The Vernons of Hanbury

By Andrew Harris

The Vernons first came to England with William the Conqueror, and this book starts with the story of the early Vernons, including many aristocratic families. Rev Richard Vernon came from a branch in Staffordshire, and was appointed rector of Hanbury in 1580. His son Edward was able to buy the manor and advowson of Hanbury, but suffered in the Civil War when there appeared to be family divisions. His grandson Thomas, a successful chancery lawyer, substantially increased the family estates.
Thomas’s heir was his cousin Bowater, who seems to have been somewhat bowled over by his inheritance, but it was Bowater’s grand-daughter Emma who created the first family scandal by eloping with the local curate. This book publishes, for the first time, fascinating extracts from newly discovered letters written by her cuckolded husband Henry from his hideout in Shropshire.
The family re-established themselves in the nineteenth century, but in the early twentieth century, hit by the agricultural depression, they endured hard times again. The last of the line and 2nd baronet, Sir George Vernon, struggling to keep his family property together, again indulged in wayward behaviour, and in 1940 his life ended in tragedy.
This book is based on original research in the extensive family archives and elsewhere, and tells for the first time the full story of these events.
First Published 2009

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Harris
• Release date: May 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9780954419332

Andrew Harris

I am a retired businessman, and live in Droitwich, Worcs, UK. I have been interested in local history for many years, and have completed a study of the Vernon family of Hanbury Hall, Worcs, also workhouses and the Andover Union scandal, as well as the Pakington family. I can be contacted on [e-mail]

Book preview

THE VERNONS OF HANBURY, WORCESTERSHIRE

THE RISE AND FALL OF A LANDED FAMILY

A History from 1577 to 1962

by

Andrew Harris

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Andrew Harris

ISBN no. 978-0-9544193-4-9

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 VERNON ORIGINS

Chapter 2 RICHARD VERNON COMES TO HANBURY

Chapter 3 EDWARD VERNON and RICHARD VERNON

Chapter 4 THOMAS VERNON CHANCERY LAWYER

Chapter 5 BOWATER VERNON

Chapter 6 THOMAS VERNON

Chapter 7 EMMA VERNON and HENRY CECIL

Chapter 8 DIVORCE

Chapter 9 THOMAS SHRAWLEY VERNON

Chapter 10 THOMAS TAYLER VERNON

Chapter 11 THOMAS BOWATER VERNON

Chapter 12 HARRY FOLEY VERNON

Chapter 13 SIR HARRY VERNON

Chapter 14 AUDA LETITIA and HUBERT EDWARD VERNON

Chapter 15 SIR GEORGE

INTRODUCTION

I was not trained as an historian, indeed during my school and university career found it a dull subject. It was not until I became involved in the newly formed Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings (as it is now called) from the mid-1960s that I became interested in vernacular architecture and local history, and am grateful both to the late Freddie Charles, the well known expert on Midlands timber framed buildings and a member of the Avoncroft Museum committee, and my brother Richard, who has had a career of working with vernacular buildings, for inspiration.

I was brought up in Hanbury and the neighbouring village of Stoke Prior, and at that time in the 1950s Lady Vernon still lived in Hanbury Hall, and her sister-in-law Mrs Hill lived at Hanbury Mount till her death in 1957. So the memory of the Vernons was still very much alive, and I also learned a good deal from the Hanbury rector from 1948 till 1962, Rev. Leonard Birch, with whom we were friendly.

I moved back to Hanbury in 1974, and, through my interest in buildings, wanted to know more about the Victorian house we had bought. Someone suggested I should visit the Worcestershire Record Office (WRO), then situated in St Helen’s church in Worcester. I soon found out about our house, but I became interested in the family that had built it, and started going through some Hanbury archives. One cannot look at many Hanbury documents before coming across the Vernons, and that is where my interest started. As I was working full time and the WRO opening was restricted I started to go to evening classes held there, and I continued these for ten years. The tutor was Robin Whittaker, then newly appointed to the WRO staff, and I am grateful for the very solid grounding he gave us in palaeography and many other aspects of old documents. Robin is today head of the WRO, and continues to offer valuable support. I also got involved at about the same time with Prof. Chris Dyer, now of Leicester University, who was studying the Bishop of Worcester’s manors, and was making a special study of Hanbury. I was a member of his extra-mural class, and Chris Dyer gave us a solid grounding in manorial history. His study of Hanbury was eventually published in 1991 by Leicester University Press as ‘Hanbury: Settlement in a Wooded landscape’.

In the 1990s my interests turned to other matters, and it was not until I was asked to give a talk on the Vernons to a local history society in 2000 that I started to do some more research. Helped by the much longer opening hours of the WRO, and more spare time since I started working part time in 2004, I have been able to do a lot more research in Worcester and elsewhere, and, wanting my work to be available to a wider audience, I decided to write this book.

Sources

The Vernon family were careful with their archive, and despite the major disruptions in 1789 and 1940 it seems to have survived largely intact, and is now kept at the WRO at BA7335. There are 155 boxes of papers, the most plentiful category being property deeds, many of course referring to transactions before the land was purchased by the Vernons, as until the advent of the Land Registry it was necessary to keep as long a series of deeds as possible to prove ones title. But the archive also has a plentiful supply of informative expenditure receipts dating specially from the 1730s till 1780s, and again in Thomas Bowater Vernon’s time in the 1850s and the following decades under his brother Harry. There are also all the other diverse family papers one would expect to find, although there is a scarcity of correspondence, the only significant amount coming from Thomas Shrawley Vernon’s and John Phillips’ time. Two diaries have survived – one of Thomas Bowater Vernon for 1857, and a briefer one from his father Thomas Taylor Vernon from the last two years of his life.

One major disappointment is the almost total lack of any papers dealing with the construction of Hanbury Hall, and to this day neither the architect nor the exact date of its construction are known. My own speculations about the building date are in Chapter 4. But the most magnificent survival is the book of maps of the family estates produced by the Dougharty family in the early 1730s for Bowater Vernon. These have been preserved in pristine condition, and the terrier, showing the name, size and tenant of every fields accompanies it. I am grateful to Robin Whittaker of the WRO for allowing me to reproduce a few documents from the family papers, including the Dougharty plans

This archive was deposited in 1974 by Mrs Ruth Horton, and later she deposited some further documents (BA10794) not included in the earlier deposit. There is also a deposit by the Hanbury Church Wardens (BA7584) which includes a number of documents which throw light on the later members of the family. Inevitably the WRO holds many other documents referring to the Vernons, mainly property deeds, that are scattered throughout their deposits. The other important Hanbury family was the Bearcrofts, and their family papers are kept at BA3964. But this is a much more modest collection than the Vernon archives, with only a limited number of references to the Vernon family. The Hanbury Enclosure Act (1781) and Award, and the Hanbury Tithe Map and Award are also kept at Worcester. The former only covers the enclosure of the commons, and the latter is a valuable document showing in great detail Hanbury as it was in 1840.

Hanbury Hall itself does contain some Vernon documents, including a large number of rental accounts and, of course, the family portraits, and I am grateful to the National Trust staff, and particularly Michelle Hill, house steward at Hanbury Hall, and Jeffrey Haworth, attached to the regional office at Attingham, for their help in allowing me to see these, and to photograph and reproduce Vernon family portraits

Most Vernon baptisms, marriages and burials took place in Hanbury church, although in the nineteenth century Shrawley was also used, and the parish registers survive from the late sixteenth century for Hanbury and from the 1530s for Shrawley. Most Vernon wills have also survived, many being with the records held in the WRO, but a number of the more important ones were proved at the prerogative court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and are available in the National Archives. Those of the Audley branch, including those of Rev Richard Vernon’s father and mother, were proved in Lichfield, and are kept with those records. The Vernons spent much time in London, and records of some baptisms, marriages and burials are to be found there – the children of Richard Vernon (1615-79) were baptised in the City of London and the records are to be found in the London Metropolitan Archives, and those appertaining both to Bowater Vernon and his grand-daughter Emma are in the Westminster Archives. Strangely, as recorded in the text, no marriage has been found for Bowater’s son Thomas, nor the baptisms of either of his children, although his London home was known to have been in New Bond Street.

Also in the Westminster Archives are the rate books for the various parishes in that part of London, many going back into the seventeenth century. In these it has been possible to identify the house in New Bond Street lived in by Bowater, his son and granddaughter, but the residence of Counsellor Vernon has proved more difficult to identify, and a search in both London archives has failed to find it.

Other records of the Vernon family, and particularly the families they married into are scattered in record offices through the country. The medieval Vernons originated in Cheshire, and there is some, but not very much, information on them in the Cheshire Record Office. The Hanbury branch came from Newcastle under Lyme and nearby Audley in Staffordshire. I am grateful to Pat Spode of the Audley History Society for providing information about the Vernons and their successors the Yonges in Audley. The museum at Newcastle has records that show the Vernon mayors around 1600, and the Audley parish registers, which date from the early sixteenth century, are in the Staffordshire County Record Office. This office also contains a large archive of the Yonge family of Charnes, which includes some genealogical material on the early Vernons. The William Salt Library in Stafford has information about Hilton Park, and a family tree of the Sneyd family. In Stafford I met Sandra Burgess, who has written an account of the Sneyd family (now at Keele University Library) and who kindly supplied me with information relevant to the branch of which Rev William Sneyd was a member.

Two of William Sneyd’s sisters in succession married Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and a large collection of the papers of his novelist daughter Maria are kept in the National Library of Ireland in Dublin – the family had a seat in Ireland. The collection includes genealogical information and some contemporary correspondence from the time of William Sneyd. Also in Dublin is Clontarf Castle, now an hotel, in which are images of the present and older buildings that appear in chapter 1.

The Vernons originated in the town of that name in Normandy, France, and although there is nothing there about the later Vernons the Vernon public library contains some historical material on the Norman Vernons, and the story of St Adjutor, the only saint in the family! There is an image of the saint in the town church. One can also see there the town arms, three bunches of cress, which are similar but tantalisingly different to those of the English Vernons, on which the bunches of cress are replaced by ‘three garbs of the field’ (i.e. wheatsheaves), as used by the Hanbury Vernons.

Other record offices that hold relevant material include that at Keswick (information about the Carleton family of Ambleside into which George Croft Vernon married and their friend William Wordsworth) where research was carried out for me by Mrs V M Gate, and in Suffolk, where the ancestors of Jane Cornwallis, who married Bowater Vernon came from. I am grateful to Alison West who carried out research there for me. Thomas Tayler Vernon married Jessie Anna Letitia Foley from Ridgeway in Llawhaden, Pembrokeshire, and I am grateful to Mrs Mary Housman, who wrote ‘The Llawhaden Book’, for helping me research this family. Liz Atkins of Callow Hill, Redditch, who has written several books on local history, gave me information about the Forest of Feckenham about which she has written a dissertation. She also kindly helped me with information on Robert Boulton Waldron who married Lucy Vernon, and his estate The Sillins.

Thomas Vernon married Emma Cornewall, and her baptism, and that of her fifteen siblings, are recorded in the parish register of Eye, in the Herefordshire Record Office. A descendant of the Cornewalls, The Earl of Liverpool, wrote a history of the family called ‘The House of Cornewall’ (1908), available in Herefordshire libraries. The Hanmer family, who married the Cornewalls, lived in the eponymous village in Flint, and a book about the family history, ‘A Memorial of the Parish and Family of Hanmer’ by John, Lord Hanmer (1876) is in the Mold reference library.

The National Archives at Kew contain various classes of documents relevant to this book, including Roger Acherley’s suits against Bowater Vernon heard in Chancery, and later cases involving the Marquess of Exeter, and John Phillips. I am particularly grateful to Dr Sue Sutton of Cambridge for following up references which I had not time to do, including John Vernon’s claim (1871), and later looking through the passenger lists of sailings for George Vernon. More recently, passenger lists for sailings between 1890 and 1960 have become available on-line.

The internet has, of course, become extraordinarily useful to researchers in recent years, and I have made extensive use of the censuses, all of which are now available on Ancestry.com, the registers of births, marriages and deaths from 1837 on Findmypast.com, and of course the IGI (familysearch.org). Unfortunately, this latter can be very frustrating, with many obvious mis-readings, uncertainty over old and new style dates, and lack of sources. Where, for example were John Phillips and Emma Sneyd married on 28 January 1795 – the IGI confidently gives the date, but no clue where it took place. But the IGI remains the only national index of parish registers, although it is a pity that so few burials are included.

Local newspapers are a valuable source of information, and Berrows Worcester Journal, which can trace its origins back to 1711, claims to be the world’s oldest newspaper. We are fortunate that nearly all the editions of the paper, except for gaps in the early eighteenth century, are available on microfilm at the Family History Centre in Worcester, as well as other Worcester papers published during the nineteenth century. They contain reports of Vernon marriages and deaths, as well as information on the politics of the 1860s when Harry Vernon was an MP. I also extracted the price of corn (chapter 13) from Berrows, which quoted prices from the Mark Lane market, but for twentieth century grain prices I had to use the London Gazette.

Another local weekly is the Bromsgrove, Droitwich & Redditch Messenger, first published in 1861, and which is available on microfilm at the Bromsgrove Library. This is particularly valuable in its report of the proceedings of the Droitwich Petty Sessions, or magistrates court, of which Sir George Vernon was chairman in the 1930s. From 1935 the daily Worcester Evening News is also available, and contains information on the events leading up to the death of Sir George Vernon in June 1940. The national newspaper archive, a branch of The National Archives, is located at Colindale, north London, and contains valuable reports of the passage of Cecil’s Divorce Bill in 1791, and information about the theatre evenings that Thomas Bowater Vernon spent in 1857.

Bernard Poultney and his wife Olive of Hanbury have published three books on Hanbury and have a large collection of old photographs and other memorabilia, and kindly lent me some of the photos reproduced in this book. They also have a transcript of a diary kept by Richard Lord covering some of the period 1888-1925. He was the schoolmaster of Temple Broughton school, and I have used a few a references in it to Sir George Vernon at the appropriate place.

When I briefly met Victoria Leatham of Burghley House after a lecture she gave in Bromsgrove she indicated that there was some correspondence at Burghley relating to Henry Cecil, first husband of Emma Vernon. I made a subsequent enquiry there, and was very grateful when the archivist, Jon Culverhouse, allowed me to see what proved a remarkable collection of letters mainly written by Henry Cecil during his time at Great Bolas. Most these were written to his friend in Hanbury, Rev. William Burslem, and how they found their way back to Burghley is a mystery. The letters, which describe the break-up of the marriage, and his intentions with his new life as a small-holder, and which usually end with a request for more money, must have been later returned by Rev. Burslem as he did not want to retain this rather compromising correspondence. They remained, not in the main archive, but in a drawer in the estate office, till they were re-discovered some years ago. Jon Culverhouse also kindly supplied me with other information about Henry Cecil and the Earls of Exeter. I am only sorry that I was not able to help him solve the mystery of the 9th Earl’s second marriage, only known from an entry in The Gentleman’s Magazine.

The story of Henry Cecil’s time in Shropshire and the Cottage Countess is well known from various publications, and is the subject of two books, The Lord of Burghley by Elisabeth Inglis-Jones, and The Cottage Countess by S J Watson. Both are written as a narrative with some invented detail, but are based on the known facts of the story. S J Watson’s book is stronger on the former than on the latter, but Ms Elisabeth Inglis-Jones carried out a great amount of research for her work. Unfortunately she did not know about the correspondence later found at Burghley House, and it is not always possible to know whether ‘facts’ she relates in the book are her own supposition or not, and she is not very generous in giving her sources.

Finally, I am grateful to Kate Shaw of Bromsgrove who kindly gave of her time to proof read the book.

Note on Dates

In earlier times, official documents were dated by the regnal year, but these can fairly easily be converted into modern-style dates. More confusing was the system of starting the new year on Lady Day, March 25th, which continued till an Act of 1752 changed this to 1st January, and also brought our calendar into line with the ‘Gregorian’ one used in most of Europe, by ‘losing’ nine days in September. Further confusion is brought by the fact that, although prior to 1752 official and legal documents invariably start the new year on Lady Day, in the early eighteenth century less official documents, and sometimes church monuments (for example that of Counsellor Vernon) sometimes used 1st January. Most historians convert dates to ‘new style’ ones based on January 1st, although it is not the practice to alter dates to the Gregorian calendar. Unfortunately, amateurs working on historical documents do not always make it clear whether they are using new-style or old-style dates, which is, for example, the case with the IGI.

I have followed the practice of converting all dates to ‘new-style’ ones starting the datal year on 1st January, but when I am quoting dates obtained from some sources it may not be clear whether they are old-style or new-style. So it must be borne in mind that a date between 1st January and 24th March may actually be in the following year.

Chapter 1

Vernon Origins

Although the exact origin of the Vernons of Hanbury is not clear, the family were certain they came from the ancient Cheshire family of that name, and they carried the same arms, ‘Or, on a Fesse Azure Three Garbs of the Field’ (gold, a blue band with three wheatsheaves), as one branch of the Cheshire Vernons. So at the risk of digressing from our main subject this chapter is devoted to a description of the main branches of the medieval Vernon family, and how they might relate to the Hanbury Vernons. These days, of course, the surname Vernon is not uncommon – there were at least 5,000 people of that name included on the 1901 census – so one has to wonder whether all these originated from the Vernons who accompanied William the Conqueror in 1066, or whether some branches of the family have a different origin. However, remarkably, the present distribution of the name ‘Vernon’ shows that it is still much more common in Cheshire and other nearby areas associated with the early Vernons than elsewhere, which would indicate that the Vernons who came with William I are the ancestors of at least most present day Vernons.

The origins of the Vernons, indeed all Norman knights who came to England in 1066, lay in the Viking invasions of Normandy which took place in the ninth century. Sailing in the infamous longboats, the Vikings travelled all round the coasts of Europe, sometimes just raiding and pillaging, but also making settlements. Thus we find the Vikings establishing themselves in such widespread places as north east England, the east coast of Ireland, Sicily, the Baltic, and Normandy.

As early as 845 the Vikings had sailed up the River Seine as far as Paris and besieged it, leaving only when sufficient ransom had been paid. The same thing happened in 885, and ten years later they were established at Rouen under the first Viking Duke of Normandy, Rollo. In 911 he signed a Treaty with the French king Charles the Simple, whose daughter he married. He was confirmed as lord of all the province between the river Epte and Brittany, and, under a new name Robert, he embraced Christianity. Rouen was given an archbishop, and order was brought to Normandy with the establishment of the feudal system. It was probably at this time that the town of Vernon was founded, occupying an important defensive position just inside the Normandy boundary in the valley of the Seine. Duke Robert was followed by his son William Longsword, but fighting continued throughout the tenth century, when the French tried to expel the Normans, who had to call for help from their distant Danish cousins.

William Longsword was followed by three generations of Richard, then by Robert ‘Le Diable’. Robert had an illegitimate son William, first called ‘The Bastard’, but after he had conquered England in 1066 ‘The Conqueror’. But before setting off for England, William had to defeat his cousin Guy of Burgundy, who, being legitimate, thought he had a better claim to the Dukedom, and led a rebellion. At this time Guy was Lord of Vernon, but after his defeat at the Battle of Val des Dunes near Caen (1047) he was imprisoned and stripped of his honours.

The descent of the Lordship of Vernon after that is unfortunately not clear, as different genealogies give different details. A list of knights who accompanied Duke William on his conquest was inscribed at Battle Abbey in Sussex, but the original has disappeared. Later copies, which are thought to be authentic, show that three members of the de Vernon family took part in the conquest: Richard, Gautier, and Huard. Richard founded the Cheshire Vernon family, and Gautier is probably to be identified with the Walter who is also listed in Domesday. Huard has disappeared from the records. Sorting out the genealogies of these early Vernons is made more difficult by the fact that they also styled themselves ‘de Reviers’, or later the English version ‘de Redvers’, which was the name of another Normandy Lordship they owned. In fact a Richard de Reviers also accompanied the Conqueror, but it may be that this is the same person as Richard de Vernon.

According to one genealogy John de Vernon was the Lord of Vernon after the Conquest, and after his death in 1094 he was succeeded by his eldest son Matthew. John’s younger son Adjutor went crusading, and was later sanctified. Matthew had a son William, who founded the Collegiate Church of Our Lady in Vernon in 1152, giving it endowments and a college of twelve canons.

The last of this line to be Lord of Vernon was William’s son Richard. Philipe Auguste, King of France, who had gone crusading with Richard I of England, fell out with his brother King and on his return did battle for part of Normandy. This war was settled by a treaty that gave Philipe Auguste the town of Vernon, and Richard de Vernon was given financial compensation. So after this time all there was by which to remember the de Vernons was the tomb of William which lay in the church of Our Lady in Vernon, which he founded. This tomb was later joined by a duplicate of one of the English Vernons who was buried at Tong, and remained there till 1791 when it was moved during repairs to the church. But at some later date both tombs disappeared – probably due to the disruptions of the Revolution, when most statuary was deliberately defaced. Today the only sign of this ancient family in the church at Vernon is a statue of St. Adjutor and a neighbouring chapel devoted to his memory, furnished with a painting showing him performing a miracle to rid the Seine of a dangerous eddy.

Before leaving Normandy, it is interesting to note that the arms of the town today are three fleurs de lys, above three bunches of cress, laid out with two above one. These bunches of cress look remarkably like the three wheatsheaves used by the English Vernons, and are supposed to be of ancient origin. This may be a coincidence, or is it possible that the English Vernons, conscious of their ancient links with Normandy, adopted a form of their arms during the middle ages? The three wheatsheaves were not used by all Vernon branches, including that at Haddon whose arms are ‘fretty’, a grid set at 45°.

The Vernons of Devon

In the Domesday book there is another member of the Vernon family – Baldwin de Reviers, although he does not appear in the list of knights accompanying the Conqueror. He helped King William pacify Devon, and was made sheriff of Devon. His descendants were granted the title Earl of Devon, and this continued till William de Vernon, 7th Earl, died without male heirs in about 1260. His grandfather William de Vernon, the 5th Earl of Devon (1155-1217) had a daughter Mary who married Robert de Courtenay, who died in 1242. After the extinction of the first title on the death of the 7th Earl, Hugh de Courtenay, Robert’s great grandson, was made Earl of Devon of the second creation. Although the title later fell into abeyance for a period, Hugh’s descendants are still today Earls of Devon, based in Powderham Castle. There is still a concentration of the Vernon surname in Devon today, which is probably a throw-back to descendants of the Vernon Earls of Devon.

The Vernons of Shipbrook

After William I’s success at Hastings and coronation at Westminster soon afterwards, it was essential that he brought the rest of England under his control, and this proved a long struggle, with increasing resistance the further north he went. The evidence from Domesday (1086) clearly shows that in parts of the north of England many areas had been devastated in the fighting, often deliberately so as to give an unforgettable lesson to the recalcitrant Anglo Saxons. Domesday records the value of each manor before the conquest and at the time of the survey, and many in the north are noted as ‘vastus est’ (‘it is waste’), or at least show that the value was much reduced. Once an area had been conquered, William placed Norman administrators in charge, mostly members of the conquering army from Normandy. Such was the case in what is today called Cheshire. William had to wage a military campaign there to subdue the locals, not achieved until about 1070, and the majority of manors there were recorded in the Domesday book at a lower value than ‘TRE’, the shorthand employed to designate the period before 1066 under Edward the Confessor. But as the expression ‘vastus est’ is not seen in the Cheshire section of Domesday, we may presume that resistance here was not as violent as further north.

William appointed his cousin Hugh Lupus as Earl of Chester, equivalent originally to what we would today call the military governor of the area, and Hugh in turn appointed barons based in different parts of the county to serve under him. Three of these were William Venables, Hugh de Malbanc, and Richard de Vernon. Each would probably have had his local stronghold, and de Vernon based himself at Shipbrook in the parish of Davenham near Northwich. Today this site, Shipbrook Hill, is occupied by a farm selling organic beef, but its defensive possibilities are clear – it is at the top of a bluff overlooking the River Dane, a tributary of the Weaver, and on this spot Richard erected a castle. The fact that King Street, an important Roman road coming from the south, lay only a short distance to the east may also have been a factor in the choice of this site, as this was a period when Roman roads still formed the basis of the road network, and afforded the quickest way of travelling about the country.

This original castle would probably have been of timber – just a quickly erected stronghold where he could base his small force of troops, ready to control the surrounding countryside in the event of any trouble. Richard was created Baron Shipbrook, a title that lasted until the early fifteenth century when it became extinct. Whether all the Barons Shipbrook were based at Shipbrook Castle is not known – the primitive wooden structure would have afforded little comfort, but a few carved stones survive to indicate that the buildings were improved over the years. The old castle was finally dismantled at the end of the eighteenth century.

At the time of the Domesday survey Richard de Vernon, who had fought at Hastings, held fourteen manors in Cheshire, and Walter, probably his brother, another four. Today it is possible to identify all but one of these manors, and seven are grouped round his stronghold of Shipbrook, all lying south of Northwich. It seems that this estate had been taken over more or less intact from the pre-Conquest holder, Osmar. But the others were scattered over the rest of Cheshire, from Hooton at the base of the Wirral to Pulford on the county’s western boundary, Audlem in the extreme south, Crewe further east, Bredbury in the extreme north east, and Cogshall to the north of Northwich. Perhaps these were granted to Richard to give him bases all over Cheshire, which for someone spending much time on the move with his retinue would have been a sensible arrangement. In the days before money rents it was quite usual for lords to move their household from manor to manor, consuming the produce of each as they travelled.

Walter de Vernon, whom we may assume was Richard’s brother, only held four manors in Cheshire, and three of these were in the Wirral, and one, Willington, was situated nearer Shipbrook. His holdings are listed immediately after Richard’s in Domesday, and they probably acted closely together in their efforts to maintain law and order in Cheshire.

The Vernons of Haddon

The Shipbrook title remained with the descendants of Richard de Vernon, and a later Richard, born in 1147, did what many later members of the family also did very much to their advantage – he married an heiress. She was Avice, daughter and heiress of William de Avenell, Lord of Haddon.

Richard and Avice had at least two sons, one of whom (Warin) inherited the barony of Shipbrook, and the other, William, inherited the Haddon estates. William’s successors at Haddon included the most distinguished members of the Vernon family in the middle ages. Sir William de Vernon was Chief Justice of Cheshire from 1229 to 1236, and through his wife, Margaret de Vipont, acquired the Harlaston estates just over the Cheshire border in Staffordshire. Burke’s Peerage rather spoils our story at this point, as it has the family descending through the female line, having Hawise, daughter of a Sir Robert de Vernon, marrying Gilbert le Francys, whose son Richard re-adopted the family name Vernon. But other descents do not show this, and we can say for certain that his descendant Sir Richard Vernon (1390-1451) possessed, apart from those around Haddon in Derbyshire and Harlaston, manors in five English counties as well as in south Wales. He became a retainer of the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Buckingham, and through the latter obtained the position of Treasurer of Calais. Richard also served in various parliaments, and in 1426 was elected speaker. He married Benedicta daughter of Sir Fulk Pembruge of Tong, which brought this estate into the family. The collegiate church there was turned into a family mausoleum, where the graves of a number of his descendants can still be seen. These monuments, of the fifteenth and sixteenth century and carved out of alabaster, are in a good state of preservation and well worth visiting if only to see their fine craftsmanship. They include those of Sir Richard’s son and grandson, Sir William Vernon (1421-67) Treasurer of Calais (an hereditary office) and Knight Constable of England, and Sir Henry Vernon KB (1441-1515) Treasurer of Calais and Treasurer to Prince Arthur. They had both lived through the Wars of the Roses, and Sir William had been a strong Lancastrian. But it was potentially dangerous to take sides, and Sir Henry, although linked to the house of Lancaster through his wife Ann Talbot, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury, managed to remain more neutral, and ignored a desperate appeal from the Earl of Warwick before the Battle of Barnet in 1471 to come to his aid. Their son Sir John Vernon (1474-1545) and his wife Helen Montgomery, heiress of Sudbury (see below) are buried not at Tong but in a similarly fine alabaster monument in the church at Clifton Campville, which served the estates at nearby Harlaston.

Haddon Hall remained in the hands of the Vernon family until in 1565 the last Vernon owner, Sir George Vernon, known as ‘King of the Peak’ in view of his substantial land holdings in this area, died without male heirs, leaving Haddon to his daughter Dorothy. In about 1565 she married Sir John Manners, younger son of the 1st Earl of Rutland. Dorothy and John’s grandson John Manners became 8th Earl of Rutland on the death of his cousins without male heirs, and his son John (1638-1711) was created 1st Duke of Rutland. In 1703 the Duke moved his household to Belvoir Castle, and Haddon remained unoccupied for 200 years, but in the early twentieth century the 9th Duke restored Haddon to a family home again, retaining most of the old features. Today it is owned by Lord Edward Manners, younger brother of the 11th Duke of Rutland, so the ownership of Haddon can be traced directly from the Avenells 900 years ago, through the Vernons and Manners to the present day.

The Vernons of Hodnet, Clontarf and Stokesay

Sir John Vernon of Haddon had a brother Humphrey (1463-1542) who married another heiress, Alice Ludlow, daughter of Sir John Ludlow of Hodnet in Shropshire. Humphrey was buried at Tong, and he was followed by six generations of Vernons at Hodnet, until Sir Richard Vernon (1678-1723) 3rd baronet died without heirs. The Hodnet estates then passed to Thomas Heber (1697-1752) of Marton, Yorks, who had married Elizabeth, the granddaughter of Elizabeth Vernon, sister of Sir Henry Vernon (1606-75), 1st baronet of Hodnet. The Hodnet estates then descended to the son Reginald and grandson, also Reginald, of Thomas Heber. The latter was Archbishop of Calcutta (d. 1826), and, lacking a son, the estates then passed to his daughter Emily’s family. Emily had married Algernon Charles Percy, nephew of Charles, 5th Duke of Northumberland, and his descendants, the Heber-Percys, are still owners of the estate today. The Hodnet estates have thus passed by descent from the Norman Conquest to the present day.

Sir Humphrey Vernon’s eldest son was George Vernon of Hodnet (1520-53), but he had a younger son Thomas Vernon (1510-57) of Houndhill in the parish of Marchington just across the border in Staffordshire from Sudbury, which is in Derbyshire. Thomas’s grandson Sir Edward Vernon (1584-1657) married Margaret Vernon, a distant cousin, and it was their son Sir Henry Vernon who married Muriel Vernon of Haslington (see below). But Edward and Margaret had another son John Vernon (1632-70), who sought his fortune in Ireland with the Commonwealth army, and because he had sold his estates to raise his troop, he was granted the estate of Clontarf Castle, on the north shore of Dublin bay. John’s successors remained at Clontarf till John Vernon died there in 1822. In 1835 the newly married John Edward Vernon decided the old medieval castle, which dated from the twelfth century, needed replacing, and built a new house.

Warin Vernon (1190-1248), son of Richard and Avice and brother to William Vernon of Haddon, inherited the Barony of Shipbrook. He married Auda Malbanc, a member of another of the Cheshire Baronies (today being called Nantwich), indeed these families intermarried on a number of occasions. Warin and Auda Vernon had at least three sons: Warin (1220-1252), who inherited the Shipbrook barony, Nicholas and Ralph. Warin’s son Warin was killed fighting in France and left no male heirs, and there were three daughters. One of these, Edith, married Sir William Stafford, who was the ancestor of the Staffords of Grafton near Bromsgrove. Today Grafton Manor Hotel incorporates parts of the old manor house (it was badly damaged by a fire in 1711) and it is interesting that this branch of the family resided near where the Vernons of Hanbury later took up residence. However, the Staffords of Grafton had gone, the victims of impeachment during the reign of Henry VII, and had been replaced by the Talbots Earls of Shrewsbury, by the time the first Vernons settle in Hanbury in 1580.

Warin and Auda’s son Nicholas settled at Whatcroft, which today is marked by an eighteenth century building, Whatcroft Hall, situated only about a mile away from the site of Shipbrook Castle, and which was presumably part of the Shipbrook estates. Nicholas Vernon of Whatcroft was the ancestor of a long line of Vernons of Whatcroft, and as it is supposed that the Vernons of Hanbury descended from this branch, we shall return to Nicholas later, after considering the fates of the other Vernon branches.

It will be recalled that Humphrey, one of Sir John and Lady Ann Vernon’s many children (one account has it that they had 22), married Alice Ludlow, heiress of Hodnet. Another son Thomas married Alice’s sister Ann, who inherited the Stokesay properties owned by her father. The Ludlows, rich wool merchants of Shrewsbury, had owned Stokesay since it was purchased by Lawrence de Ludlow in 1298, although most of the buildings that can still be seen at Stokesay were probably already built by that time. Thomas and Ann Vernon had a son Thomas, who died shortly after his father, and he was succeeded by his son Henry, born in 1549. According to English Heritage’s guide book for Stokesay, this Henry Vernon was a colourful character, who was determined to claim the barony of Powys, which had been the property of Ann Ludlow’s maternal grandfather. So determined was he to prove his noble ancestry that he concocted a bizarre story that the last Lord Powys’ signature on his deed of conveyance had been forged posthumously by conspirators who opened his coffin, put a pen in the corpse’s hand and with it traced his signature on the document. But Henry’s lengthy voyage through the courts proved expensive and he had extravagant tastes, but it was the failure of a man he had stood surety for that eventually ruined him. In 1591 Henry was in the Fleet debtors prison, and he was forced to sell the Stokesay property in 1598 to Sir George Mainwaring.

The Vernons of Haslington and later Barons Shipbrook

Warin and Auda Vernon’s third son was Ralph (1220-1271). He took Holy Orders, and became Rector of Hanwell, a manor just north of Banbury in Oxfordshire that had been acquired by the Vernons in about 1200. Despite his clerical status Ralph married Maud Grosvenor, and he also seems to have had children by another liaison out of wedlock. After the deaths of his brother and his son, Ralph styled himself Baron Shipbrook, and engaged in litigation with his nieces to gain possession of the estates, in which he was partially successful.

Ralph had two sons, one of whom was another Ralph, born in 1241, and who inherited the Shipbrook title. This Ralph married Mary Dacres, and was later known as ‘the long liver’ as it was reported that he had lived 150 years. But we may presume that this story has been exaggerated in the telling, or possibly Ralph had a son or grandson Ralph with whom he has been confused. Ralph and Mary had at least eight children, but only one need detain us here: Thomas, who married Joan de Lostock, an heiress, and who founded the dynasty of the Vernons of Haslington. This had been brought into the family through the marriage of Auda Malbanc, heiress of the last Baron of Wich Malbanc, today known as Nantwich. But before considering the Haslington branch, we will follow the Barony of Shipbrook to its extinction.

The second son of Ralph, Rector of Hanwell, was Richard, who married Elizabeth Donkinfield, and from this couple descended, by means not known, Sir Richard Vernon, Baron Shipbrook, who was born in 1355. This Richard got entangled in what was later called Hotspur’s Rebellion, which seems to have involved mainly Cheshire gentry. Hotspur was the son-in-law of Phillipa, cousin to both Richard II and Henry IV, and son of the Earl of Northumberland. In 1403 Hotspur and his father decided to attempt to depose Henry IV, and gathered together some knights, many of whom, including Richard Vernon, had been favoured by Richard II, and wanted to see him back on the throne. Hotspur, so called because of his rapid shifts along the Scottish border when fighting the Scots, gathered his mainly Cheshire based army, and confronted King Henry at Shrewsbury in July 1403, an incident which features in Shakespeare’s Henry IV part 1. In that play Vernon is depicted as an advisor to Hotspur, and is involved in a misplaced attempt at peace-making before the battle. But Vernon’s efforts were not successful, and the rebels lost the ensuing battle. Hotspur and other leading combatants were slain, but Vernon survived, only to be executed on the orders of the victor shortly afterwards. Vernon must have been considered a central person in the events, as was shown by the fact that orders were given that his remains be displayed in Chester ‘pour encourager les autres’!

Sir Richard Vernon had a son and grandson both christened Ralph, both of whom in turn were Barons Shipbrook, but the last Ralph left only an heiress Dorothy, who married Sir Richard Savage. On the last Ralph’s death, which was in about 1460, the Shipbrook Barony died out, although it was briefly revived in the eighteenth century, as will be described later.

Returning to Sir Thomas Vernon, son of Ralph Vernon ‘the long liver’, as we have already seen he took possession of the Haslington estates. Haslington is a small village just to the west of the much bigger town of Crewe. Haslington Hall, the manor house, is situated a little way from the village centre – it may be that there was an older settlement round Haslington Hall which has since disappeared, and the present village is a more modern replacement. The Vernons occupied Haslington for many generations, and the details need not detain us here. One, Ralph Vernon (1440-98), had a younger son Henry (born 1466), whose descendant James (1605-75) of Stanithorne near Middlewich was possibly the father of three Vernon brothers, Thomas, Randall and Robert who went to America with William Penn, and landed at Upland, Pennsylvania, on 14 August 1682 on the ‘Friendship’, founding what is today the large branch of American Vernons.

The last of the Haslington line was Sir George Vernon (1578-1639), and he seems to have been the most eminent. He was a noted judge, but failed to leave a male heir, and his daughter Muriel married in 1634 a distant relative, Sir Henry Vernon, a descendant of the Vernons of Haddon, who lived from 1615 to 1658. This brought together two branches of the Vernon family that had been separated since the end of the 12th century, at the time of Richard Vernon and his wife Avice de Avenell.

Haslington Hall is one of the great timber framed buildings that are to be found in Cheshire and the surrounding parts of England, which mostly date from the late sixteenth century, a period sometimes called ‘the great rebuild’. Medieval buildings with their smoky open halls had become unfashionable, and wealth was available to build more modern dwellings with chimneys and elaborate timber framing, designed to show off the wealth of the owner. It is not recorded who built Haslington Hall, but it would have been done in the time of Sir Thomas and his son Sir George Vernon. Although the estates passed out of the family in the next generation, the building is still there today to show off their stature. Only the south front has been altered – the aspect to be most heavily weathered, it has been replaced in brick.

The Vernons of Suffolk and Admiral Vernon

Sir Thomas Vernon of Haslington had an uncle Ralph, whose son and grandson, both called Francis, were London merchants. The second Francis’s elder son was again baptised Francis in 1637, and he became a well known traveller. After graduating from Oxford in 1658 he travelled widely in Europe and, probably because of this experience, was appointed to the British Embassy in Paris in 1669. There he remained for three years, during which time he was in contact with many of the leading French scientists of the day. He wrote regularly to Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society in London, about the latest scientific developments. Perhaps all this was to the detriment of his diplomatic duties, as this was his only diplomatic posting, and soon after his return to London he embarked on a journey through France, Italy, Greece, and Dalmatia to Smyrna (modern Izmir), which he reached in 1676. From there he sent to Oldenburg an account of his travels, which were published in the Society’s transactions. Francis Vernon then proceeded through Asia minor to Persia, which he reached the following year, but there disaster struck. In Esfahan he got involved in a quarrel with some Arabs, and was killed.

Francis Vernon’s younger brother became a prominent MP and member of the government. He was Rt Hon. James Vernon MP (1646-1727), who was regarded by his contemporaries as a first rate administrator, but one of the little men … such as were framed for a dependence on a premier minister according to one of his contemporaries. After serving, like his brother, for a brief time in the Embassy in Paris, in 1673 he became private secretary to Charles II’s illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth, and served him till he went into exile in 1684. After a spell working on the London Gazette, James Vernon was appointed in 1689 as private secretary to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Secretary of State for the south. Then in 1697 he was appointed Secretary of State himself, this time for the north, and he remained in high office till 1702, after which his career declined. He retired to Watford and died in 1727 at the age of 81.

His son James (1677-1756) also went into politics and became an MP. The third and last of this line, who had by now settled at Orwell Park, Suffolk, was Francis Vernon (1715-1785). He represented Ipswich in parliament from 1761-68, then was created Baron Orwell and afterwards Earl Shipbrook, thus re-creating the title (but this time as an earldom) that had last been used over 300 years before. But his children all died young, and the title became extinct. Orwell Park descended to his nephew John Vernon, who then sold it to Robert Harland. The house still stands today close to Nacton Church, in which are buried Earl Shipbrook and his wife, and their famous uncle Edward, Admiral Vernon.

Admiral Vernon (1684-1757) is the best known later member of the Vernon family, and in his day was regarded as a leading naval and political figure. In the early part of his naval career Vernon served under Sir Cloudesley Shovell, and in 1706 was in the fleet when Shovell’s flagship The Association and several other ships were wrecked on the Scilly Isles with great loss of life, including Shovell himself. This event gave impetus to the quest for an accurate method of determining longitude. Vernon had a long naval career, and he saw service in many different stations, but it was in 1739, when the war with Spain had just begun, that he achieved his greatest fame after he commanded the force that took the Spanish fort at Portobello in Panama on 20 November. The victory, achieved with only six ships, was regarded as a great national triumph at the time, and gave its name to a road in London.

Sometimes known as ‘Grog’ Vernon owing to the coat of grogram he wore, he was responsible for adding water to the men’s daily rum ration. Admiral Vernon had disagreements with the authorities, and later went into parliament, representing Penryn, a borough that had also been represented by his father, from 1722 to 1734, Portsmouth from 1727 to 1741 and Ipswich from 1741 until his death. The Journals of the House of Commons show that he spoke frequently, and it seems he became rather an ‘old bore’ in later years. The Vernon family of Hanbury were conscious that they were related to their namesake the Admiral, but the relationship was extremely distant, as one would have to go back 500 years to find a common ancestor. In the late 19th century Sir Harry Vernon of Hanbury purchased a bundle of letters written by Admiral Vernon, but he was doubly disappointed when he discovered how distant the relationship was, and by the fact that, as he noted on the outside, the letters were not from Admiral Edward Vernon, but another Admiral Vernon altogether!

The Vernons of Hilton Park

Henry and Muriel Vernon had two sons who gave rise to two new branches of the Vernon family, both of which can be traced to the present day. Sir Henry Vernon (1637-1711) took possession of the estates at Hilton, Staffs, which had been brought into the family by Margaret Swynnerton who had married his great great grandfather in the middle of the sixteenth century. Hilton is today perhaps better known as the site of a service station on the M6, but not far away is a grand eighteenth century mansion, which the descendants of Sir Henry lived in till they sold it in the 1950s. The house today has been converted into offices, but its original grandeur is well maintained. Interestingly, without the nineteenth century additions the facade would look not unlike that of Hanbury Hall.

The Vernons of Sudbury

Henry and Muriel’s other son was Sir George Vernon (1635-1702), who settled at Sudbury, Derbyshire. Sudbury was another estate brought into the Vernon family by marriage to an heiress – in this case it was Henry’s great great grandfather Sir John Vernon who married Helen Montgomery, heiress of Sudbury. Sir George’s son Henry (1686-1714) also married well, taking Ann Pigot, heiress of Peter Venables, Baron Kinderton as his bride. The original barony having become extinct, Henry’s son Sir George Vernon of Sudbury (1708-80) was created first Baron Vernon of Kinderton. He married twice – first to Mary Howard and second to Martha Harcourt. From Mary stemmed the second Lord Vernon, and, after he died with no heirs, the third, Henry (1747-1829). By Martha Harcourt he had a son Edward, to whom we shall return.

Henry, third Lord Vernon, was succeeded by George Charles Vernon (1779-1835) the 4th Baron, who was followed by his son George John Vernon (1803-66) the 5th Baron. After an early career as a liberal-minded MP who vigorously supported the Great Reform Act, the 5th Baron turned his attention to Italy, which he had visited as a young man. He went to live in Florence, and became a renowned expert on the medieval Italian poet Dante, and published many books. In May 1865 Vernon was created Cavaliere di San Maurizio e Lazzaro, in recognition of his labours on behalf of the national poet. Both George’s second son William Warren Vernon, and his eldest son Augustus Henry Vernon (1829-83), the 6th Baron, continued their father’s work and publications about Dante.

The Barony remained with his descendants till John Lawrence Vernon (1923-2000) the 10th Lord Vernon died without male issue. He was succeeded by Anthony William Vernon-Harcourt (born in 1939), a direct descendant of Edward, younger son of the 1st Lord Vernon by his second wife Martha Harcourt, as 11th and present Lord Vernon of Kinderton. Today, the mansion built by Sir George Vernon in the 1660s is owned by The National Trust, and houses their children’s museum.

Edward Vernon, youngest son of George, 1st Lord Vernon, was born in 1757, and married Lady Ann Leveson-Gower, daughter of the second Earl Gower. He took Holy Orders, and after a spell in the family church at Sudbury he was appointed Bishop of Carlisle, probably through the good offices of his father-in-law the Lord Privy Seal. He seems to have made a success of this appointment as in 1791 he was