the grounds and garden in their present amenity.

Camley, Maidenhead Thicket, was a house built by the Rev. W. H. Skrine with a view to his own retirement. His widow left it some little time after his death to go and live with her daughter Emily Esther at Moorlands nearby.

He married 27th May 1847 at Great Saxham Church, Clara Mary Anne eldest daughter of William MILLS, Esqr., of Saxham Hall, co. Suffolk (see Chapter VI). She was born 2nd November 1816, and dying 21st October 1905 at Moorlands, Maidenhead Thicket, was buried at Stubbings Church 2nd November 1905, the anniversary of her 86th birthday.

They had Issue:
1. Emily Esther, born 29 May 1848 at Bury St. Edmunds, and baptised at Great Saxham Church 25 June 1848; died spinster at Moorlands, Maidenhead Thicket, 19 June 1909, and buried at Stubbings.

2. Agnes Clara, born 3 July 1849, and baptised 26 August following at Charlton near Pewsey, Wilts. She died in Ceylon I I February 1925, and was buried in Peredeniya Cemetery, near Kandy. She was married in Ceylon, 13 April 1882, to Cecil Harry Twig WILKINSON, Esqr., who died 17 June 1904, and was buried in Peredeniya Cemetery. He was born at "Newmarket" Bungalow, Ceylon, in 1856, and was the eldest child of Captain James Allix Wilkinson, 15th Ret., who sold out in 1854 and became a coffee-planter, having married, 7 March 1854, Elizabeth H., da. of W. H. WHITING, Esqr., Government Agent, Eastern Provinces (whose wife was a da. of Dr. Norman GARSTIN, L.L.D., d. 1831). Captain Wilkinson was afterwards employed in the Public Works Office at Peredeniya, where he died, aged 48, and was buried in the Garrison Cemetery at Kandy 23 March 1868 by the Right Rev. Piers Calverley Claughton, D.D., Bishop of Colombo.

Issue:

(1)Cecil Wilkinson, died in infancy.

(2) Huntley Wilkinson, Esqr., b. 13 August 1884; married, 24 March 1915, to Helen Douglas (b. 22 August 1882), da. of Sir John DOUGLAS, K.C.M.G., Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, youngest s. of General Sir James Dawes Douglas, G.C.B., by his wife Alice Ann, da. of Bishop CLAUGHTON of Colombo above named (see Peerage, Queensberry collaterals, under Sir James Dawes Douglas). Issue: Douglas Huntley Wilkinson, b. 19 July 1919.

(3) Douglas Allix Wilkinson, Esqr., b. 17 August 1890, married first, 17 July 1915, Eva Frances St. John, elder daughter of Beauchamp Edward TYRWHITT, Esqr., of Oxford, by his wife Eva Elizabeth SHAW-YATES. Issue: Dawn, b. 11 November 1918.

married second, 27 December 1925, Phyllis LEGGETT, da. of Arthur KENNEDY, Esqr., of Lincoln's Inn, by his wife Edith Grace Watkins Spencer GATE. Issue: Maximilian Wilkinson (W) 7, b. 28 March 1927.

3. Douglas Huntley Skrine, Esqr., born 10 January 1851, and baptised 24 February following at Charlton, Pewsey; educated at Marlborough College, Wilts.; in business as a stock-broker and lived with his sister Emily at Moorlands, Maidenhead Thicket; died unmarried 3 February 1904 at Moorlands; buried at Stubbings Church.

4. Rev. Herbert Henry Skrine, Clerk in Holy Orders, born 13 September 1852 at Charlton Vicarage, Pewsey, and baptised at St. James's, Stubbings, 28 October 1852; educated at Marlborough College; proceeded to Lichfield Theological College, and ordained Deacon 1877, Priest 1878; matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford, 18 October 1883, aged 31, B.A. 1886; Vicar of Greenham, near Newbury, 1890 to 1900, and Vicar of Stubbings 1900 to 1919 when he retired to Lent Hill, Ashburton, S. Devon, and there died 14 September 1927; buried at Stubbings Church 17 September 1927. He married 6 June 1882 at St. Alkmund's Church, Derby (where he was then curate), Evelyn 3rd daughter of Charles Hugh LUSHINGTON, Esqr., Bengal Civil Service (3rd son of William John Lushington, Esqr., of Rodmersham, co. Kent-see L.G., Lushington of Park House collaterals), by his wife Caroline Eleanor, daughter of G. P. Thompson, Esqr. She was born 12 October 1860 at Calcutta, India, and died 5 June 1931 at Lent Hill, Ashburton; buried 10 June 1931 at Stubbings Church.

Issue:

Esther Evelyn, spinster, born 17 November 1887 at Pershore, where her father was then curate, and baptised at Holy Cross Church, Pershore, 5 December 1887; residence! Little Barn, Ashburton.

5.Edward Chalié Skrine, Esqr., born 27 April 1854 at the Vicarage, and baptised at St. James's, Stubbings, on Whit Monday, 5 June 1854; educated at Marlborough College; proceeded to Ceylon as planter in January 1877; and subsequently, in 1885, to the North West Province, Canada, to a cattle ranch; returned to Ceylon in 1886. He died unmarried at Chipstead, Surrey, 27 May 1918, and was buried at Stubbings.

6. Richard Huntley Skrine, Esqr., born I November 1855 at the Vicarage, and baptised at St. James's Church, Stubbings, 21 December 1855; educated at Marlborough College; proceeded to Ceylon in January 1877; returned in 1882, and went in the following year to the North West Province, Canada, to farm; there he had as partner Mr. Charles Tryon, son of Admiral Tryon. He left Canada in 1894; travelled in Persia in 1895, returning home in 1896. He died at Olton, near Birmingham, 3 August 1899, and was buried at Stubbings Church, 8 August 1899. He married at Stubbings 2 June 1887 Agnes Maud, youngest daughter of the Rev. Harris Jervoise BIGG-WITHER (who held the family living of Worting, near Basingstoke for forty-seven years) by his wife Elizabeth Maria, eldest daughter of Edward Walter BLUNT, Esqr., of Kempshott Park, near Basingstoke, and formerly a Judge at Agra, India. She was born 28 December 1859 at Worting Rectory. (See early editions of L.G. for Bigg-Wither and Blunt of Kempshott, and Peerage for Blunt, Bart.)

Issue:

(1) Honor Mary, born 22 June 1889 at Ceylon Farm, Grenfell, N.W.P., Canada, and baptised 18 August 1889 at St. Michael's Church, Grenfell; died 26 August 1890 at Ceylon Farm, and buried at St. Andrew's, Weed Hills, near Grenfell.

(2) Ruth Honor, born 12 August 1890 at Ceylon Farm, and baptised at St. Andrew's, Weed Hills; spinster owner and director of an important business in South Kensington, London, as an expert in artistic decoration and furnishing.

(3) Doris Honor, born 18 August 1891 at Ceylon Farm, and baptised at St. Andrew's Church, Weed Hills, 13 September 1891; died 8 October 1902 at Winchester, and buried at Otterbourne nearby.

(4) Harris William Skrine, Commander, R.N. (retired 1931), of Kyre Park, co. Worcestershire, born 18 March 1893 at Ceylon Farm, Grenfell, and baptised at St. Andrew's Church, Weed Hills, N.W.P., 16 April 1893; educated at Bradfield College, Osborne and Dartmouth; served in the North Sea throughout the Great War (Battle of Jutland, etc.); on retiring from the Navy joined the Metropolitan Vickers (Associated Electrical) Co. in the Marine Department. He married, 21 December 1933, at St. Mark's, North Audley Street, W., Lettice, younger twin daughter of the late Henry RIMINGTON WILSON, Esqr., 2nd son of James Wilson Rimington Wilson of Broomhead Hall, co. Yorks., Esqr. (see L.G.), and the Hon. Ethel Mary BUTLER, his wife, daughter of Henry Edmund, 14th Viscount MOUNTGARRET (see Peerage). Lord Mountgarret's only sister, great-aunt of Mrs. H. W. Skrine, married Edward Arthur Whittuck, Esqr.; the Whittucks were tenants of Claverton Manor for some years after the death of H.D.S.

(5) Florence Joyce, born 27 September 1895 at Olton, 00. Warwick, and baptised at Acock's Green 10 November 1895. She married 5 February 1924, in Tunis, Percy HASLUCK, Esqr., of The Wilderness, Southgate, and Mead House, Wescott, Dorking, Surrey; Arabic Scholar and Orientalist.

Issue:

(i) Angela Joyce, born 3 February 1926 at Mead House, Wescott, and baptised 12 May following at Wescott Church.

(ii) Philippa, born 26 August 1931 at Mead House, Wescott, and baptised at Wescott Church 10 September following.

(6) Capt. Philip Roger Huntley Skrine, born 22 July 1898 at Olton, co. Warwick; educated at Fettes School; passed through Sandhurst into the Indian Army, and completed his training at the Queta Staff College; appointed to the 1/6 Rajputana Rifles; saw service in the Great War in Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Arab rebellion; mentioned in Despatches; seconded to the South Waziristan Scouts; a keen big-game hunter.

7. William Dickson Skrine, Esqr., born 9 March 1857 at the Vicarage, and baptised at St. James's Church, Stubbings, 19 April 1857; entered the Public Works Department, Ceylon, in 1879; died at Nawalaputiya, Ceylon, 12 April 1881, unmarried; buried at Kandy.

REV. CLARMONT SKRINE, Clerk in Holy Orders, of Warleigh Lodge, Wimbledon, co. Surrey, youngest son, born 28th January 1820 at Warleigh Manor, Bath; matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, 19th October 1837, aged 17 years; Captain 78th and 47th Regts.; retired from the Army and studied Theology at King's College, London (Class 1, 1853); ordained Deacon 4th March, and Priest 23rd September 1855 by John Bird, Archbishop of Canterbury; licensed to the perpetual curacy of the Church and District Chapelry of Christ Church, Enfield (following a curacy at Linton, Kent), 11th January 1856 and lived at Ludgrove House, Enfield. This church had been built by the Bevan family of Trent Park, and was often called Trent Church. After Christ Church, Trent, he was priest at Southborough, Kent; at St. Peter's, Buckingham Palace Road, London; and from 18th May 1876 incumbent of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, where he was a notable preacher to large congregations. He died 4th October 1886, and was buried at Stubbings Church, Berks. After his death the Skrine Memorial Hall, Thornton Road, Wimbledon, was erected to his memory and opened on Monday, 19th December 1887, his nephew, the Rev. Vivian Eccles Skrine, being present on the occasion. He married 16th December 1846 at Castletown, Isle of Man, Mary Ann Auchmuty, daughter of Major Charles Butson BENNETT, late 64th Regt. (born at Limerick 17th September 1780) by his first wife Maria CUTLER, whom he married 23rd May 1815 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was born at Gibraltar and baptised 9th August 1824, and died at Ramsey, Isle of Man, 13th March 1902.

They had Issue:
1. Francis Henry Bennett Skrine, Esqr., Commissioner in the India Civil Service; Fellow Roy. Hist. Soc.; retired from I.C.S. 1897 and travelled in Central Asia; author of several notable historical and biographical works (see Who's Who); born 23 December 1847 at Cahir, co. Tipperary, Ireland; educated at Blackheath School, entered the Bengal Civil Service by open competition 1868, and proceeded to India 1870; died 8 December 1933 at Les Bosquets, Aix en Provence, France. He married 25 January 1887 at Cawnpore, India, Helen Lucy younger daughter of Colonel John STEWART, R.A., OF ARDVORLICH, Co. Perth (see L.G., Stewart of Ardvorlich), born 16 December 1867 at St. Andrews, co. Fife. Issue: Clarmont Perceval Skrine, Esqr., (Grampa's cousin) O.B.E., I.C.S., of the Political Department; Revenue and Judicial Commissioner in Baluchistan, Quetta; traveller and author; awarded Gill Memorial of the Roy. Geographical Soc. 1928. One of the Special Commissioners (Revenue) for the reorganisation at Quetta, 1935. Born 28 February 1888 in London, educated at Winchester College, Scholar of New College, Oxford, matriculated October 1906, B.A. Honours 1910 (see Who's Who). He married 20 November 1920 at Bombay, India, Doris Forbes, daughter of James WHITELAW, Esqr., of Nungate, North Berwick.

2. Charles Huntley Skrine, Esqr., born 24 October 1848 at Rathkeel, Ireland; died in London, December 1924.

3. Clarmont Alfred Skrine, Esqr., (Grampa's father) born 25 April 1850 at Douglas, Isle of Man; emigrated to California, and resided at Llagas, San Matteo. He visited England about 1910, when he called on the late Rev. Dr. J. H. Skrine at St. Peter's Vicarage, Oxford. He married in 1882 Mabel Jessie, daughter of John PAYNE, Esqr., of Maldon, co. Essex.

Issue:

Clarmont Herbert Huntley Skrine, Esqr. of San Matteo, California.

4. Edward James Skrine, died in infancy.

5. Edith Mary, born 17 March 1852 in London and died December 1933; married 28 July 1875 at Wimbledon, co. Surrey, to Archibald Grahame Moncrieff GRAHAME, Esqr., of Surbiton, co. Surrey, who died in 1915.

Issue:

Archibald Skrine Grahame, Esqr., born 20 May 1876; died November 1926 in London.

6. Tryon James Skrine, Esqr., born 17 May 1854 in London; died October 1928 at Sydney, New South Wales, and there buried.

7. Clarmont William Skrine, Esqr., born 9 August 1855 at Ludgrove House, Enfield; died 18 November 1930 at Albany, Western Australia; married circa 1892 at Sydney, New South Wales, Beatrice, daughter of William WOOLLEY, Esqr., of Chester.

Issue:

Marjorie born circa 1896 in London.

8. Henrietta May, born 22 May 1857 at Whitby, co. Yorks.; married 26 June 1902 to the Rev. William ROLSTON of the Duoan Chapel, Ramsey, Isle of Man.

9. Frances Clara, born 15 September 1861 at Ludgrove House, Enfield, Middlesex; married firstly, 1 November 1885 at Wimbledon, co. Surrey, to Francis Arthur Patrick KNIPE, Esqr., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., of Leigh Linton, co. Worcester, who died without issue; married secondly, 8 September 1890 at Bombay, India, to General Henry Wickham STEVENSON, Surgeon-General with the Bombay Government, Additional Member of the Council of Bombay C.S.I. (retired), and now of Balladoole, Castletown, Isle of Man, J.P., fourth son of W. B. Stevenson, Esqr., of Balladoole and Ballakeighan, Isle of Man (see L.G., Stevenson of Balladoole).

Issue:

(1) Ralph Clarmont Skrine Stevenson, Esqr., of the Foreign Office, H.M. Diplomatic Service, Cairo; late Captain Rifle Brigade; born 10 May 1893 in India. He married 27 October 1921 Helen Barbara Izabel, daughter of Robert John Ralph Boreel, Esqr. (see Peerage, Boreel, Bart.) and had issue.

(2) John Huntley Wickham Stevenson, Esqr., Lieut. 46th Regt. Punjabis, Indian Army; born 19 April 1897 at Ahmednagar, India; killed at the taking of Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, 5 February 1917.

10. Rev. Walter de Vere Skrine, Rector of Woodleigh, Loddiswell, S. Devon; born 18 August 1863 at Ludgrove House, Enfield; educated at Haileybury School, and MacGill University, Montreal, Canada; ordained Deacon 1887; Priest 1889 to the parish of Ballaugh, Isle of Man; married firstly, 6 February 1889 Amy Roberta, youngest daughter of the Rev. William KERMODE, Rector of Ballaugh; born 18 December 1863 at Ramsey Parsonage, Isle of Man; died 20 May 1920.

Issue:

(1) Walter Francis de Vere Skrine, Esqr. of the Sarawak Civil Service (retired) ; born 25 November 1889 at Bridge Cottage, Ballaugh, Isle of Man. He married in June 1934 at Berne Switzerland, Carlotta (b. 18 September 1899 at Bulle Switzerland) daughter of Pastor Roemer of the Swiss Church at Berne by his wife Sophie, nee Schwartz).

Issue:

Peter Norman Skrine, born in London 19 December 1935.

(2) Gladys Margaret Rosa, born 6 July 1902 at Huntley, co. Glos., where her father took duty for a few months at that time.

He married secondly, 14 October 1931 at the Cathedral Church of St. Mary, Edinburgh, Mary Helen, youngest daughter of John NISBET, Esq., of 12, Warrinden Park, Edinburgh; born 7 July 1880.

FRANCES CATHERINE third daughter, born 31st May 1825 at Stubbings House, co. Berks., and baptised at Bisham Church; died 24th September 1878 at Dieppe, and buried in the family vault at St. James's Church, Stubbings, M.I. She was married 18th September 1851 at Bisham Church, co. Berks., to James HANNING, Esqr., of Kilkrone, co. Cork, later one of the Gentlemen at Arms to Queen Victoria, son of James Hanning, Esqr., of Kilkrone by his wife, Patience, daughter of John WALLIS, Esqr., of Drishane Castle, co. Cork, whose ancestor Thomas Wallis obtained grants of land in co. Cork and co. Waterford in 1595 (see L.G., vol. 2, Wallis of Drishane); born at Kilkrone 20th December 1820; died 30th August 1881 at Worcester Park, co. Surrey, and buried in the vault at Stubbings Church, M.I. James Hanning was a very tall and singularly handsome man, and possessed a lively sense of humour. He had become a friend of Clarmont Skrine whose regiment was quartered in Ireland and was invited to stay with the Skrines when he came over to England for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He then met his future wife and was married in the autumn of that year. After the potato famine in Ireland, Kilkrone was sold and the Hannings lived at Stubbings with Mrs. Skrine until her death in 1867.

The Hanning family are said to have migrated to Ireland from the neighbourhood of Ilminster in Somerset during the seventeenth century. James Hanning came to Cloyne from Cashel in 1709 and lived to the great age of 105. He was buried in the Church of Cloyne, co. Cork. He and his son John Hanning were agents to the Inchiquin family for a period of about a hundred years. This John Hanning lived much in France for his health in later life, and during the Napoleonic War was imprisoned as an English subject. He died at Aix-la-Chapelle about 1815. His second wife was a niece of Sir Edward ROWLAND and by her he had an only child James Hanning of Kilkrone, d. 1845, father of James Hanning who married Frances Catherine Skrine. Through his mother, Patience Wallis, James Hanning, d. 1881, was descended from the Pauls of Paulville (see Peerage, Paul of Paulville, Bart.); from the Irish Carews (see Peerage, Carew, B.); from the Longfields (see L.G., Longfield of Longueville); from the Mountiford Westropps of Attyflin (see L.G., that family); from the Fosters (see Peerage, Massereene and Ferrard); and from other well-known Irish families.

Issue:
i. Emily Mary, born 8 November 1852 in Green Street, Grosvenor Square, London, W.; died 31 May 1930, and buried at Bathford.

She was married 10 July 1883 in London to her cousin James Henry MORTON, Esqr., of co. Cork, son of James Morton, Esqr., of co. Cork, by his wife Mary K., daughter of James Hanning, senior, of Kilkrone above. At the time of his marriage Mr. J. H. Morton was a mining engineer in co. Notts. He subsequently lived at his estate, Carrigmore, co. Cork. His wife Emily Mary died without issue. He married secondly, 25 July 1931, his first wife's cousin Eleanor Sisson, daughter of John Henry Harries of Heathfield and Tregwynt, Esqr., J.P., and granddaughter of George Jordan Harries by his wife Susan Caroline, nee Skrine (see L.G., Harries of Tregwynt), and now lives at Batheaston.

ii. James Henry Skrine, Hanning, Esqr., of Hill Crest, Tadworth, co. Surrey, stock-broker and accountant; born 22 November 1853 at Green Street, Grosvenor Square; died 12 April 1930, and buried at Kingswood, co. Surrey. He married 11 October 1883 at Old Malden, co. Surrey, Annie Louisa, born 28 August 1858, daughter of the Rev. John William Thomas by his wife Louisa, nee SELLS.

Issue:

(1) John Rowland Hanning, Esqr., of Elmshurst, Woodham Road, Woking, solicitor; born 11 July 1884; married 24 August 1920 at St. Paul's Church, Barrow-in-Furness, to Valentine, daughter of Robert Bateson Dixon BRADSHAW, Esqr., by his wife Bridget, nee FISHER.

Issue:

1. John Guy Hanning, born 9 September 1921.

2. Hugh Peter James Hanning, born 5 February 1925.

(2)Ethel Mary, born and baptised at Ewell, co. Surrey, 29
December 1886; a Roman Catholic nun.

(3) Agnes Annie, born 21 December 1888 at Worcester Park, co. Surrey, and baptised at Old Malden Church.

iii.Frances Caroline, spinster, born 17 May 1855 at Stubbings House.

iv. Rev. Clement Hugh Hanning, Vicar of St. Matthew's, Fulham, London, S.W. ; born at Stubbings House 12 May 1857; died 23 November 1930, and buried at Little Melton, co. Norfolk. He married 17 April 1894 Brenda Christie daughter of the Rev. Henry SALWEY of Shropshire by his wife Brenda, da. of G. H. CHRISTIE, Esqr., of Framingham Manor, Norwich (see L. G. Salwey of Overton).

Issue:

(1) Geoffrey Hugh Hanning, born 17 June 1895; now of Little Melton Vicarage, co. Norfolk; engaged in farming; he was severely wounded in the Great War, and lost a leg.

(2) James Henry Rowland Hanning, born 9 December 1896; killed in action Septemter 1916.

(3)Arthur Salwey Hanning, Captain Grenadier Guards; born ...

end of page 61 / Ainely-Walker book

Ref: http://www.jimvallance.com/02-family-folder/skrine-family-folder/ainley-walker-book/skrine-book-03.2-chptr-3-b.html

Richard married Anne DELMAS [16540] [MRIN: 5909], daughter of Peter DELMAS of Welwyn [16541] and Catherine [16542]. (Anne DELMAS [16540] died on 18 Jun 1713.)

Richard next married Elizabeth WESTON [16546] [MRIN: 5913], daughter of Rev William WESTON [16548] and Elizabeth LOWFIELD [16549], on 24 Jul 1718 in St Anne & St Agnes Aldersgate LND. (Elizabeth WESTON [16546] was baptised on 7 Apr 1695 in Cobham SRY and died after 3 May 1743.)