R.H. Beaumont of Whitley FSA 1749-1810

I said something about the portrait of this eccentric and interesting man and it is now time to say something about him and his life.

RHB was the eldest son of Richard Beaumont and Elizabeth (nee Holt). He was christened at Kirkheaton in March 1749. I don't know where he went to school but he was at Oxford (Brasenose) in the late 1760s.

Old print of Brasenose, given to me by Margaret Shepherd

His father is said to have been a Jacobite, and to have invited Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745 to stay at Whitley. I don't know if there is any truth in that, and I am fairly sure such a visit never happened. However a plaid-covered bed was seen in the house many years later!

RHB's father died in 1764, in his forties. His mother would live for many years. She had an estate at Little Mitton in Lancashire, and was the heiress of the Holt family, of that place. But she spent some time in London, where it has been said that the family had a house in Brownlow Street. Hard evidence for this house is lacking. There were two streets of that name, and this would be the one in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn.

Certainly, members of this old Yorkshire family were spending a good deal of time in London. All was not sweetness and light. RHB's youngest brother John had a son born there - before marriage, whilst the second brother Charles died (he was training to be a barrister), stating in his will that he wished to be buried anywhere but Yorkshire!  RHB's wilful sister Elizabeth married the Anglo-Irish officer George Bernard as soon as she was 21. The old lady commissioned George Romney to paint a picture that would show them all as more united than they really were. I wrote a piece recently about that episode.

RHB was in charge of the Whitley estate by now, and Capability Brown visited in 1778. Some proposals were drawn up. Landscaping work was done and trees planted.

(I borrowed the above picture of Whitley from the "country house reader" blog, which had it from the Huddersfield Examiner by courtesy of Stephen Beaumont. I hope they don't mind. The artist is said to be J.T. Taite circa 1858.  J.T. Tuite (husband of one of RHB's nieces) was a painter, and I think, earlier than 1858. I'd be very happy to discuss this with someone who knows about the picture).

The death of RHB's third brother Thomas in 1782 (I wrote recently about the portrait of him) and the fact that RHB was not going to marry, meant that the estates would devolve to John, and John's children. But I don't think John and RHB liked one another much.

RHB set off for Italy in 1787 and was away for about a year. In regard to this trip, certain writers have confused him with his younger brother. He went as far as Naples and wrote various letters to Walter Spencer-Stanhope at Cannon Hall (see note).

RHB was not much interested in managing his estates, though they gave him an income of between £5,000 and £7,000 a year. Naturally he was in Yorkshire a good deal, held various offices there, and was party to numerous leases and other deeds. Amongst the documents are some showing that he leased property at Crosland (a place redolent of family history, or legend anyway) to his cousins George and Walter Beaumont who set up there (unsuccessfully, in the end) as manufacturers. George and Walter were sons of George, the clergyman of Nottingham who died in 1773, and brothers of Rev. Thomas (d.1835) and Richard (d.1828) of Birmingham.

RHB's real interest lay in history, and genealogy. He was accurate, painstaking, and relatively detached. For example, of his own father's actions in moving the remains of ancestors out into the rain and snow, he wrote:

Richard Beaumont deceased 1764 made a Vault in the Choir at Kirkheaton in consequence of which 

the Bones and Dust of Knts Esqs & Gents repose in ye Churchyard except Adam son of Sir Thomas B 

and Richard and Susanna abovementioned.

(at the end of transcripts of deeds sent to his cousin - this Archive, Box 1/18, a puzzling entry)

I suppose RHB spent some more time at Oxford researching documents. But many of the documents that he used were actually in Whitley Hall, including I think the originals of some that Roger Dodsworth (1585-1654) had seen. RHB made his own transcripts, some of which are in this archive (Box 1/18). Fortunately many documents from Whitley have survived, now in West Yorkshire Archives and elsewhere.

RHB realised the value of what he had and wanted to preserve it. He gave some important manuscripts to the Bodleian, whose librarian John Price was his (distant, perhaps) friend. He also sent pictures from Whitley to Oxford, including "Susannah and the Elders" and (in 1802) one that was thought to be of Queen Elizabeth, which had come from Little Mitton.

Many pictures of Beaumonts and their relations were hanging in Whitley Hall in RHB's time. Several that have survived are marked on the back of the frame or stretcher in his handwriting. I have written about this elsewhere, and would say that, where this is found, it is a very strong pointer to the provenance. I confess to being suspicious about some pictures, and would simply urge their present custodians to look on the back, and send me a picture of what they see written there.

RHB had other scholarly acquaintances such as Brasenose contemporaries Richard Williams (1747-1811), of Fron (near Mold) and [Sir] Christopher Sykes (1749-1801) of Sledmere - and of course Thomas Dunham Whitaker (1759-1821).

Another friend was James Paine (1745-1829), his cousin, and the son of the well-known architect. James Paine senior might well have designed the "temple" at Whitley. If it still stands, it must be in a sorry state by now.

Temple at Whitley - in happier days

- and in 1959 (Yours Truly in red jumper, with my mother and brother).

It is known locally as Black Dick's temple, but that is (of course) just guff!

RHB visited his cousin Rev. Thomas Beaumont at Chapelthorpe in the 1790s. He provided pedigrees and evidence to prove how they were related, and thus demonstrated pointedly that he was the rightful proprietor of Whitley (lest there be any doubt). RHB was nothing if not a snob. The letters are polite - I had an unpleasant ride home. Comps to your Brother, two Mrs B's and Miss H - but suggest acquaintance rather than close friendship, and yet my side of the family often mentioned its Whitley connections in a wistful tone. Certainly, my forebears retained what RHB had sent them, now an important element in our collection!

RHBs mother died at her house in York in 1791; this was perhaps on the Mount outside Micklegate Bar. As her second & third sons (who might have been intended to inherit Mitton) had died, RHB was now the owner of that estate as well, which he sometimes visited with great pleasure, according to his friend T.D. Whitaker. Mitton is near Whalley, so Whitaker would in due course cover it in his book on that parish.

In 1793 RHB served as High Sheriff of Yorkshire; this meant visiting York and involvement in matters to do with the 84th Regiment that was raised by his brother-in-law George Bernard that year. The Bernards had a house in York. Nearer Whitley, RHB had given them a site by the river Calder where they had built a house called Heaton Lodge, where I think there was a portrait of RHB, the one which I wrote about quite recently. The Bernards had no children of their own. George however had a lady friend, and a daughter!

By the early 1800s RHB's eccentricity had reached its peak; a visitor in November 1808 noted:
The master of Whitley is a strange creature, half-mad. He leads the life of a hermit, and has not had a brush, painter, or carpenter in his house since he came into possession many, many years ago.
It is more like a haunted house in a romance than anything I ever saw. He is now an old man, and has never bought a morsel of furniture; half the house never was finished; one of the staircases has got no banisters..... The rooms he lives in have not been put to rights for many years - a description of the things they contain would not be easy - hats, wigs, coats, piles of newspapers, magazines, and letters, draughts, bottles, wash-hand basins, pictures without frames, apples, tallow-candles, and broken tea-cups.
The whole house looks like a place for lumber. There are some fine rooms, but so damp and mouldy it is quite shocking. There is a chapel completely filled with old rubbish and a plaid bed which was put up for the Pretender. 
In the room Mr Beaumont sleeps in I saw his coffin, made of cedar wood. He scarcely ever sees a living creature, and quite dislikes the sight of a woman. He does everything in the room, which no housemaid ever enters, nor indeed any part of the house (see note below).

Whitley Hall. The oldest portion at left, ivy-covered. I don't think the third storey had been added in RHB's day.

He was unduly anxious about his own health, and his friend James Paine told the diarist Joseph Farington that he had taken medicine prescribed by a Dr Latham, which made his last days rather uncomfortable. He died in November 1810 and was buried at Kirkheaton. I believe he is remembered now only by a brass plate, amongst the grander monuments of his relations.

An obituary or tribute by T.D.Whitaker is printed in the Introduction to the History of Craven (1812). Three phrases stand out. That RHB was "an excellent judge of forgeries," that when visiting Little Mitton he "contended with the owls for possession," and that he was by the end, a "hermit in a palace."

RHB was survived by his sister Elizabeth Bernard and his youngest brother John. John's son Charles Richard Beaumont had been to RHB's old college and was certainly seen as preferred ultimate successor. However John immediately took possession of Whitley and Mitton, and litigation quickly started, only to continue after Charles Richard himself died (which was in the lifetime of John).
............

Note on RHB's trip to Italy
It has been widely assumed that he went on this trip soon after, or even before, going to Oxford. But the only evidence I have seen for such a trip seems to be for 1787-1788 when RHB was nearly 40. Anna M.W. Stirling, the editor of the Spencer-Stanhope letters - in "Annals of a Yorkshire House" - assumed the writer to be John. See the second volume, pages 123-128. The only letter printed in full starts "Dear Stanhope," suggesting that the name at the end would just be "Beaumont." I think it is more likely RHB than John. I might be able to identify RHB's handwriting if these letters survive.

Whitaker in the obituary says that after his trip to Italy, RHB's understanding and memory were devoted principally to the study of history and antiquities. Whitaker does not give the date of the trip, but being several years younger, would not have had first-hand knowledge of what RHB did as a student.

Note on RHB's hermit-like life at Whitley
See The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Stanhope, ed. A.M.W. Stirling, vol. 1, p.123, footnote, and p.124. This is the same editor as before. It is also there said to be John, but in 1808 John had not yet "come into possession" of Whitley, let alone been there for many years.

Note on pictures
In Bodleian Picture Books, Portraits of the Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries (1952), the Elizabethan Lady (not thought to be the Queen) is said to have been given to the Librarian by RHB in 1802 for the Library Gallery. The booklet adds that it came from "Little Milton" [must mean Mitton]. Today she is on artuk still as given by RHB in 1802. I have no useful information about Susanna & The Elders except that it was said to be by "Jordan" [Jordaens?] according to notes in my possession, and to have measured more than 8 ft x 7 ft.

American Adventures 1872-c.1890 - Allayne Beaumont Legard

Commander James Anlaby Legard came out of the Royal Navy in 1844 or 1845, was promoted to Captain, and married a young widow called Catherine Beaumont (nee Cayley). The Legards then lived for eight years at Lenton Hall, now part of Nottingham University's campus (see note 10).

The 1851 census shows the Legards at Lenton with their own two sons and three of Catherine's four children by her first husband Henry Ralph Beaumont. The Beaumont children were Emily (she was away), Henry Frederick, Mary Catherine, and Thomas Richard - whose names are recorded the wrong way round. Then four year old James Digby Legard and lastly Allayne Beaumont Legard, who was only three.

There was some land at Lenton Hall, and Captain Legard had ideas about agriculture. In due course he bought an estate at Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire, so the family moved there.

Kirby Misperton Hall, perhaps early c20
(from kirbymisperton.org.uk)

But by about 1860, Captain Legard and Catherine separated. He went to Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, where he was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, the most prestigious yacht club in the country.  He died in 1869. Catherine lived in London until her death in 1887.

When his parents split up Allayne Beaumont Legard ("ABL") was in his teens. He joined the army (60th Foot), and was serving in Canada when his father died. A couple of years on, (now) Lieutenant ABL chucked in his commission and embarked on a three-month trip to Colorado.

ABL kept a Journal. When he first arrived in New York in March 1872 he expected to meet a person he identifies only as HPB (Note 1) at a well-known hotel. But he found only letters -

He then pursued HPB to St. John, New Brunswick, a train journey which was delayed due to snowy conditions. HPB (who had agreed to go with ABL), now declined. HPB was supposed to be looking after a young man called [Arthur] Ommaney, but handed him over to ABL.

ABL and Ommaney then went to Colorado. ABL met many people and considered various options for investment in sheep and cattle enterprises. He was interested in share-farming.

(But when a thing seems too good to be true, as a rule, it is .......)

Before leaving Colorado, ABL bought a 320 acre property with a small house in the Wet Mountain Valley in Custer County, near the town of Rosita. He left this in young Ommaney's hands, bought a prairie dog, returned to New York, and sailed for Southampton in June, on the "Weser."

This 1872 trip was only the start of ABL's American adventures. He must have gone straight to London to leave his Journal to be printed - and to see his mother. He returned to New York in October on the same ship. His interest was still large-scale sheep farming, but his interests quickly moved from Colorado in the direction of Texas, which he thought was better (Note 2).

Sometime during, I think, 1876, ABL's elder half-brother Thomas Richard Beaumont ("TRB") turned up in Colorado. Impliedly more land was bought, presumably with family money. TRB may have been motivated as much by the "silver rush" as by the prospects for sheep-ranching, though he was engaged in both. Prior to this, TRB had been in a cotton-spinning-mill partnership in Lancashire.

Wet Mountain Valley.... A.B. Legard, of the firm of Legard Bros., who has been down in New Mexico for six weeks past, looking after his immense herd of sheep, has returned. Messrs E. and T.R. Beaumont own one of the largest ranches in the valley, and are among our most honored and esteemed citizens (Colorado Daily Chieftain, May 25, 1876).

(Note 3).

A painting of a property in Wet Mountain Valley has been handed down to TRB's descendants. I'm not sure if I have permission to show it.

A Google street view in Wet Mountain Valley!

ABL, who now preferred the Texas Panhandle, was venturing towards New Mexico with apparently even larger sheep enterprises (Note 4).

When ABL was in London in 1872 he had obtained money from his mother (Note 5). Other writers have observed how prices would rocket when English "capitalists" arrived in town (Note 6). The Beaumont brothers' late father had inherited £50,000 (Note 7), some of which may well still have been washing around.

In 1881 ABL married, in Detroit, Michigan. Whether or not he had sold up, he certainly returned, for many years later when completing a census form in England, he noted that his elder daughter was born in Colorado City, Texas, and the younger in a place read as "Watnons" (which I suspect means Watrous, New Mexico).

Catherine Legard died in London in March 1887. Her will (Note 8) shows that her lawyers knew that money left to ABL (or to TRB) outright might end up in the hands of creditors.  Indeed, in Colorado shortly after this there were hearings in the District Court in Silver Cliff (Note 9).

So apparently the eldest brother had participated in the American investments somehow (if only as his mother's executor). Since 1857 HFB had been the owner of the Whitley Hall estate near Huddersfield. He had been a Member of Parliament since 1865. In the autumn of 1887 he travelled out to Colorado; he and TRB went to see ABL in southern Texas.

Incidentally on his way back, HFB went via Washington and had a brief face to face meeting with President Grover Cleveland (Washington Critic, December 3, 1887).

Sometime about 1891, for whatever reason, ABL returned to England. After a few months he took up residence in a house at Lepton, on his half-brother's estate. Weekly meetings of a charitable "Old Folks" group were held there, but two years later ABL had moved on, and the house was offered for sale or letting.

That is the last thing I have noted about ABL except that he went next to live at Bexley in Kent. His death was registered in Suffolk as late as 1933.

Perhaps the demise of the Whitley Beaumont estate was hastened by involvement in American investments.  It is far, far too early to draw conclusions, but does begin to look as though more money went to America than came back.

Main sources:
Legard, A.B., "Colorado" (London, 1872)
Colorado Historic Newspapers (online)
Colorado State Archives (catalogue online)
British Newspaper Archive (online)

(Note 1: "HPB" is Sir Harry Paul Burrard. About two years older than ABL, and probably richer (also then or later a member of the RYS), he too had been an officer in the 60th Foot.  HPB had a romantic reason for being at St. John - he married there about a fortnight after ABL's visit. Despite not going to Colorado then, HPB must have had some financial involvement with ABL and the Beaumonts in Colorado, as shown by his being the plaintiff in the 1889 case.)

(Note 2: Google will find good articles on the Texas Historical Association website by H. Allen Anderson on the "Pastores" and the "New Zealand Sheep Company." These mention "A.B. Ledgard" and I strongly suppose this to be in fact ABL. Anderson says that "A.B. Ledgard" was one of three British partners who had tried sheep-ranching in New Zealand, who arrived at San Francisco in 1870, bought large numbers of sheep, and operated in New Mexico and the Panhandle of Texas. ABL did indeed make use of contacts with experience of New Zealand (starting in 1872 with a man called Bevan), and was involved in large-scale sheep operations in those states. But I doubt if he had been to New Zealand. He was only 25 in 1872, and had been in the army).

(Note 3: James D. Legard visited Colorado in 1873, so "Legard Bros" is explained; Mr E. Beaumont is not identified, and I wonder if the initial should be H. HFB and TRB however had an uncle called Edward Blackett Beaumont.... An article in 1896 called Wet Mountain Valley the "Valley of the Second Sons," and said that the inhabitants lived rough lives (they had to chop their own wood, milk their own cows, etc), had opportunities for speculation, and were generally happy (eg The Globe 25 February 1896)).

(Note 4. ABL was said to have 13,000 sheep at the Victoria Ranch, Panhandle, Texas in 1879 (Colorado Daily Chieftain); the articles by H. Allen Anderson place "A.B. Ledgard" at Alamocitos Creek in Oldham County, and say that he sold out in 1881.

(Note 5. Catherine Legard's will, made in 1884, states that she had already made such an advance, and also that she had personally lent him £200).

(Note 6. Clark C. Spence, in British Investments and the American Mining Frontier, 1860-1901, says this about "titled persons from London," who stayed in the "best rooms of the best hotels." Spence was talking about mining interests, but it makes little difference. He expressly mentions ABL's formula (ultimately, from "Colorado" p. 67) for negotiating with Yankees, which was that they would settle for a sixth of the asking price. But they would have wised up and asked twenty times!)

(Note 7. Middleton v. Losh. This case shows that HFB's and TRB's grandparents had left an enormous total of £200,000 between four younger sons, one of whom was their father).

(Note 8. Proved in London 29 June 1887 by HFB and Rev. Richard Cholmondeley, the husband of the elder Beaumont sister, Emily).

(Note 9. Only from newspaper reports - Silver Cliff Rustler, 1887 and 1889) [I know of no connexion with Allen J Beaumont, who is prominent in the Colorado papers at this period])

(Note 10. It was suggested - Frank Barnes, Priory Demesne to University Campus..., (1993) p.202 - that Capt. Legard had an earlier wife, who had died. There is some muddle there, resolving which is outside the scope of this note).

Why I wouldn't give anything to the National Trust any more (2)

In 1998 I gave some items to the National Trust. Below is some proof of that. Their catalogue used to be correct, but has been changed, and now isn't.

[Updated - see below]

To start with, here is the list of items from the Memorandum of Gift, dated 17 February 1998.

Memorandum of gift (the reference to the loan item is not relevant)

Next, here is the National Trust's letter to me, two days later, thanking me for the donation.

Letter to me (at my then address) from Susanna Smith, National Trust

It was quite simple. The items related to the family of my aunt, and had belonged to her. Before she married, her name was Mary Veronica Becher. When she died in 1997, she left all her personal possessions to her husband, who was my uncle, Richard Melville Beaumont. He died six months later, and left all his personal possessions - now including of course, what had been Mary's - to me.

I was Executor for both of them.

The National Trust at that time were starting to take care of the Workhouse, at Southwell, in Nottinghamshire, which was where the Bechers had lived for several generations. It was well-known that Mary's ancestor Revd J.T. Becher had had much involvement with the Workhouse in the early nineteenth century.

I got in touch with the National Trust, and gave them some stuff for the Workhouse. Here is the first page of the catalogue they sent me. The date on this is 17/2/1998 and the numbering starts with TW1/1/1. I suppose that TW means "The Workhouse" and that the numbering says these were the first items collected for it!

It was a catalogue of about 50 items and ran to several pages. Many of the items were small documents, such as cuttings or photographs. There were some larger items too. Here is another page of the catalogue:-

So who was the actual donor? The gift wasn't in either of the Wills. It was implemented by a Deed of Variation of that of my uncle.

Put most simply, the National Trust would not have had this gift but for my actions. If I had sold the items (valued at £1,220), the money would have gone into my own pocket.

A big part of the reason for giving them these things was that there are no more members of the Becher family.

And they were a family who gave a good deal. The last two male Bechers were killed in the First and Second World Wars, and I deliberately included information about them in the gift. I thought, and still do, and at the time I thought the National Trust agreed, that that would be a useful contribution to the story of the Southwell Workhouse.

How have they got these items catalogued now (August 2018)?

Four silhouettes (TW1/2/1, 2, 3 and 5 in 1998 Catalogue)

Revd John Thomas Becher TW1/2/3

Captain Henry Becher TW1/2/5

Revd John Drake Becher TW/1/2/1

John (or Henry) Vessey (or Machin) TW/1/2/2

Yesterday I found just two silhouettes in the catalogue, not illustrated. They are referenced as NT 1515106 and 1515108 (given by Mrs Beaumont).

The Trunk or Box. The 17/2/1998 catalogue omitted this item. I pointed that out at the time. It must surely be what the National Trust now have listed as NT 493203 and catalogued as a "silver chest" given to them by Mrs E. Beaumont in 2007.

"Mrs E. Beaumont" is a name that simply does not figure in this, and nor was it given in 2007. That is plain wrong.

I don't actually think it was for silver. I think it might have been for a chandelier or candelabrum - to give light for the Revd Mr Becher to read by. I would be happy to hear from the National Trust's experts about what they think it really might have been for. It was in the garage at my aunt and uncle's house, and I have often wondered why they had kept it.

The Hall chair. Again that was not in the 1998 Catalogue and the omission was pointed out to them at the time. Now, this is listed as NT 493204 and also given to them by Mrs E Beaumont in 2007.

Comment as before.

Apart from the above, I gave them various things:

- A copper printing plate (TW1/2/4 in 1998) to print an image of a bust of Revd J. T. Becher (if I remember). Is it in the catalogue now?

- A Letter-writing case marked J. P. Becher (TW1/1/36 in 1998) (the initials of Mary's father, who died of wounds in France in World War One).  I do wonder if this is what they now have catalogued as NT 493232 which they say was given to them in 2009.

They don't say who gave it to them in 2009. That person won't be happy either.

- A Book -  (TW1/1/37 in 1998) A History of the 1/8 Battalion Sherwood Foresters, with an inscription as given to John Becher in 1920 [by Colonel Huskinson]. An apparently identical item is NT 3185309 in today's catalogue, and the National Trust say it was given to them (and they don't say when) by an anonymous donor.

That is the most hurtful of the errors. John Becher was Mary's brother. He was only 8 in 1920. From a ..."brother officer who mourns his loss, but knows that you will follow in your Father's footsteps." (So, no pressure.....) The little boy became a pilot. He served his country in his turn, and was shot down in 1940. He was buried in what is now Yemen. It was his sister who kept the book, and whose Executor I was!

- some family trees and a Bible. (see TW1/4/1)

- other items - but this is becoming too long!

Now, the National Trust have been in touch with me by email, so I hope that they are going to sort this out and properly put these things in their full context. If they no longer want any of the above items, let them give them back, and I will not seek to keep them myself, or sell them, but will try to find a better home for them.

My knowledge does not enable me to check the whole catalogue. Just these few items. And I have found so many errors. It doesn't look good, does it!

2 August 2018

PS As you can see I am a bit cross! So I expect I have made some mistakes with dates or numbers, and I will be happy to correct those or any other errors that any reader likes to point out. If the National Trust thinks that anything I have said is more seriously wrong, or in the least bit unfair, then I invite them to send me a statement to add to this piece, or they can ask me to make any correction that may be appropriate.  EMB 2/8/18

Update 15 August 2018. The National Trust were apologetic, and admitted that their copy of the list had become "inaccessible" [read "lost"?], so I have provided them with a copy. It also appears that they do not wish to retain all the items, so I'm hoping to hear from them about sending the ones they don't want, to Nottinghamshire Archives. Thirdly, I have raised with them the matter of the portrait of J.T. Becher

Portrait of Rev J.T. Becher formerly the property
of his descendants (Wikipedia)

which they have on loan from Southwell Minster. On artuk there is no credit of the fact that it was given to Southwell Minster by one of the Bechers. I did not find it at all in the National Trust's own catalogue. I have provided them with some evidence pointing to it having been given to Southwell Minster by Mary Veronica Becher (Mrs Beaumont) in 1970, and have told them that I think they should see what Southwell Minster says.

Why I wouldn't give anything to the National Trust any more

UPDATES! Please see notes at end.

Here's my photo of a portrait of Thomas Horton which I took with my own camera many years ago in the flat of the then owner of the picture, Miss Joan Barnes-Gorell, in Sloane Street, London.

Thomas Horton, c.1651-1699, of Barkisland
Unknown artist
Property now, of The National Trust

It isn't a very good photo of this picture of her ancestor (and mine) is it?

When Miss Barnes-Gorell died, she left this picture and two others to the National Trust, to go to Ormesby Hall.

Now, the National Trust allows the Artuk paintings website, run by the Public Catalogue Foundation, to state that this one was given to them by someone else.

Both the National Trust and Artuk give evasive responses when asked about correcting the error.

Should anything these charities say be believed, without checking?

People do make mistakes. That is no big deal. Just correct it!

1 August 2018

PS I've given stuff to the National Trust myself! I wonder if they agree.

UPDATE 2 August 2018
It has been corrected on Artuk already! Well done everyone, and thank you. EMB.

UPDATE 30 April 2020
I noticed recently that the West Yorkshire Archives (Reference WBM/141) have.....

Three photographs in an envelope marked: 'Photographs of my Family Portraits, J B G'. Notes on the back of each photograph separately read: 'Richard d.1706', 'Richard d.1723' and 'Thomas Horton' The portraits were rescued from Whitley Beaumont by Miss J Barnes-Gorrell, and have now been bequeathed to Ormesby Hall, owned by the National Trust. All three portraits had notes written on the back by R H Beaumont, died 1810.

So it is possible that these are prints of the photos I myself took in her flat in Sloane Street. It seems likely that her executor sent them to the Archives.

19 Castlegate, Nottingham - an eighteenth century summary

The possible relevance of 19 Castlegate to this collection is seen in -
(1) the letter of 28 December 1791 (see previous item);
(2) the apparent existence of a portrait of Chiverton Hartopp which might be by the same artist as portraits of some of the banking Smiths, and some of the Beaumonts (this is for another day).

So I looked at the history of the house. I found information which is definitely (in places) inaccurate or muddled, but I don't claim to solve all of the problems!

Here is a picture of this fine house taken in June 2018:-

c.1701 At the very beginning of the c18 Thomas Mansfield of West Leake buys the house then on the site.

1706 The house is inherited by Thomas Mansfield junior. It seems that he may have had it as a town house for some years and that eventually (my guess is c.1731) he sells it to Thomas Bennett (note 1).

c.1731 Thomas Bennett has been roped in by the Howe (Whig) faction to stand as a stop-gap Member of Parliament, as Lord Howe (Emanuel Scrope) has gone to Barbados. As Mr Bennett is a Leicestershire gentleman, I suppose he finds this house useful both as a residence and as helping to secure Nottinghamshire support.

The story that it was the town house of the Howes has been around for a long time. I think that means the political base, not a house the Howes owned or where they lived.

The deeds summary suggests the house is subject to a mortgage at this time, and though the actual documents may well never come to light, I would bet that the lender is Abel Smith, the emerging banker. Perhaps Howe money is involved somehow.

1738 Thomas Bennett dies childless and leaves what he calls the house wherein I now live at Nottingham to his sister (in-law) Mary Bennett for her life. His only surviving actual sibling is Elizabeth, a spinster who lives near Wrexham. The Bennetts are dying out. Their first cousins and nearest relatives are people called Hartopp, children of their aunt Arabella:- Chiverton Hartopp, two spinster sisters, and another sister, called Mrs Hacker.

[This paragraph added 12 August 2018] In Charles Deering's History of Nottingham, which was ready for publication in 1740 though not in fact published until eleven years later, is mention of the late Mr Bennet's house in Castle-gate amongst the gentlemen's houses of the town.

Thomas Bennett's will looks as if it was cobbled together late one night with the assistance of several glasses of Madeira and the Duke of Kingston, who witnessed it in person.

I think it gave Chiverton Hartopp a life interest in the house after Mary, and in fact he has a very special connection with it, in that his wife Catherine is the sister of Thomas Mansfield, former owner of the house. Thomas Mansfield and Abel Smith are Mr Bennett's executors. If the Hartopps had had a son, the house might have passed down that way, but they did not.

1744 It is called Madam Bennet's house on the 1744 Badder & Peat map; referring either to Mary or Elizabeth. At some point Mary dies, Mr Hartopp moves in, and old Elizabeth Bennett of Wrexham (now the real owner, or reversionary owner), who is the last of the Bennetts, pays for a family monument in Melton Mowbray church.

It suits Chiverton Hartopp to have a house in Nottingham. At the end of 1745 he becomes Major in the Light Cavalry Regiment the Duke of Kingston raises to help deal with the Scottish rebellion, and afterwards he gets an honorific post which takes him to Plymouth a good deal.

The seat occupied by Thomas Bennett has been again temporarily filled, this time by The Hon. John Mordaunt - who is Lt-Col in Kingston's Light Horse. Lord George Augustus Howe comes of age in 1745 and though he is away in the army his aunt, Lady Pembroke, wishes him to be elected at the next opportunity. Lady Pembroke (nee Howe) is in fact now the wife of the Hon Colonel Mordaunt. 

[In fact (added this in May 2022!) she had married John Mordaunt back in October 1735 - since 1738 he has been holding the seat for her interest, and this presumably explains how he became involved in Kingston' Horse in 1745-6. This leaves me speculating whether he and Lady Pembroke may have perhaps leased the house from about 1738 as the headquarters of her political operation]

1747 Lord Howe becomes MP for Nottingham (Note 2).

1753 Elizabeth Bennett dies leaving only £100 to Major Hartopp. The Bennett estate at Welby (near Melton Mowbray) and all her property in Nottingham or Notts goes
with all the furniture plate and linen of my late brother Thomas Bennett Esquire deceased which were at the time of his decease in my chief or mansion house in the said town of Nottingham
to Hartopp's daughters.

1753-1754 Portraits of various people in this saga seem to have been done in 1753 or 1754. This is for another day!

1754 Chiverton Hartopp Esq., [of] Castlegate, votes for Lord Howe in 1754. No surprise that he voted so. The interesting thing is that he has a vote in Nottingham. I am not sure if a life interest would qualify for him for a vote, but he was given the freedom of the town (in June 1746, after Culloden). I suppose that that is the explanation, and that his connections helped. The election is a bitter and corrupt fight. Lord Howe is returned to Parliament. But he soon goes to America and is killed at Ticonderoga in early July 1758, aged only 33.

1759 Chiverton Hartopp dies. I have found no will, nor anything to suggest that at the time of his death he actually owned any real property in the full sense.

1760 Sale of the contents, and of the house. An Inventory refers to the fixtures to the Dwelling House or Out Offices belonging to the late Chiverton Hartopp Esq....... that is not proof of ownership of the house, though it has perhaps led people to assume so.

The sellers are, of course, the husbands of his daughters. One of the Hartopp girls has married (in 1754) a man called J.M. Heywood and the other (in 1758 - a few months before the news from Ticonderoga) the naval officer Richard lord Howe, who is the brother and now successor of Lord G A Howe.

I think that the property had devolved upon Elizabeth Bennett's executrix Arabella Myddleton (nee Hacker), and that the lawyers for the new Lord Howe and Mr Heywood would have ensured it was duly transmitted to them.

So the Howe connexion to the house now ends, with the sale to Valentine Stead, a wealthy man originally from Halifax.

1761 Valentine Stead dies, not long after buying the house. His widow Anne has it for the next ten years or so until she moves away (she remarries in 1771 at St.Nicholas' up the road - it is likely that George Beaumont conducted that ceremony, as he was Rector there then).

1775 William Stanford buys the house from Valentine Stead's son. William Stanford is one of Nottingham's wealthy business elite and is the nephew of a man called William Elliott, to whom in his youth he was apprenticed, and from whom he expects a large inheritance.

It is now, surely, that the house is remodelled, so calling it Stanford House is correct.

May 1788 W.E. Stanford (son of the owner) marries Frances (Fanny) Beaumont. Her brother Thomas conducts the ceremony, at their late father's former church. (Readers of Abigail Gawthern's Diary will remember that Fanny fell in the River Leen back in 1772, getting throughly wet but coming to no harm).

28 December 1791 Letter in verse from "TB" to Mrs W.E.Stanford, Castlegate, Nottingham (Box 18/307) (see previous piece). The sender being her brother. It is written from Bingham where other family members are gathered, and thanks her for sending some fish which they much enjoyed!

1792 William Stanford (senior) takes the name Elliott on his uncle's death.

1796 William Elliott (formerly Stanford) dies and his sons now take the surname Elliott as well, and that means so does Frances. In due course they move to Gedling House (which W.E. Elliott buys from Thomas Smith - see my earlier piece, on Land Tax etc). Frances had been born at Gedling though no doubt in a much humbler dwelling, when her father had been the curate there before he was Rector of St.Nicholas.

I haven't pursued the history of the Castlegate house after this.

But Added this 14 July 2020:- It seems clear that W.E.Elliott's younger brother John ("Colonel Elliott" in some references) lived in the house for ten or more years prior to his death in 1823. Also that their sister Mrs Burnside lived there when she died in 1824. W.E.Elliott lived (at Gedling) until 1843 or 1844 and the house was apparently let, being occupied by one John Morley at the time of the 1841 census. After 1844 the house came to the Burnside family, and was sold. This note compresses a lot of information into one paragraph and should be treated with caution.

Note 1. Miss V. Walker, the Nottingham librarian and archivist, may have seen the evidence in the deeds she summarised. To me it is not proved that the house Chiverton Hartopp occupied was the one that had belonged to Thomas Mansfield, but it seems overwhelmingly likely.

Note 2. I don't yet understand the events of 1747 when Lord George Augustus Howe first took a Nottingham seat. In May that year at a by-election he had been heavily defeated. The general election was only a month or so later. The Whig candidate was John Plumptre but the effect of Lord Howe standing was to split the Whig support base. Plumptre eventually withdrew in disgust, and I think that in the end there was no actual vote. A marriage was arranged between Lady Pembroke's ward and Abel Smith's son. This harmed Mr Plumptre, though publicly I think the Smiths themselves sat on the fence as they had customers on both sides. This then was a stitch-up between the Tory candidate Sir Charles Sedley, and Lady Pembroke on behalf of Lord Howe - who was himself in Flanders with the army.

I suppose that Major Hartopp would have been pleased to receive important people, or let them use the house. I really don't suppose that Lord Howe built a "magnificent mansion" in Castlegate, as has been widely stated.

Principal primary sources used:-
Summary from title deeds (Notts Archives DD/683/19); copy documents (M/16209-16213).
Will of Thomas Bennett (Notts Archives)
Will of Elizabeth Bennett of Croesnewydd (PRO)

Other things:-
"Mansfield [and Smith] -v- Hartopp [and Hacker and Bennett]" of c1738 (PRO) (not seen) looks like a settlement of affairs under Thomas Bennett's will.

Nottingham Borough Records, volume 6.

The 1754 Poll Book (Ecco Editions, reprint)

Nichols, Antiquities of Leics., makes a rare mistake, stating Major Hartopp to be the Bennetts' nephew. This is widely followed. But their father St.John Bennett was the brother of his mother Arabella. Both Bennett wills call him cousin.

"History of Parliament" - on Emanuel Scrope Howe (who did not stand in 1732, but became Governor of Barbados), Thomas Bennett, John Mordaunt, George Augustus Howe, John Plumptre (both father and son).

Numerous secondary works over the years. The "magnificent mansion" idea has been copied and pasted endlessly.

3 July 2018

Letter from Bingham - Christmas 1791

Box 18/307 is a letter written on 28 December 1791 by Thomas Beaumont to his sister Frances (Fanny), Mrs W.E. Stanford.

Thomas writes from Bingham - no doubt the Rectory.

He is in relaxed mood. He says he has hardly stirred beyond the gate, and he must mean for just the last few days, as Christmas is a busy time for clergymen, and I would suppose he was at East Bridgford then, having quite recently been appointed Curate there. Perhaps he is living at Bingham and "commuting" to Bridgford.

This letter is addressed to Castlegate. I will do another piece after this, about the house Frances lived in there, which is still standing, one of the finest houses in Nottingham.

The Bingham party includes:-
Uncle and Aunt (John Walter, Bingham's Rector, and his wife Susannah, nee Beaumont),
Mother (Betty, widow of Rev George Beaumont),
Wife / Sister [-in-law] (Thomas' wife Charlotte, nee Huthwaite),
Fan (Frances Huthwaite, Charlotte's sister),
Brother (presumably Abel Beaumont, the youngest), and
little Dolly (unidentified).

Tom and John are also unidentified.
The friends at Prestwold are thought to be the Packe family.
Will must presumably mean Fanny's husband William Elliott Stanford.
The reference to His Grace of Ormond is a mystery.
.............................................
Here is the full text:

Bingham 28 December 1791

Dear Fanny

As I’ve nought to do

I take my pen to write to you

For since His Grace of Ormond took

My verses with Will’s pocket-book

I thought it hard that you should lose

Th’ effusions of the shortlived Muse

And therefore have resumed my pen

To make your losses up again

The news from Nottingham I see

What’s doing here you ask from me

Alas! I’ve little to relate

I’ve scarcely stirred beyond the gate

Confined by snows and stormy weather

Here we are croudling all together

Regardless what the world’s about

So we can keep the cold without

Happy we sit around the fire

Nor greater luxury require

Than e’en a jug of nut brown ale

To hear & tell some Christmas tale

While Yule* block of nice dry wood 

Keeps up our Christmas fire good

[on the original] *Yule – Saxon

Next page

But whether th’ morning’s wet or fair

Uncle who likes the outward air

Seldom sits still for long together

But will be peeping at the weather

Making excuse for running out

To see what Tom or John’s about

Now dabbling over shoes in snow

Then running in to warm his toe

And while he makes some funny speech

Turns up his coat and warms his breech

(line lost in the fold) 

Just before dinner as we’ve time

We call for those said books sublime

Called Cards and down we sit and play

And thus we pass an hour away

For Aunt ne’er lets the time slip by

That can be spent so pleasantly

E’en little Dolly must a fist 

To make a party up at whist

So every evening after tea

To it we go; but as for me

My pocket’s in a deep decline

For what between this Aunt of mine

And wife and Fan and all the three

It suffers most confoundedly

Next page

Thanks for your soles so sweet and good

We thought them very pretty food

And voted them so nice a dish

That when you’ve any more such fish

With shrimps and lobsters to attend’em

You know at once which way to send’em

And tho’ the man who’d chance to stray

Out of his road a little way

And get t’wards Bridgeford on the Hill

Let him go on – he can’t do ill

The curate there will take him in

Kind soul – you think it any sin

At once to ease him of his load

And shew him home the nearest road

On Friday next the weather fair

Our Prestwould friends expect us there

We are not much inclined to go 

But since the Fates will have it so

We must submit; - tho; to speak fair

We all have been so happy here

That we don’t wish to quit this place

But hold – I must reserve a space

Just to inform you that your mother,

Uncle, Aunt, Sister, Fan and Brother

All join in love; so now d’ye see

I’m yours affectionately

T.B.
.............. It seems a bit odd that a letter sent by someone should be found amongst that person's own papers. But the Elliotts and Beaumonts knew one another for years, and there has for long been something of a tradition of giving things back!

A family called Packe lived at Prestwold Hall. The next item in this archive (Box 18/308) is another letter in verse (or part of one, or a copy or draft) from Thomas Beaumont to a certain Fanny Packe, who (I just speculate) may have been his god-daughter.

23 June 2018

George and Walter Beaumont, merchants & manufacturers

These two deserve a page of their own.

They were the second and sixth sons of the clergyman George & his wife Betty. George was born in about 1757 when the family were at Gedling, and Walter at Nottingham ten years later. This is the first member of the family to be named Walter, due I have no doubt to the family's strong friendship with the new Rector of Bingham.

George migrated towards Leeds, his mother's home town, and married Jenny Cope at Hemsworth in 1779. They had a daughter and at this time George was living at Timble Bridge, but both wife and child died.

George married again, to Ann Ridsdale. From Timble Bridge they moved to East Parade in Leeds. George was in partnership with Francis Ridsdale (see below) as “merchants” and they were joined by Walter Beaumont but at the end of 1796 this partnership was dissolved. By that time George and Ann had had several daughters, and more were to follow.

George then moved to South Crosland where he and Walter went into business together (or perhaps this was the continuation of the previous business) in premises leased from Richard Henry Beaumont of Whitley.



The brothers lived in some splendour – George at Crosland Hall (also part of the Whitley estate) not very far from the mill, and in due course Walter also was given a long lease of Healey House nearby. They were also supported with loans from their eldest brother Thomas and his in-law William Huthwaite of Nottingham, but unlike other such businesses of the period, this never seems to have been a huge success.

I do not have enough technical knowledge to understand even if it was primarily a wool cloth or cotton business. I have seen cotton suggested but in 1803 the brothers are referred to as Manufacturers of Woollen Goods in connection with a patent that they had obtained for a mixture to be used in the preparation of sheep or lambs wool “for various purposes.”
\

The advertisement in 1811 makes clear that though the premises belonged to the Whitley estate, there was both woollen and cotton equipment for sale which belonged to Walter.

George died in 1807, apparently in debt to his former business partner and relation of his wife, Francis Ridsdale.

After George died I think that Walter moved into Crosland Hall but soon got into financial difficulties and was declared bankrupt by the end of 1810.

The timing of the failure of Walter's business coincides closely with the death of his original, and I suspect rather benign (after all they were family), landlord R.H. Beaumont and the de facto succession of the Whitley estate into the hands of his much more pro-active brother John. But who am I to say whether George and Walter were ever good businessmen?









George and Ann had had numerous daughters. Someone wrote on a copy of our family tree “all insane” and of them -
- Susan or Susanna Maria lived at Ockbrook, Derby as a spinster until her death in 1842;
- Mary died in 1823 at Winsley near Harrogate (see note below);
- Everilde went to live at the house of Willam Elliott at Gedling and lived till 1854 (Mr Elliott was the husband of one of George and Walter's sisters);

- Ann Elizabeth in 1828 married a much older retired Indian Army officer called Henry Huthwaite (assumed to be a relation of Rev. Thomas Beaumont's wife) and lived for a time at Hoveringham not far from Gedling. As a youngish widow she moved to Cornwall and married a certain Thomas Guerin, living at Newlyn. She ended her days in Brighton in 1883.

In 1811 or sometime after, Walter went to his brother's house at East Bridgford where he lived until 1841. He had married a lady called Caroline Clarkson, perhaps from Nottingham. She had relatives in South Carolina to whom she wrote from Bridgford in 1852. Walter and Caroline had had one child, Margaret, christened at Almondbury in 1799. Caroline as a widow lived with the Elliotts at Gedling for a while and then moved to Buckinghamshire and died in 1861. Nothing much is known about Margaret except that she was to get a legacy from Rev. John Walter of Bingham who made his will in 1807.

This note is compiled from my own research. The information comes from a large number of sources. As I have combined sources I may well have made some mistakes.

29 March 2018

Added 12 Dec. 2019: I discovered recently that Francis Ridsdale, who if I'm not mistaken was the maternal uncle of Mary and her sisters, was "of Winsley" from about 1820-1824. Presumably he owned or leased a house there. This helps to explain why Mary was there. I think it must have been this Francis Ridsdale, or perhaps his father of the same name, with whom George had been in partnership in Leeds.

Charles Beaumont's will, proved in 1774

Still thinking about the Romney portrait mentioned in the note a few days ago, I got Charles Beaumont's will from the PRO.

The reference is PROB 11/1003/229. Its date [proved] 20 December 1774.

“This is the last Will and Testam[en]t of me Charles Beaumont late of the Inner Temple London Gentleman after payment of all my just debts and funeral expenses I give and bequeath all the personal estate whereof I shall die possessed to be equally [insertion: “divided”] between and among my Brothers Thomas and John and my Sister Elizabeth Beaumont the said legacies to be paid within twelve months [insertion: “next”] after my decease and I hereby will that my Body be interred in any place at the discretion of my Executor hereinafter mentioned (the County of York excepted) and I further will that it be buried in as private a manner as my my [sic] said Executor shall think fit and hereby

over page

revoking all former wills by me at any time heretofore made and I declare this to be my last Will and Testament and of the same do hereby appoint my said Brother John sole Executor In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this Sixth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy three Chas. Beaumont signed sealed published and declared by the said Testator as and for his last Will and Testament in the presence of us who in his presence at his desire and in the presence of each other have subscribed our Names as Witnesses hereto John Hull No.48 Fleet Street Hen: Freeman Hatton Garden

.................

Notes:

The next younger brother of "RHB," Charles was born in July 1750.

He is the figure depicted in the portrait on the right hand side of the large group portrait. He looks old for his years!

The will is entirely consistent with the Family Tree in that Charles died in July 1774 and was buried in the churchyard of St. Andrew's, Holborn.*

Fascinating that he should be happy to be buried anywhere - except in Yorkshire!

The books usually refer to Charles as being “of Staples Inn.” However he does not appear in the list of admissions to Staple Inn published c.1906 by E. Williams in “Staple Inn: Customs House, Wool Court, and Inn of Chancery” (Appdx E).

Nor did I find him in the online database of admissions to the Inner Temple.

* The additional statement of where Charles was buried is not in all versions of the family tree but is in the one written in RHB's own hand in 1796 (Box 1/154-166).


This note made 11 March 2018

In the picture - the Beaumont Family Portrait, by George Romney

It has long been recognised that some information provided about this picture was wrong.

1. The history of the picture

Family members visited George Romney's studio starting with one visit in 1776. Sittings took place separately, mainly in 1777 and 1778, continuing into 1779. Work on it may have continued well after this because the final payment for it was not until Sept. 1782.  It was "Mr Beaumont" (RHB presumably) who paid Romney the final instalment, of £194.

The picture was then presumably sent to Whitley Hall where it may have remained for many years, certainly until after RHB died, which was in 1810. He was in effect succeeded by his great nephew and namesake Richard Henry Beaumont 1805-1857 who actually lived at Clarence Lodge, Roehampton in SW London, and/or Brighton. He in turn left Whitley to his cousin and godson Henry Frederick Beaumont ("HFB") 1833-1913, who I believe lived mainly in London or at Irnham Hall, Lincolnshire, moving to Ascot later in his life.

At some stage a full-scale copy of the picture was made. See below.

Some time before 1904 HFB provided some inaccurate information about the group portrait which was published that year by Humphry Ward and W. Roberts in their detailed "Essay" on Romney and catalogue of his work.

Ward and Roberts state that the picture was still at Whitley (but they do not say that HFB told them that), and it seems unlikely that they saw it.

The picture was then lent to the Royal Academy and exhibited (no.147) in 1910. I have not seen the catalogue notes used at that time but I think they were still based on what HFB had said.

HFB died in 1913. He had two sons, the elder being Henry Ralph Beaumont 1865-1948, who sold the picture in 1919 to the National Gallery for £13,000 and indeed completed the sale of Whitley in the 1920s.

In a short article in the Burlington Magazine in 1919 some of the misinformation was corrected but for some reason that article has remained somewhat buried and has not effectively prevented dissemination of the older wrong information.

After being with the National Gallery for some years - as No. 3400 - the picture is now with the Tate, apparently in store. It still has the same number.

It is a large oil on canvas measuring almost 3 metres wide and 2 metres high. I do wonder if RHB wrote on the back of the frame as he did with some of his other pictures.

Here is the picture again .....

2. The people in (and not in) the picture (speaking as at 1777)

The picture takes about five years to be completed, starting this year (1777). Mrs Elizabeth Beaumont is widowed. She has three surviving sons and a married daughter.

(I make some half-educated guesses.....)

Mrs B has learned that her youngest son John has become the father of a son by a girl to whom he is not married. There is some unhappiness here, so it may do no harm to have a family picture to help build an impression of unity.

The eldest son, Richard Henry, is 29. He has finished Oxford and is interested in scholarly and antiquarian pursuits. In the picture he is the second from left. We call him "RHB". *

The second son, Charles, died in London three years ago (July 1774), at the age of 24. He was on the way to becoming a lawyer. He is depicted in the portrait on the easel at right. (It does not follow from this that there actually is, or ever was, such a portrait) **.

The third son, Thomas, is shown at left in military uniform. Aged about 26, he is in the 4th Dragoons, having bought his promotion to Lieutenant about 2 years ago.

The youngest son, John, is 25. He was in the 29th Regiment, but he has not remained in the army. He is the one who has a new-born son but has not yet married.  Significantly, although he will marry before the picture is finished, his wife will not be included in it (information that I have, carries no implication that the girl he marries is, or is not, the mother of the infant). John is shown centre, leaning on the chair. *

The daughter, Elizabeth, shown seated, is aged 24. Three years ago, within a few days of her 21st birthday, she married the Anglo-Irish army officer George Bernard, who is 8 or 9 years her senior and was then already a Captain in the Inishkilling Dragoons.*** He still has that rank. He will be included in the portrait, standing on the right hand side, slightly separate from the Beaumonts.* It almost looks as though including him was a late decision, and indeed there exists a sketch of it in which he is not shown.

(* Alex Kidson reasons that Captain Bernard is the one leaning on the chair, and that the one on the right is John. Another view was that RHB is the one leaning on the chair, and that John is standing next to Thomas. But I believe that what HFB told Ward & Roberts should be entirely disregarded!)

(** though as it happens, there is such a portrait. I have this information from Alex Kidson, who is far from convinced it is Charles. So if I'm wrong, I'm responsible!!)

(*** Elizabeth & George were married in York in October 1774. I think it likely that the Beaumonts had a house there. Can anyone tell me if the Inishkilling Dragoons were based at York then?)

3. Some extra notes

Richard Henry Beaumont 1749-1810 ("RHB")

I have seen much information about him and much that he wrote. I think he was a snob but am sure he was a serious and accurate antiquary and genealogist. Of the many mistakes, I don't think many were made by RHB.

I suspect he was a disaster as an estate manager.

In my family there is another picture of RHB, shown at least twenty years older. I wrote a piece recently about it. I think this one may have been in his sister's house. It is not to be confused with another Romney portrait of him, which appears to have remained with the Whitley Beaumont family and was eventually owned by one of HFB's daughters, Miss Octavia Beaumont, of Drayton Gardens, London SW. She sold it at Christie's in 1932, when I understand the then Lord Allendale bought it.

John Beaumont (1752-1820)

John Beaumont had in fact had a military role. He had been made up from Ensign to Lieutenant, 29th Regt of Foot, in 1774 (London Gazette 5 April 1774) and thus might have been portrayed in uniform, but I don't think he was still in the army (see footnote). The Family Tree (based on the work of RHB) says that John's son - Charles Richard Beaumont - was born on 22 May 1777 and that John married a woman called Sarah Butler - at Lambeth - the following year. This was all going on when the sittings with Romney were taking place, so John's wife might be the Mrs Beaumont who once or twice attended Romney's studio. Or that could, as suggested by various writers, mean Mrs Bernard. Or equally it could mean the old lady.

I have not found mentions of John Beaumont's marriage to Sarah Butler in the newspapers, Gentleman's Magazine, etc.. Does anyone know of any parish register record of it? John and Sarah had two legitimate daughters born before the picture was delivered.

Ultimately it seems that RHB, the custodian of the family genealogy, did not try to fudge things much.

Thomas Beaumont 1751-1782

Experts writing about the group portrait seem not to have followed up about my picture of Thomas (1751-1782), despite its existence being published in Country Life in 1955.

Several writers have given themselves the impression that Thomas was not commissioned until after the Romney family group was painted. This is because they confuse him with a cousin called Thomas Richard Beaumont (1758-1829) who did indeed not begin a military career till 1780. This error is made for example in [Sir] Martin Davies' 1946 National Gallery Catalogue, in Mr Rodway's letter to Country Life in 1955, in a letter from a Brigadier Bullock to Country Life at that time, and again in a letter from the National Army Museum to Mrs Margaret Shepherd dated 10 March 1965.

However, Thomas Beaumont (1751-1782) was a Cornet from 1769 in the 4th Regiment of Dragoons and a Lieutenant from 1772 (Scots Magazine 1 August 1769, 1 January 1772; London Gazette Issue 11216 January 1772, and 11389 September 1773).

On the other hand Thomas Richard Beaumont (1758-1829) was a cornet in the 22nd Light Dragoons from 1780. Further confusion may have resulted from the fact that George Bernard seems to have been his superior officer (several ranks above) in the 22nd Dragoons, since it was from there that he was promoted in late 1782.

So, Thomas (1751-1782) was a Lieutenant (4th Dragoons) throughout the whole period the painting was in progress. He died at Whitley on 10 November 1782.

George Bernard c.1749-1820

When he married Elizabeth in 1774 he was a Captain in the 6th (or Inishkilling [Enniskillen]) Dragoons, having been a Lieutenant in that unit five years earlier. Moving around other units he still had the rank of Captain until 1782, and is mentioned as being promoted from Captain, 22nd Dragoons (in which Thomas Richard Beaumont was then a Cornet), to Major, 20th Light Dragoons, in late 1782 (London Gazette), then Lt-Col a year later when his unit was the 86th Regiment of Foot. From 1786 for three years he was Lieutenant-Governor of Kinsale and Charles Fort in SW Ireland, and then he was apparently on half pay for a while. Then, back in Yorkshire in late 1793 he raised the 84th Regiment of Foot, this being when RHB was High Sheriff and Rev. Thomas Beaumont was Chaplain (see my earlier notes). Bernard then commanded the 84th in Holland in 1794 and was promoted to full Colonel. It would seem that by 1803 he may have been taking retirement and was made progressively Major-, Lieutenant-, and full General.

In the sources, his surname often appears as "Barnard."

(A report in April 1783 has Major Bernard being appointed Lt-Col. of the 86th, "now stationed at York," and "Master of the Jewel Office" (Leeds Intelligencer)).

Lots of suggestions have been made about the Beaumont group picture being altered to show his new uniform after some promotion or other. The picture may indeed have been still in Romney's studio when Bernard was promoted to Lt-Colonel.

George and Elizabeth Bernard had no children. But he is known to have had a daughter by another woman, mentioned in his will or codicils which he made many years after the Beaumont painting was done. See my recent notes about the picture of RHB.

The Ormesby copy of the family group portrait

The full size copy (mentioned above) went to the Pennyman family of Ormesby Hall, one of whom in 1882 married a daughter of HFB.

I do not know when the copy was done, or why, or who did it, or when it went to Ormesby.

Ormesby Hall is now in the care of the National Trust, whose online picture catalogue gives Thomas the middle name William. Can someone check the "Leeds Mercury" report of his death? I have a note that it gives him that middle name, but is it right? I don't think he had any middle name. None is assigned to him in the report of his death in the "Leeds Intelligencer" of 19 Nov. 1782.

H.F. Beaumont's notes on the subjects of the picture

HFB is quoted by Ward & Roberts (1904) as saying that the subjects from left to right are:- RHB, Charles, George Bernard, Elizabeth, and Thomas, and that the "portrait within a portrait" is another one of RHB. I think this is completely wrong. One factor in this is that the identification of Thomas on the left is really quite certain. Another is that the figure on the right is missing from an early sketch. A third is that HFB omits John entirely, though of all of them he was most closely connected to John, in that he had inherited Whitley (and the Romney picture) from John's grandson. So I have preferred to discard HFB's notes entirely and start afresh.

This note made 7 March 2018.
Revised 11/12 and 19 March 2018
With acknowledgments and further thanks to Alex Kidson
Note added 22 April 2020 with reference to Leeds Intelligencer 19 Nov. 1782.

This footnote added 29-30 Nov. 2020. As to John Beaumont's military career. His Regiment, the 29th, was at Boston, Mass., in 1769 and 1770, remaining in America for some time, then returning to England. There is evidence that John was at Whitley Hall in July 1773. Perhaps he was then on leave. From the 1774 "Army List," (p.83) it would appear he did not join the Regiment until November 1770; so he may never have gone to America.  It would have been an interesting period of service, catching him up in the events of the "Boston Massacre" of March 1770, after which his immediately superior officer James Bassett, and a Captain Preston, were jailed and tried.  The 29th was sent to Canada early in 1776. Whether John Beaumont went with them then seems unlikely, since his son is supposed to have been born in May 1777, presumably in London. See H.Everard, History of Thomas Farrington's Regiment. This gives general facts about the Regiment and mentions John once, as being an Ensign aged 24 in December 1773, with three years service. Since John was apparently born in 1752 he must have over-stated his age (if it is he, and I think it is!).