This has nothing to do with Einstein’s theory of E=mc2. Instead it’s a quick guide aimed at those who are new to genealogy and who may be confused by some of the terms that keep cropping up. For example, what’s the precise relationship between you and your 5th cousin 2xremoved?

Most people know that their first cousins share with them at least one common grandparent. With 2nd cousins you have to go back to a great-grandparent to find the common link, and for 3rd cousins to a great-great grandparent. The rule is to count up the number of "g"s (both "great"s and “grand”). So 5th cousins would share a great-great-great-great-grandparent (usually expressed as a 4xgreat-grandparent or 4th great-grandparent). That’s 4 "great"s plus 1 “grand” = 5 "g"s. The formula works when you’re looking at two people of the same generation.

So what about “removed”? Well if you have (e.g.) a 5th cousin 1xremoved all that means is that one of you is one generation further removed in descent from your common ancestor. In other words “removed” means that the two of you are of different generations. Take a look at the following chart showing the immediate ancestry of the three founders of this website, Martin Blackett, Pat Longbottom & Al Kirtley.

Working back, the most recent common ancestor of both (a) Pat and (b) Martin’s father, Eric Blackett, is Joseph Blackett (1844-1934). He’s their great-grandfather (i.e. 2 "g"s) and they were therefore 2nd cousins. Martin, though, is one generation further removed from that common ancestor, so he’s Pat’s 2nd cousin 1xremoved and vice versa. To find the relationship to Al you have to go all the way back to Cuthbert Blackett (1745-1809). He’s the 4xgreat-grandfather of Al, Pat and Eric Blackett. Al is therefore a 5th cousin of Pat & Eric (4x"great"s + one “grand”), and a 5th cousin 1xremoved of Martin.

So what relation is Martin to Pat’s children? Well he’s the same generation as them so there’s no “removed”. You have, though, to go back to THEIR great-great-grandfather, Joseph Blacket (1844-1934) to get to their joint ancestor. That’s 2 "great"s + 1 “grand” = 3 "g"s and so they’re 3rd cousins. If you do the same thing with Al’s children you have to go right back to their 5xgreat-grandfather, Cuthbert Blackett (1745-1809), to find the joint ancestor they share with Martin (or with Pat’s children). That’s 5 "great"s + 1 “grand” = 6 "g"s and they’re 6th cousins.

Another example is Al’s relationship to Pat and Martin’s ancestor Joseph Blackett (1806-1870). If you work back up through Al’s ancestors to the same generation as Joseph you get to Robert Blackett (1816-1903). Robert and Joseph were 1st cousins (same grandfather). Al is 4 generations removed from Robert, so he’s Joseph’s 1st cousin 4xremoved. The relationship applies both ways, i.e. Joseph is Al’s 1st cousin 4xremoved.

With uncles and aunts it’s a bit more straightforward. Your father’s uncle is your great-uncle, (sometimes written as two separate non-hyphenated words), your grandfather’s uncle is your great-great-uncle and so on. The only difference is that in North America many (though not all) people use “grand-uncle” instead of “great-uncle” and that’s often how it shows up in the Relationship Calculator function in most genealogy computer programs. So a “great-great-uncle” would be called a “great grand-uncle”. In the UK and Commonwealth countries, however, “grand” is rarely used. (Some people may remember “Great Uncle Bulgaria” in the TV animated series, The Wombles.)

The golden rule, however, is to check with your Relationship Calculator.

On 6 Jul 1722 the following entry appeared in the London Daily Post:
Lost at Hampton-Court on Thursday the 28th last, a large white and brown spaniel bitch, with a large head, long ears, pretty rough long hair about her legs, and a small yellow spot above each eye, with a long neck coming out of her shoulders, loose made. Whoever brings this bitch to John Blackett at Hampton Court, or to Christopher Blackett on Bread Street Hill, London, shall have Two Guineas reward, and reasonable Charges.

Two guineas was all that some domestic servants earned in a year, but John and Christopher could well afford so handsome a reward as they were respectively the 4th and 3rd surviving sons of Sir Edward Blackett (1649-1718).

It is not known if the spaniel was recovered.

William Blackett, the grandson of Sir Edward Blackett, was Lieutenant Governor of the Citadel of Plymouth, Devon. In his Will, proved in 1782, he stated:

“I desire that my body may be kept as long as it may not be offensive, and that one or more of my toes and fingers may be cut off to secure the certainty of my being dead. I also make the further request to my dear wife, that as she has been troubled with an old fool, she will not think of marrying a second.”

On 26 December 1883 the Northern Echo reported: “A Novel Birthday Celebration. Three brothers born in Woodland celebrated their birthdays on Friday, the 21st inst, whose united ages are 217 years, viz, Cuthbert Blackett, Crook, seventy nine years; Ralph Blackett, Woodland, seventy one years; and Robert Blackett, Lynesack, sixty seven years. They all enjoy good health.”
The brothers were three of the twelve children of Joseph Blackett and Elizabeth Stephenson. None of their other siblings shared a common birthday.

Blackett Crater is a lunar impact crater. It has a diameter of 141km and lies beyond the outer ring of the Mare Orientale basin. It was named in honour of Lord Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (see A Nobel Prize for a Blackett), the British physicist and Nobel laureate. Unfortunately it is on the far side of the moon, and cannot therefore be seen from…

… the Blackett Observatory.

The observatory stands in the grounds of Marlborough College in Wiltshire. It is named after Sir Basil Phillott Blackett KCB, (see A Blackett in High Finance) a past President of the Old Malburian Club, and houses the largest telescope in full time use in any school in the UK. It was opened in 1935, shortly after Sir Basil died in Germany, following a car crash.

In New South Wales, Australia is the town of Blackett (see Wikipedia article), now a residential suburb of Sydney. It was named after George Forster Blackett, who was Superintendent of the Government Cattle Station at neighbouring Rooty Hill from 1823 to 1830.

And in the centre of Sydney still stands what was, until 2009, the luxurious Blacket hotel, formerly a bank designed by Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture). The interior of the hotel, which opened in 2001, was contemporary in style but Blacket’s neo-classical exterior design was retained. Sadly, in 2009 the hotel closed to be redeveloped for shops and offices.

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In 1847, following the death of his wife, Maria, John Charles Blackett (see Naval Blacketts), then living in Auckland, New Zealand, founded the Maria Blackett Scholarship Trust, financed by the conveyance of his land at “Somerville’s corner” in central Auckland. In 1878 the trustees leased the land to the South British Insurance Company Limited, whose board commissioned the building of what became known as Blackett’s Building. The building is now used as shops and offices. Maria Blackett scholarships are still awarded to students of St. John’s College, Auckland University.

On a more modest scale, Blackett’s general store and post office was opened by Henry Blackett in Rangiora, New Zealand shortly after Henry’s arrival from England in 1858. In 1878 Henry became the first Mayor of Rangiora and held the office from 1878 to 1880 and from 1887 to 1888. The store was demolished in 1910 but there is a Blackett Street close to where it stood. Henry was a grandson of Joseph Blackett of Durham City (please see Can You Help Us?). In 1900, around the time of his 80th birthday, Henry fired a canon down the main street of Rangiora to celebrate the Relief of Mafeking, breaking several windows in the process. His grandson, Henry Cuthbert Blackett, was killed as a result of a fall from a penny-farthing bicycle, but the two events were not related. Henry Blackett’s son, Andrew Benton Blackett, was also Mayor of Rangiora from 1899 to 1901 and from 1910 to 1912.

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And finally, Blackets Lenswood Vineyard is situated in the Mount Lofty ranges, east of Adelaide in South Australia. Acquired by the Blacket family in 2004 and managed by them, it produces a range of cool climate premium wines.

Until its closure in 2010 The Blackett Arms stood in Nelson Street in central Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. In the 18th century the site would have been within the grounds of Anderson Place, the magnificent town house of Sir William Blackett (1657-1705).

Squire Blackett beer is brewed by the award-winning Wylam Brewery Ltd. near Heddon on the Wall, Northumberland. It is a traditional northern style brown ale, with an ABV of 3.6%, and is made with five different varieties of barley and wheat grains, and two varieties of hops. Wylam Brewery has also produced Puffing Billy beer, named after Christopher Blackett ’s famous locomotive. (See Railway Blacketts)

The present brewery was established in 2000 but an earlier Wylam Brewery was in existence as long ago as 1835 when, on 23 February of that year, Christopher Blackett of Oakwood, Wylam granted a lease of 12 years to John Weatherly, brewer of Wylam Brewery. The brewery closed in 1870.

The name of Thomas Blackett appeared on bottles of beer and stout around the end of the 19th century. This may refer to Thomas Blackett (1848/9-1912) of Byker, a former stationer, though he described himself as a wine and spirit merchant.

A further brewing connection with the Blacketts derives from the 1875 marriage of Edward Ralph Blacket to Laura Jane Grey, the great-granddaughter of Samuel Whitbread, founder of the Whitbread brewing empire. For an ancestry chart of Laura Jane Grey please click here.

The most illustrious connection, athough hardly a direct one, between the Blacketts and literature stems from Edward Blackett, who married Agnes Lilburne around 1602. Agnes was the great-aunt of John Lilburne, who married Isabel Quiney, the great-niece of William Shakespeare. (Agnes Lilburne was also the 4xgreat-aunt of US President Thomas Jefferson, as shown in Links to Presidents of the USA.) There are, however, a number of other literary connections, where the connection is somewhat more direct.

Christopher Blackett (1751-1829) of Wylam, Northumberland (see Railway Blacketts) established The Globe, a London newspaper, in 1803, which continued in existence until 1921 when it merged with the Pall Mall Gazette.

Hurst and Blackett, a London publishing house, was founded in late 1852 by Henry Blackett and Daniel William Stow Hurst (1802-1870), and acquired the publishing business of Henry Colburn in January 1853. Daniel Hurst had been employed by Henry Colburn, and Henry Blackett may have provided the capital for the venture, as he had come into possession of his share of his father’s estate on attaining the age of twenty-five in May 1850. (He may also have acquired additional assets on his marriage in July 1852 to Ellen Selma Mayor, the daughter of a hop merchant.)

Henry was the eldest son of the second marriage of John Blackett (1785-1832), a wealthy ship-broker, and descended from the Northumberland Blacketts (see Can You Help Us?). Henry’s grandfather, John Blackett (1757-1831), was a successful merchant, who moved into ship-building in Limehouse, London and fell on hard times in the depression of the 1820s/1830s. John junior seems to have been a wealthy man in his own right as in 1820 he lent several thousand pounds to his father. (In December 1832, shortly after the death of John junior, his widow sued her father-in-law’s executors for the return of the money and other sums owing.)

It was previously believed that Hurst & Blackett had been co-founded in 1812 by Henry’s father, John Blackett. This was supported by the fact that for some time Hurst & Blackett described themselves as “Publishers since 1812.” Moreover, John Blackett was associated with Henry Allnutt of Maidstone, Kent, his wife’s brother, who was a paper manufacturer. However, the will and codicil of John Blackett contain no reference to publishing interests, and “Publishers since 1812”, which replaced the original mention of “Successors to Henry Colburn” on Hurst & Blackett’s title pages, seems more likely to signify the date when Daniel Hurst believed Colburn had commenced publishing.

The business expanded rapidly and Hurst and Blackett continued publishing throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century. Early in the 1930s they acquired the British rights to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” for just £350. They also published three volumes of Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret, each containing two stories. The firm was later subsumed into Hutchinson, which itself is now a subsidiary of Random House, a division of the media company Bertelsmann.

Hurst and Blackett are said to hold the record for the shortest ever exchange of correspondence between a writer and his publisher. In 1862 Victor Hugo, then on holiday, was anxious to know how the British sales of “Les Miserables” were progressing, and sent a telegraph consisting only of a “?” The reply from Hurst and Blackett read simply “!”.

At least four of Henry’s sons became publishers. Spencer Collinson Blackett (1858-1920), Henry’s 4th son, became a successful publisher in his own right, publishing works by, amongst others, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H. Rider Haggard. However, according to “Kegan Paul: A Victorian Imprint” by Leslie Howsam (Kegan Paul International 1998), Spencer Blackett’s later experience as business manager of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.for around ten years from 1895 was rather less successful, and his expensive six months tour of Canada, Ceylon, New Zealand, Australia and the United States produced little in the way of sales. It is not clear exactly when Spencer Blackett left the business, but he died in 1920 at Brookwood railway station in Surrey, dying intestate with assets of only £20.
In 1950 Spencer Collingwood’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Eily Dennison, married Francis Hugh Blackett, who became Sir Francis Hugh Blackett, 11th Bt. in 1994. Elizabeth had died in 1982, however, and never enjoyed the title of Lady Blackett.

Around 1841 James Blacket (1808-1877) established himself as a bookseller in Newbury, Berkshire and by 1854 was described as a “printer, bookseller, stationer and stamp distributor.” In 1859 he set up The Newbury Advertiser, but the paper survived only 9 months. In 1866 his eldest son, Walter James Blacket (1842-1916), took over the business, and in 1867, in partnership with a journalist, Thomas Wheildon Turner, founded The Newbury Weekly News, which is still published to this day (2012), with wider printing interests, all under its holding company Blacket Turner and Co. Ltd. Walter’s two brothers both went into the printing and stationery business, and Blackett Press Stationers Ltd., set up by Edmund Ralph Blacket (1843-1933) in Bath, Somerset, was still in existence in 2015. Walter’s youngest brother, Frederick Blackett, was married to Helen Jane Read, the 1st cousin 1xremoved of Sir Herbert Edward Read, the distinguished War Poet (see Wikipedia entry).

In July 1919 William Cameron Blackett of Massachusetts, USA became a co-founder, along with Clayton Holt Ernst and Ormond E. Loomis, of The Torbell Company, publishers of The Open Road (see Wikipedia article), a magazine for boys. “Torbell” was derived from the initials of the magazine and the surnames of the founders, viz. T[he]O[pen]R[oad]B[lackett]E[rnst]L[oomis]L[td]. The name of the magazine was changed to The Open Road for Boys in 1925 and by 1940 its circulation had reached 301,000. It finally ceased publication in the 1950s.

Julian Fenwick Platt, a 3xgreat-grandson of Alice Blackett, founded in 1999 Third Millennium Information Ltd., a fine art publishing house. In 2004 they published under their Third Millennium Publishing Ltd. imprint “The Ship that Came Home” by A. W. Purdue, a history of the Blackett dynasties of north-east England.

Matthew Blackett, a native of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the publisher, creative director and co-founder of Spacing Magazine, and in 2007 was named Editor of the Year by the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors.

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Several Blacketts have been published authors. In addition to those mentioned in The Famous Blacketts, the following are examples of some of the Blacketts who have seen their works published:

“Two Years in an Indian Mission” by Herbert Field Blackett was originally published in 1884 and was reprinted in both hard and soft back in 2007 and 2010.

William Stephens Blackett was the author of “Researches into the Lost History of America – Or the Zodiac Shown to Be an Old Terrestial Map in Which the Atlantic Isle is Delineated”, published in 1884. The previous year he had published his research purporting to show that Stonehenge was built by the inhabitants of the lost city of Atlantis. His writings do not, however, seem to have provided him with a sufficient income to give up his job as a gas collector in London.

Richard Blackett, who is the Andrew Jackson Professor of History at Vanderbilt University in the United States, has written a number of books under the name of R. J. M. Blackett, chiefly focussing on the history of slavery, including “Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War”.

Mary Dawes Blackett (full name Mary Ann Dawes Blackett, who died in Vauxhall, now part of south London, and was buried at St. Mary’s, Lambeth on 8 Aug 1792) was a female poet and writer. Her works included a poem entitled “Suicide” published in 1789 and “The Monitress; or, the oeconony of female life”, a collection of published letters written to her only daughter Catharine. She may have been married to a Thomas Blackett of Bloomsbury, London, but this is not certain (see Roman Catholic Blacketts in Can You Help Us?)

In 1882 “The Life of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian Hero and Patriot” by Howard Blackett was published. (The preface by “H. Blackett” is dated 20 June 1882). It was reprinted in 1883, 1885, 1888 and 1890. (Nb. We have found no record of a Howard Blackett of the right age to be this author. One possibility is that it could be the pen name of Mary Maria Howard, born 1843 in Cartworth, Yorkshire, who married James Blackett in Victoria, Australia in 1860, where she had several children before returning to England between 1867 and 1870. The assumption of a male pen name would probably have helped her at the time to find a publisher for a work of non-fiction. However, other than the combination of surnames, we have found no evidence in support of this possibilty.)

“Visions of Terror” by Michael Blackett, published in 2002, “The River Styx” by Michael R. Blackett, published in 2006, and “Run, Dad, Run!”, a children’s book by Dulcibella Blackett, published in 2003, are unusual for Blackett authors in that they are works of fiction.

Tom Blackett, the former deputy chairman of Interbrand, has had several marketing books published covering brand management.

Matt Blackett (see Blacketts and Music) is co-author of The History of Yamaha Guitars, published in 2006.

Rev. John Blacket (1856-1935), who spelled his name with one “t”, was the author of eight books on philosophy and history, the latter largely focussing on the first 30 years of settlement in South Australia. His first book, “A South Australian Romance”, published in 1898, is now regarded as an important historical work on early South Australia.

Marion Blackett-Milner (1900-1998), the sister of Lord Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (see A Nobel Prize for a Blackett) was a psychoanalyst and the author of a number of books on art and psychoanalysis. Her most noted work was “The Hands of the Living God”, published in 1969, detailing the story of the treatment of a very ill patient who communicated her emotions through the medium of drawing when unable to express herself in words.

Mark Blackett-Ord is the author of “Hell-Fire Duke”, published in 1982, the story of the Duke of Wharton, founder of the notorious Hell-Fire Club. He also writes and edits publications covering the law of partnerships.

Professor Adelle Blackett has had many articles on economics and labour relations published, and is the author of “Social Regionalism in the Global Economy”.

Jacqueline W. Blackett is the author of “Holistic Guide to Health and Self-Awareness” and “50 Q & A on Family Health and Welfare Issues”.

In 1961 Lady Teresa Lorraine Onslow, the 6xgreat-granddaughter of Diana Blackett, married Auberon Waugh, the noted author and journalist. He was the son of the author Evelyn Waugh, whose works included “Scoop” and “Brideshead Revisited.”

In 1913 Mary Isabel Blacket, a granddaughter of Edmund Thomas Blacket
(see Architecture), married Sir Gordon Clavering Trollope, grandson of the novelist Anthony Trollope, one of the most successful authors of the Victorian era. Although his novels declined in popularity after his death, the latter half of the 20th century saw a major revival of interest, and several of his works have been adapted for television, including The Pallisers series and the Barchester Chronicles. Until 1867 Trollope combined his writing with holding down a senior position with the British Post Office and was responsible for the introduction of the Post Office’s first pillar box, which came into use for the collection of mail in 1852 in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands. The box was painted green, rather than the currently-used “pillar box red”.

In 1945 Diana Evelyn Legh, a 7th great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett married John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley, a third cousin 3xremoved of Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, better known as P. G. Wodehouse, the novelist, best known for his “Jeeves and Wooster” short stories. Born in Guildford, Surrey, P. G. Wodehouse moved to France and during World War II was interned for a time by the German occupying forces in Upper Silesia, now in Poland. (He famously remarked “If this is Upper Silesia one wonders what Lower Silesia must be like.”) He finally settled in the USA and became an American citizen.

In 1948 John Adrian Hope, 1st Baron Glendoven, a 6xgreat-grandson of Diana Blackett married Elizabeth Mary Maugham, daughter of the author W. Somerset Maugham. Somerset Maugham was the author of many works, including the novels ‘Of Human Bondage’ and ‘The Razor’s Edge’ and was believed to be the highest-earning author of his era. He was married to Gwendolyn Maud Syrie Barnado, daughter of Dr. Thomas John Barnado, the founder of the Barnado’s children’s charity.

Despite all of the above contributions to literature by Blacketts and their descendants, however, the prize for having the biggest effect on popular literary culture is due to Hill Blackett (1892-1967). For his role in the creation of the “soap opera” please see the final paragraphs of Blacketts in Politics.

Blacketts also appear as characters in fiction. In addition to Nancy Blackett in Arthur Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” (see A Blackett Female Pirate), the Blackett family, headed by Herbert Blackett, feature in E. H. Young’s “Chatterton Square”, published in 1947 and republished several times since.

“The Country of the Pointed Firs”, a novel by Sarah Orne Jewett, published in 1896, features an eighty-six-year-old Mrs. Blackett, the mother of the narrator, and her son William. The novel is considered to be the masterpiece of the author, who is regarded as one of the leading American writers of her day.

“Mrs. Blackett: Her Story” by Emily E. S. Elliott (1836-1897), published in 1868 and reprinted in 1899 and 1909, is a charming story of a housekeeper, the widow of Tom Blackett, relating her life story to the young folk of the household. It had previously been issued as part of “Copsley Annals” in 1866 and Miss Elliott agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to its being published as a separate volume after many requests from her readers.

J. G. Farrell’s novel, “The Singapore Grip”, published in 1978, centres around Walter Blackett, the head of the fictional firm of Blackett and Webb, British Singapore’s oldest and most powerful firm, and the impact of the Japanese invasion in World War II.

Admiral Sir James Blackett and Lady Blackett appear as characters in Nevil Shute’s “Landfall”, first published in 1940 and reissued in 1992 and Henry Blackett features in Michael Beashel’s “Unshackled”, published in 2009.

“Dead Fish”, a play by award-winning British playwright Gordon Steel, is a tragic-comic story of the Blackett family, who find themselves nearly torn apart when the eldest son refuses to follow his father into the steel industry.

Matthew Blackett, the son of a colliery owner, and a young officer under the command of the Duke of Marlborough in the early 18th century, is one of the main characters in “With Marlborough to Malplaquet” by Richard Stead and Herbert Strang, ( a pseudonym of two members of the Oxford University Press) written in 1908 and which can now now be read online.

Commander Roger Blackett of the Royal Navy is a leading character in J. S. Law’s “Tenacity”, a thriller published in 2015.

Stretching the “literary” connection somewhat, the long-running TV series “Z Cars” featured a character named “Sergeant Jim Blackitt”, played by Robert Keegan, who also played the same character, then retired, in the subsequent TV series “Softly, Softly”. And Beryl Blackett was a character played by Marjorie Rhodes in an episode of the TV series “Steptoe and Son”. (She was the lady friend of Albert Steptoe.) On the bigger screen, the movie “A Woman’s A Helluva Thing”, released in 2001, starred Angus MacFadyen as Houston Blackett, a men’s magazine owner.

And stretching the family connection almost to breaking point, in 1837 Diana Bosville Macdonald, the 2xgreat-granddaughter of Diana Blackett married John George Smyth, the fourth cousin of Alice Pleasance Liddell. Alice Liddell, on whom “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” was based, was the daughter of Henry George Liddell, who became close friends with Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll. A version of the story was originally told by Lewis Carroll to Alice, and he subsequently had an amended version published. Both that and the subsequent “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” were dedicated to Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Eric Arthur Blair, who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell, attended St. Cyprian’s School in Eastbourne, Sussex, which had been established in 1899 by Cicely Ellen Philadelphia Comyn, a granddaughter of Ellen Anne Blacket, and her husband Lewis Chitty Vaughan Wilkes. George Orwell outlined his unhappy experiences of the school, and his unfavourable impression of Cicely and Lewis Vaughan Wilkes, in his essay “Such, Such Were the Joys”. It was considered libellous and an unfair account and publication in the UK was delayed until after the death of Cicely in 1967.

Of course, like most families, the Blacketts owned books, which would have contained their personal bookplates. Some of these have survived to this day. Bookplates, also known as ex-libris, have since the 15th century been used in books to declare ownership. Personal bookplates have been available to anyone owning a library and wishing to place in the books a printed design as a mark of ownership. We are fortunate to have in our possession some of the Blackett Bookplates bearing their name and coat of arms. The following bookplates and information have kindly been supplied by The Bookplate Society, an international society of collectors, bibliophiles, artists and others dedicated to promoting the production, use, collecting, and study of bookplates. The society achieves this through their publications, lectures, visits to collections, members’ auctions, social meetings, and exhibitions.

We have not been able to identify all the owners of these bookplates. If you have information on them please contact us.

When Arthur Ransome wrote his famous “Swallows and Amazons”, published in 1930, he decided to name his best known character, the skipper of the Amazon, Nancy Blackett. What prompted him to use the Blackett name is not known, but Ransome drew his inspiration for the story from his beloved Lake District, close to where several branches of Blacketts have lived since at least the 17th century. After the success of his book, Ransome bought a sailing cutter and renamed her" Nancy Blackett".
The boat has been restored and is owned and operated by the Nancy Blackett Trust.
In June 2015 shooting of a new film of Swallows and Amazons commenced in the Lake District. The film stars Rafe Spall and Gwendoline Christie and is directed by Phillippa Lowthorpe.

The only Blackett reference to real-life piracy we have discovered is that in 1715 Jeremiah Higgins left Jamaica in the Blackett “to go treasure-fishing”. Higgins was captured in New York in 1717 and released in 1718 as part of the General Pardon. It is not known whether this ship was the same one referred to in 1752 by Thomas Trowell, when he made his will prior to “going on an intended voyage to South Carolina on board the Blacket”. In 1782 a ship of that name is reported to have sailed from Cowes, England to Quebec with a cargo of flour and on 28 October 1782 it was ordered from Quebec to New York. At the end of the American War of Independence in 1783 the Blacket evacuated loyalists, including former slaves, from New York to Halifax, Nova Scotia and Quebec.

A number of Blacketts have been associated with the stage, movies and television.

Andrew Blackett was cast in several British movies in the late 1940s/early 1950s including Against the Wind (1948), a drama directed by Charles Crichton, Vice Versa,(1948), a comedy written and directed by Peter Ustinov, and the 1950 Anglo-American production of Treasure Island, starring Robert Newton.

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Anthony Blackett, also billed as Tony Blackett, is an English-born stage actor who appeared in the 1978 movie The Medusa Touch, starring Richard Burton, plus several TV productions in the late 1970s, including Space 1999, Secret Army and Flying Kiwi. In the 1980s he appeared in a number of TV and cinema movies including Island Trader (1982), The Dismissal (1983), Stock Squad (1985) and The 13th Floor (1988), as well as two Australian TV series: A Country Practice and Five Mile Creek. He appeared in an episode of the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in 1996, and in 1997 in an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. He is the father of the singer Sinitta (see Blacketts and Music).

In 2014 Ray Blackett appeared as a biker in “Australia”, an episode of the American TV comedy series Modern Family, and Stanley Blackett played the part of Miami Lightning in the 1999 movie Game Day.

Liz Blackett is an English-born actor now based in Queensland, Australia. In 2014 she toured Australia in a stage production of Calender Girls and starred in the pilot show for a planned TV comedy series Coffee My Body.

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Helena Bonham Carter C.B.E. is the 5xgreat niece of Robert Wrigley, who married Ann Blackett in 1812. She played Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series (2007-2011), and was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove (1997) and for her role as Queen Elizabeth in The King’s Speech (2010). She is the great-granddaughter of Herbert Henry Asquith, (see Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom.)

Camilla Blackett is a Los Angeles-based scriptwriter writing for US TV series such as New Girl and The Newsroom. Before leaving her native UK for America she had worked as a writer on the British TV series Skins.

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Tom Blacket is an Australian television producer, whose productions include Ocean Star (2003), Second Chance (2005) and The Cut (2009).

Blacketts have appeared as fictional characters on screen, including Houston Blackett played by Angus Macfadyen and Claire Anders-Blackett played by Ann-Margret in the 2001 TV movie A Woman’s a Hell of a Thing and the characters Nancy and Peggy Blackett in the 1974 movie of Swallows and Amazons, based on the book by Arthur Ransome (see A Blackett Female Pirate). In 2007 Andrew Doyle played the part of Lyle Blackett in The Blink of an Eye, an episode of the Australian TV series All Saints. And as long ago as 1920 a Dutch-British silent movie Oranges Lemons (originally titled Fate’s Plaything) featured several members of a fictitious Blackett family.

In 1939 Ian Fleming, later author of the James Bond (007) spy novels, was recruited into Naval Intelligence and commenced working in Room 39 at The Admiralty, Whitehall, London. Room 39 was part of the Naval Intelligence Division (NID) and maintained a direct link to Hut 4 at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. The only woman working in Room 39 was Victoire Evelyn Patricia ‘Paddy’ Bennett, and Fleming is said to have based his character, Miss Moneypenny, secretary to “M”, James Bond’s boss, on her.

In 1942 Paddy Bennett married a military intelligence officer, Julian Errington Ridsdale (see Wikipedia article), the 5xgreat-nephew of Edward Ridsdale, an attorney from Ripon, Yorkshire, who eloped with Anne Blackett, daughter of Sir Edward Blackett, 2nd Bt. in 1709. Julian Ridsdale was a nephew of Lucy ‘Cissie’ Baldwin, wife of Stanley Baldwin, who was Prime Minister at the time of the Abdication in 1936. Lucy was a 4xgreat-niece of the Edward Ridsdale who married Anne Blackett.

Paddy Bennett/Ridsdale was originally believed to have written some of the false letters planted on the body of the fictitious “Major Martin” in 1943, as part of Operation Mincemeat, the basis for the later book and film The Man Who Never Was, which was also developed at NID in Whitehall. However, although it is now generally accepted that the letters were written by another member of NID, there is another Blackett connection. Operation Mincemeat was devised and planned by Charles Christopher Cholmondeley, a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF on secondment to MI5. Cholmondeley was the 3xgreat-grandson of Sir Thomas Wentworth Blackett. Although Paddy Ridsdale was a colleague of Cholmondeley, there is no evidence that either of them was aware of the distant family connection by marriage.

Lady Ridsdale was appointed a Dame of the British Empire (DBE) in 1991, ten years after her husband was knighted. A doughty woman, in 1997, at the age of 76, she fought off a mugger by lifting her high-heeled shoe and delivering a kick in the groin. She put her kicking ability down to ballet training during her childhood.

In the 1880s William Charlton Blackett, the son of a coal agent, joined forces with Charles W. Howden and set up the firm of Blackett and Howden Ltd., organ builders of Newcastle Upon Tyne. They introduced some highly innovative features to pipe organs, and their business rapidly expanded from its initial focus on the Tyneside area, to supplying organs across the whole of the United Kingdom and beyond, at one time having a second workshop in Glasgow. They built and restored church and theatre/cinema organs, many of which are still in use to this day in countries such as Australia and Germany as well as the UK.
They built the organ for the Royal Memorial Chapel at Sandhurst and reconstructed the organ in Hong Kong Cathedral. The firm was still trading under its original name as recently as 1969.

William Charlton Blackett was the 2nd cousin of Robert Blackett Charlton, who developed the engineering firm of R. Blackett Charlton Ltd. (see A Piping Hot Blackett).

Musical visitors to this site might like to try out this traditional Northumbrian air, originally called “Blackett O’ Wylam”, and presumably dedicated to Christopher Blackett or his descendants.

And, while on the subject of traditional English tunes, some people may remember from childhood Bobby Shafto’s Gone to Sea. The tune is believed to refer to Robert Shafto (see Wikipedia page), Member of Parliament for Downton, Wiltshire, who was the father-in-law of Catherine Eden, great-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett.

Of course there have been many musical Blacketts:

Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture) was a lover of music who played the organ.

Diana Blackett-Ord has recorded a number of traditional airs on the Northumbrian small pipes.

William Blackett of Wham, near Lynesack, Co. Durham, who emigrated to the USA in 1880, had become a professional musician in Kansas by 1910 and his great-niece, Julia Blackett played the piano in silent cinemas in north-east England after World War I, then becoming a piano teacher until her retirement at the age of 91. (Her younger son, Al Kirtley, one of the founders of this website, has been a rock and jazz musician for more than 50 years, as shown in his music site.)

Bermuda-born Joy Blackett, a mezzo-soprano, won the 1971 Young Concert Artists International Competition and went on to perform extensively in the USA and elsewhere, subsequently becoming a voice professor of music.

Dennison Blackett, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, is a jazz tenor and alto saxophonist who records and plays live in the Boston, Massachusetts area.

Jack “Blackie” Blackett, a Kansas City tenor saxophone player and composer, is a member of the Grammy Award-nominated Blue Riddim Band.

Matt Blackett is a guitarist and is associate editor of California-based Guitar Player magazine. He is co-author of The History of Yamaha Guitars, published in 2006.

Marvin K. Blackett a florist of Romeo, Michigan played the drums throughout Michigan in big bands, and later Dixieland bands, from 1932 to 2000.

The singer Sinitta is the daughter of the actor Anthony Blackett (see Blacketts of Stage and Screen) and Miquel Brown. Sinitta was the first artist to be signed by Simon Cowell and is Godmother to his son. Her single So Macho reached No. 2 in the UK singles chart in 1986.

Tyler Blackett, born in Manchester in 1994, is an English professional footballer, who played as left-back or centre-back for Manchester United until his transfer to Reading in 2016. He has represented England at youth international level. Shane Blackett, born in Luton in 1982, is a professional football player, currently (2016) playing for the Southern Football League Premier Division club St. Neots Town.

On 21 March 2008 Lee Blackett, a rugby union football player for Leeds Carnegie, scored the fastest try in Guiness Premiership history, taking just eight seconds to breach the defence of Newcastle Falcons. None of the opposing team touched the ball. Leeds won the game by 16-15.

Lee Blackett is not the only Blackett with connections to Rugby Football Union. His Honour Judge Jeff Blackett, (who is also Judge Advocate General of the British armed forces and a circuit judge), is Disciplinary Officer of the RFU and conducted the 2008 enquiry into the behaviour of the England squad on their New Zealand tour.

Blackett links to sport go back some time. Joe Blackett played football for Loughborough until 1896 when he transferred to Wolverhampton Wanderers, before joining Derby County in 1900. In 1908 he was playing for Leicester Fosse, later known as Leicester City. Frederick Blackett competed in the 400 metres hurdles as part of the British team at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, which was immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. Sadly, Frederick did not win a medal, which perhaps explains why he did not feature prominently in the movie. He did however win the English Amateur Athletics Association 440 yards hurdles in 1924 and 1925. In 1938 Jennings Blackett, a Panamanian sprinter, won the 100 metre final at the Central American and Caribbean Games in a record-breaking time of 10.4 seconds. He actually achieved an even better time of 10.3 seconds in the semi-finals in a tie with the Cuban entrant.

Basil John Blackett was a professional jockey and racehorse trainer in New South Wales. In 1914 he enlisted in the Australian Flying Corps and became a World War I ace, being awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre, French Croix de Guerre and French Legion of Honour Chevalier.

Mortimer Charles Blackett (1881-1938) is shown in some sources as a member of the South African cricket team that toured Australia in 1910/11. Although he did accompany the tour, it was as a journalist, reporting for the Johannesburg “Star”. However, while covering a pre-tour match of the South Africa Touring XI against Western Province, he was brought on as a substitute, and, although batting last and being bowled for a duck, did achieve an impressive boundary catch, helping his side to win by an innings and 18 runs. He later became the racing editor of The Star. [We are indebted to “Mort” Blackett’s great-niece, Yvonne Elizabeth Airey (nee Blackett) of New Zealand, herself a journalist, for these details.]

More recently, Andrea Blackett, a Bajan athlete, who was born in London in 1976, won a gold medal in the women’s 400 metres hurdles at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

The Blackett Level is a substantial mine exploration and drainage system constructed to explore unknown ground in Allendale in Northumberland in northern England. It was engineered by Thomas Sopwith and Thomas John Bewick on behalf of the mine owner and first Baron Allendale, Wentworth Blackett Beaumont M.P. Construction began in 1855 and continued until 1903 when after 4.68 miles, it remained incomplete.
The tunnel still exists today and houses an underground canal, which measures 8ft in height and 5ft in width and runs between Allendale (where it starts at Allendale Town) and Allenheads – the tunnel portal can still be seen by the riverside at Allendale.
Wentworth Blackett Beaumont had inherited the original Blackett of Newcastle estates and the substantial mining interests of Sir Walter Blackett through marriage, whereby these estates passed to the Wentworth Blacketts of Bretton Hall and the Blackett-Beaumont line of the family. The significant engineering feat was named after the Blackett Baronets, who were important to both the lead mining and coal trade to such a degree that in the 17th Century the Blackett mines provided about 1/7 of all lead ore mined in the UK.

An online archive, centered on the lead business developed by the Blackett and Beaumont families between the 17th and 19th centuries, is now viewable at Dukesfield Documents. The site includes thousands of letters and other documents, all searchable online.

Wentworth Blackett Beaumont was 1st cousin of Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont (see A Blackett Firearm).

In addition to the town of Blackett, now a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, (see Blacket(t)s Down Under) and Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands (see Naval Blacketts), there is a Mount Blackett, (after which an East African Railways locomotive was named), in Rift Valley, Kenya, and a Blackett’s Ridge, (named around 1937 after the appropriately named Hill Blackett Jr., a student at the Southern Arizona School for Boys), near Tucson, Arizona.

Blackett’s Creek in Prince Edward Island, Canada is named after William Blackett who farmed there. William’s son, Walter William Blackett later moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where his son, William Blackett (see image) acquired a farm from his father and built a house on the shores of what is now known as Blackett’s Lake. For more details of this branch of the family please see Blacketts of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts. There is also a Blackett Lake in the Lac La Biche region of Alberta.

In Rochester, Michigan, USA is a small development of nine lots known as Blackett’s Floral Gardens. It was platted (i.e. subdivided into lots) in 1942 by Russell and Beryl Blackett, who owned the land and operated a greenhouse business named Blackett’s Floral Gardens. The only street in the subdivison is named Beryl Court after Mrs. Blackett, and Russell built several of the houses. Russell and Beryl Blackett’s descendants continue to operate in the building industry as Blackett Builders.

In 1850 Robert Blackett Charlton, the son of Edward Charlton and Elizabeth Blackett set up a brass foundry in the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The brass foundry was developed by his son of the same name and over the years the company, trading as R. Blackett Charlton Ltd., established a worldwide reputation as a manufacturer of pipes and other engineering products. It moved to its present site in Walker, east of Newcastle, in 1901. The company became a part of the Chieftain Group in 1991, which itself has been part of Redhall Group plc since 2008. R. Blackett Charlton Ltd. continues to trade under its own name however.

Robert Blackett Charlton the younger was the 2nd cousin of William Charlton Blackett (see Blacketts and Music.)

In 1831 Henry Ralph Beaumont, great-grandson of Diana Blackett, married Catherine Cayley, daughter of Sir George Cayley. Sir George was a Fellow of The Royal Society, and in 1853 organised the first true (though non-powered) aeroplane flight in history, 50 years before the Wright brothers, at Brompton Hall, Yorkshire. Rather than fly the monoplane himself, he instructed his coachman, John Appleby, to pilot it. After the inevitable crash, Appleby gave notice to his employer, stating “I was hired to drive, not to fly!” Some sources claim the pilot was Sir George’s grandson, but whoever flew the aircraft was perhaps fortunate in that Sir George was also the inventor of the seat belt.

Sir George helped to found the Royal Polytechnic Institution, now the University of Westminster. After earlier flights of a replica of his 1853 machine, now on display at the Yorkshire Air Museum, a second replica was flown by Richard Branson in 2003.

In 1860, Rev. Henry Moule (1801-1880), the great-grandson of Ann Blackett patented the dry earth closet. Following the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854, and particularly after the “Great Stink” during the unusually hot summer of 1858, when the smell in London from overflowing cesspits became so bad that it affected the work of the House of Commons, he filled in his own cesspool and instructed his family to use buckets, burying the contents in the garden of his Dorset vicarage. Finding that no trace of the sewage remained after a short time, he erected a shed and each day mixed dry earth with the contents of the bucket, discovering in the process that the contents made excellent fertiliser.

He believed that his discovery could play a major part in reducing the spread of disease and developed a type of commode employing the dry earth principle, and established the Moule Patent Earth Closet Co. Ltd. in the 1870s. For much of the rest of the 19th century his dry earth closet was a major competitor of the water closet (“WC”), but by the end of the century the WC had become the normal standard. Ironically, in recent years composting toilets have grown in use, being considered more eco-friendly than a water-flush system.

Henry Moule had a number of children who achieved eminence in the church and in academia. His sons, Henry Joseph and Horatio Mosley Moule, were close friends of the author Thomas Hardy, and his youngest son, Handley Carr Glyn Moule, was Bishop of Durham from 1901 to 1920.

On the evening of 22 October 1641 the infant, Henry Blackett, was being put to bed by a servant in Belfast, Ireland, (some sources say Dublin), where his parents had been living for some years.

The servant, a Catholic girl, had learned of an impending attack by Catholics on Dublin Castle at midnight that night which was intended to spark a rebellion across the whole of Ireland, and lead to what has become widely known as the Irish Massacre. This caused great distress to the servant, who was fearful for the pious family for whom she worked, and particularly for Henry, to whom she was warmly attached, and with whom she usually slept.

As she was bending over Henry she was seen to be weeping and was heard to say “My dear Henry, farewell. I shall never sleep with you again!” On learning of this, Henry’s parents anxiously enquired the reason for her grief. “Fordyce’s History of Durham” contains an account (which could have been written by Barbara Cartland!) of what happened next. “She hesitated. Fear for her own life, fidelity to the party she was connected with, affection for the family she served, and warm attachment to her little charge, all these combined, wrought powerfully within her throbbing bosom; and at length, humanity and endearment triumphing over her religious scruples and bloody fidelity, she divulged the Roman Catholic secret of the intended attack on the Protestants of Dublin next day.” Henry’s parents immediately made preparations to leave Ireland for England, which they did on 23 October.

Henry eventually became a draper in County Durham, and for more than 40 years was an Anabaptist pastor, living at Bitchburn, near Witton le Wear. He was an elder of the church and in 1689 was a “messenger” at the Anabaptist General Assembly in London. Services and meetings were held regularly at his Bitchburn home. He died on 23 October 1704¹, exactly 63 years after his family’s flight from Ireland.

As well as preaching for the church, he was kindly to his Christian friends, accomodating in his house those who had come a great distance to the services. A traditional saying of his, repeated down the years among his descendants was:

“I have room in my stable for your horses; I have room in my house for yourselves; but I have still more room in my heart.”

¹ Some sources show his death as 23 Oct 1705.

In 1856 Robert Collingwood Blackett (see the article on him in Can You Help Us?) arrived in New York with his wife Eleanor and four of his children on the ship Thornton. They had left Liverpool on 4 May 1856 as members of a large group of converts to the Mormon faith under the leadership of James G. Willie, intending to settle in Utah. A departure from England as late as May was to prove problematical, and in some cases fatal, for the company.

Robert’s daughter Priscilla, then aged 13, had become ill by the time the family reached New York and her parents decided to leave her there in the care of friends, fearing that she would not survive the trek to Utah. Robert, Eleanor and the other children were to become part of what became known as the Willie Handcart Company.¹ This has become famous in the history of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and in the words of Kim Blackett, a descendant of Robert Collingwood Blackett, it was “the handcart equivalent of the Titanic”.

Due to the poor communications then existing, together with lack of time and supplies, the handcarts supplied by the Church for the migrants were poorly built and constructed with unseasoned wood. When the company had reached the Mormon outpost at Florence (the modern day Omaha), Nebraska, more time was lost in making repairs to the handcarts. It was already August and they had covered only 275 miles, with more than 1,000 miles still to go to their final destination. 96 members of the company decided to wait out the winter in Florence, but on August 17 the remainder of the company set off. Of approximately 400 members who left Florence, 68 of the Willie company, (plus at least a further 145 members of the Martin company, who were following some way behind), perished in the snows, and many of the survivors had to have fingers, toes or limbs amputated due to frostbite.

Robert Collingwood Blackett’s decision to remain behind at Florence was understandable. He was then aged 49 and Eleanor 48, and Eleanor had broken her leg on the first stage of the journey, having to walk on crutches. Additionally Robert had become ill and had been forced to ride part of the way to Florence. Nevertheless it could not have been an easy decision to ignore the urging of most of the Church elders to continue the journey in the belief that the company would be protected by divine intervention, but had he decided differently there could well now be many fewer Blackett descendants living in the USA.

We are indebted to Glorianne Marshall and to Kim Blackett for informing us of this saga.

¹ Wikipedia: Mormon handcart pioneers

In 1819 William Robinson, the son of Margaret Blackett and William Robinson of Hamsterley, County Durham, married Johanna Christian in London. Johanna was the daughter of Admiral Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian, a descendant of an old Isle of Man family, and was the 5th cousin of Fletcher Christian. Fletcher Christian was master mate on HMS Bounty¹ and led the mutiny on 28 April 1789 against the captain, William Bligh, later immortalised in the 1935 motion picture “Mutiny on the Bounty”, starring Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian. After evading capture by the Royal Navy, Fletcher Christian died on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific on 20 Sep 1793, six weeks before the birth in Oxfordshire of his 5th cousin Johanna Christian on Thursday 31 October 1793. By coincidence Fletcher Christian had named his eldest son, born in 1790, Thursday October Christian.

William and Johanna Robinson settled in Hamsterley for some years, where William built “Hamsterley Lodge” (now known simply as “The Lodge”)². Their two children were baptised in Hamsterley and Johanna was buried there on 24 October 1827 (which was a Wednesday).

¹ In 1837 the ship’s log of HMS Bounty was purchased at Pitcairn Island by Midshipman John Charles Blackett from a descendent of Fletcher Christian (see Naval Blacketts).
² We are indebted to Jonathan Peacock and to Hamsterley and South Bedburn village site for their help in identifying this property.

Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan was born in 1934 and was the 7xgreat-grandson of Bridgett Blackett, the daughter of Perceval Blackett of Hamsterley. Another descendant of Bridgett Blackett was Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour and Prime Minister of the UK 1902-1905 (see Blacketts in Politics), the 2nd cousin 2xremoved of Lord Lucan. In both cases the line of descent from Bridgett passes down through her daughter, Bridget Chapman, who married Anthony Todd, and whose grandson Anthony Todd became foreign secretary of the Post Office in 1752. In 1782 Anthony Todd (the grandson) secured the marriage of his daughter Eleanor to James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale. Balfour and Lucan were respectively the great-grandson and 3xgreat-grandson of James and Eleanor.

On the evening of Thursday 7 November 1974 the nanny to Lord and Lady Lucan’s children, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in the basement of the family home in Lower Belgrave Street, London, where Lady Lucan and the children were still living, Lord Lucan having moved out in late 1972. Lady Lucan was also attacked, and identified the assailant as her estranged husband. A car which Lord Lucan had been seen driving was discovered in Newhaven, Sussex on the south coast on Sunday 10 November but despite an extensive manhunt by the police, involving overseas enquiries through Interpol, and huge interest in the press, no trace of Lord Lucan was ever found. At an inquest into the death of Sandra Rivett in 1975 the inquest jury brought in a verdict of “murder by Lord Lucan”, and Lucan was committed by the coroner to a Crown Court for unlawful killing, the last occasion before a coroner’s power to do so was removed by the Criminal Law Act 1977. Lord Lucan was the first member of the House of Lords to be named a murderer since 1760.

Over the years many supposed sightings of him around the world have been reported, though none substantiated. An early such sighting in Australia in December 1974 turned out to be the former Labour government minister John Stonehouse (1925-1988), who had faked his own death by leaving his clothes on a Miami beach two weeks after Lord Lucan disappeared. (The Stonehouse affair was widely thought to have been the inspiration for the TV series “The Rise and fall of Reginald Perrin”, which bore markedly similar characteristics, but the book on which it was based, though written in 1974, was not published until 1975.)

Although Lord Lucan was never found, probate of his will was granted in 1999, but no death certificate was issued. However, following the Presumption of Death Act 2013, which came fully into force in 2014, Lord Lucan’s son commenced proceedings in 2015 to enable him to assume his father’s title.

The Blackett Aerophor, from the Greek, meaning air-carrier, was a form of breathing apparatus, introduced in the Durham area in 1910 by Col. William Cuthbert Blackett (1859-1935).

The breathing bag, worn on the chest, was made of rubber enclosed in a strong leather case. It was connected to a backpack containing liquid nitrox with a minimum oxygen content of 50 per cent and a canister of potash or soda. It was used until the 1950s, mainly in mine rescue.

Colonel Blackett, a former commanding officer of 8th Bn., The Durham Light Infantry, was a President of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, and was responsible for a number of developments in mining equipment, including the Blackett coal-face conveyor, patented in 1902.

In 1903 he rescued Robert Richardson who had been trapped for 91 hours at Sacriston Colliery, Co. Durham.

In 1776 Trinity House agreed to allow Captain John Blackett to build at his own expense two lighthouses off the Northumberland coast, one at Farne Island and the other on Staples Island, not far from where in 1838 Grace Darling and her father rowed out to save nine survivors from the SS Forfarshire. (In October of that year James Blackett of North Sunderland, Northumberland received from Trinity House £10 each for Grace Darling and her father.) The erection of the lighthouses followed an earlier request by Captain Blackett to build a lighthouse on the Outer Staple Islands in 1755, which was turned down by Trinity House. The Staples Island light was blown down in 1784 and rebuilt, but by 1809 both towers were decaying. In 1825 the Blackett family sold the lease of the Farne Island site to Trinity House for £36,484. This is the family from whom the Stock Exchange Blacketts were descended.

John Blackett, the son of a Newcastle coal agent, emigrated to New Zealand and became Engineer-in-Chief for New Zealand. He was responsible for the building of 14 lighthouses around the New Zealand coast. His daughter, Isabel Mary Houston, established the John Blackett Prize for outstanding engineering students. It is still awarded to this day.

Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture) designed a number of lighthouses in New South Wales, including Nobby’s Head, Newcastle, established in 1854.

In 1896 John Joseph Blackett (1875-1931) and his father, Ralph, established R. Blackett and Son Ltd., a Darlington-based brick manufacturer and builder. The company was responsible for building a number of Darlington landmarks, including the town’s first power station. When, however, towards the end of World War I the British government ordered 154 concrete hulled barges and tugs, due to a shortage of steel, John Joseph Blackett went into business with F. V. Nettleton to form Blackett’s Concrete Ships Ltd., based at Stockton and Thornaby-on-Tees. The business was incorporated in 1917, but the only two vessels built by them, both barges, were not launched until 1920, more than a year after hostilities had ceased. Orders for a further eight ships were cancelled and John Joseph Blackett reverted to brick manufacturing. One of the barges, however, the 744 ton Crete Joist, was sold to Norway in 1924. In 1942 she drifted onto rocks near Trondheim but did not sink, and the occupying German forces attempted to blow her up, without success. Many years later the Trondheim harbour authorities tried again, but failed to sink her. She still sits at Fevag, near Trondheim, in proud defiance of all that man and nature can inflict upon her.

The Crete Joist was not the only concrete ship built by a Blackett descendant, nor by a long way the largest. In March 1918 the first US concrete ship, the 8,000 ton freighter Faith, was launched in the Redwood City, California shipyard of William Leslie Comyn, a grandson of Ellen Anne Blacket. William Leslie Comyn was born in Hammersmith, West London and was part of a notable family. His elder sister Cicely was co-principal and headmistress of St. Cyprian’s School, Eastbourne (see the George Orwell paragraph in Blacketts and Literature) and a brother, Henry Hugh, was a Wimbledon tennis player, and English badminton champion in 1908 and 1909.

Around 1820 Patience Wise Blackett Izard, named after her aunt by marriage, Patience Wise Blackett, the daughter of John Erasmus Blackett, planted an avenue of oak trees along the drive of Tomotley Plantation, near Charleston, South Carolina, where she was living with her parents.
Patience Wise Blackett was the younger sister of Sarah Blackett, the wife of Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood (see Naval Blacketts). It is not known whether Patience Izard was inspired to plant the avenue by the example of Lord Collingwood, who regularly sowed acorns in his walks in the country to ensure that there would always be a supply of timber for the Royal Navy’s ships, or whether she was Patience by nature as well as by name.
Although the original plantation house was destroyed by General Sherman’s troops in 1865, the avenue was spared and is still there.

Many members of the family have served in the armed forces, and several became prisoners of war.

In 1942 Sir Charles Douglas Blackett, then a Major in The Queen’s Bays, was serving in the North African desert. On 25 January he was captured during a counter-attack against tanks of Rommel’s Afrika Corps.

Wentworth Hubert Charles Beaumont, the 3rd Viscount Allendale, and a descendant of Sir Thomas Wentworth Blackett, enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1940 and flew 71 Spitfire missions before being shot down in 1942 while attacking a ship off Valchesen in northern Holland, suffering a severe leg injury. He was captured and sent to Stalag Luft III at Sagan in Silesia, the setting for what was to be made famous in the film ‘The Great Escape’. Unable, due to his injury, to join the 80 prisoners in the escape party, he was a member of the map-making team supporting the escape committee. He was commissioned a Flight Lieutenant while in the camp, where he spent the rest of the war.

Ernald Freeman Chell, the son of Frederick Chell and Catherine Blackett of Frankton, Hamilton, New Zealand and a private in the New Zealand 21st regiment was captured in North Africa. On Monday 17 August 1942 he was one of 3,000 prisoners of war on the Italian troop ship Nino Bixio. Between Libya and Sicily the ship was torpedoed by the submarine HMS Turbulent and Ernald, along with more than 100 other prisoners, was killed.

Selwyn Beattie Blacket also died at sea as a prisoner of war on 12 September 1944. He was a private in the 8th Division, Australian Army Service Corps.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Lewis Hodges, who married Elisabeth M. Blackett (a descendant of the Hurst and Blackett publishing family) in 1950, was a POW for only a short time. In September 1940, returning with 49 Squadron from a bomber raid on Stettin, his plane crashed in France. He reached the Pyrenees but was captured by the gendarmerie and moved to Marseilles. After trying to get away by ship he was imprisoned and then placed on parole pending trial. He then escaped to Spain via Perpignan, was again imprisoned, finally returning to England in 1941

Captain Douglas Blackett was captured in 1940 and remained a prisoner in Oflag VII-B in Stuttgart, Germany, for the duration. For a fascinating account of his pen-pal correspondence with Ed Crommelin, a Dutch radio jazz broadcaster, reproduced with kind permission from Miff Crommelin, please click here.

There are earlier examples of prisoners of war connected to the Blacketts. Hanbury Clements, the father-in-law of Edith Blacket, was born in Dublin in 1793 and enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1806. In 1812, while serving on HMS Laurel during the Napoleonic Wars, he was captured near Quiberon Bay, off the coast of France after his frigate sank. He remained a prisoner at Verdun, France until the end of the war in 1814 and later emigrated to Australia, settling near Sydney, New South Wales in 1829. In 1862 his son, also Hanbury Clements, was close by when Australia’s biggest ever gold robbery took place near his farm at Eugowra, New South Wales. Hanbury’s wife Edith, nee Blacket, treated the wounded while Hanbury rode off to alert the authorities. The bushrangers made off with £14,000 (equivalent in 2009 values to about 2.5 million Australian dollars) in gold and bank-notes, more than half of which remains missing to this day.

And also in 1812 Ann Blackett, the wife of Alexander, a mariner of Monkwearmouth, County Durham, petitioned Trinity House for financial assistance while her husband was a prisoner of war at “Bezanzon” (probably Besancon in France) during the Napoleonic Wars. Alexander was eventually released and died at his home in Monkwearmouth in 1852

(For details of Blacketts who were killed in the World Wars please see Lest We Forget.)

The Blackett name has been seen on many high streets over the years. In White’s Directory of 1837 James Blackett is shown as a grocer in Briggate, Leeds. In 1851 Ralph Blackett (1812-1889) was a small farmer and grocer in Woodland, Co. Durham, but by 1861 he seems to have abandoned farming to run a full time grocery business in Forster Hill to the south of the village. By 1881 he was a grocer and draper, occupying Edinburgh House, Woodland, where the store continues to this day. After Ralph’s death his son Henry took over the business, followed by Henry’s son John Robert, whose initials still adorn the shop sign.

Blackett & Dixon were wine and spirit merchants operating between at least 1777 and 1801, and are recorded in Whitehead’s Trade Directory of 1790 as occupying premises in Mosley Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The co-founder of the business was probably Christopher Blackett of Wylam, Northumberland (1751-1829). Christopher built a town house in Mosley Street, though it is not clear if this was the same building as that occupied by the business. (Nb. In February 1879 Mosley Street became the first street in the world to be completely lit by electricity.)

Blackett & Son Ltd. is recorded in the 1939 edition of the “Official Guide to Barnard Castle in Lovely Teesdale”, published by Barnard Castle Publicity Society, under “Milliners, Drapers, Furnitures etc.” They were based in Horse Market, Barnard Castle. Blacketts furniture and department store was a prominent feature in Stockton High Street from around 1939 to 1970 when the premises were taken over by Waring and Gillow. The business was set up by George Marriner Blackett (1888-1951). There were at one time also Blacketts department stores in Sunderland (opened in 1826 by William Blackett, a draper, which closed in 1972), and Hartlepool, which was acquired by the Blacketts around the time of World War II and closed in 1970.

The Barnard Castle, Sunderland and Stockton Blacketts stores may be long gone, but in 2006 Blacketts Furniture Store opened in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland. In December 2008 the store won the Bishop Auckland Christmas window dressing competition.

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From 1976 to 2000 Blackett’s Bars and Restaurant occupied 63-67 Bondgate in Darlington. Part of the premises have been occupied since 2004 by Blackett’s Medical Practice. The premises were originally the headquarters of R. Blackett & Son Ltd. (see An Indestructible Blackett Ship), a brick manufacturer and builder, and the connection is commemorated by a frieze of bricks on new gates built for the medical practice.

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The name Blackett is frequently encountered in a wide variety of businesses. As at 2009 there was a Blacketts Restaurant and a Blacketts Gift Shop in Bamburgh, Northumberland, (named after Blackett Row, Bamburgh), a D. H. Blackett newsagent in Bishop Auckland, Blackett-Ord consulting engineers in Appleby-in-Westmorland, Davison Blackett Ltd., surveyors and valuers in Bedlington, Northumberland, and Blackett’s Doors in Fenham, Newcastle Upon Tyne, (formed in 1946 by Robert Blackett under the name of F. Blackett & Sons), as well as Blacketts Ltd, lithographic printers in Epping, Essex and Blacketts Nursery in Rickmansworth, Herts. And of course any internet search for “Blackett” will turn up many references to Blackett Hart and Pratt, a major law firm in north-east England. The origins of the firm go back to the beginning of the 19th century, but the name Blackett first appeared in its title in 1993. It has now been re-branded BHP.

Further south, Jimmy and George Blackett, two of the sons of James Blackett, a Manchester blacksmith (the family originally hailed from Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland), who had moved to Plumstead, London in 1870/71, opened Blackett Bros. Cycles in Cross Steet, Woolwich in 1908/09, shortly thereafter moving to Woolwich New Road. Sometime during the First World War, however, the brothers fell out and George opened a competing cycle shop around the corner. He moved back to Woolwich New Road during the 1930s, immediately opposite his brother’s old business. Jimmy had, however, sold his business in 1929, and his successors concentrated on hand-built lightweight cycles, leaving George to retail family and utility bicycles. (NB. Jimmy had enlisted in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Gravesend, Kent on 14 April 1891. His military career was not a success, however, and he was discharged six months later as a “useless lunatic”.)

If you are aware of other Blackett high street businesses, either past or present, please contact us.

James Douglas Blackett (1828-1912) and his brother William Richard Blackett (1833-1902) were both stock jobbers and members of The London Stock Exchange. (After the Stock Exchange’s “Big Bang” in 1986 jobbers became known as “market makers”.) Born in Wapping, London, they were two of the sons of John Anderson Blackett, a former publican born in the village of North Sunderland, close to the north-east coast of Northumberland, and were grandsons of James Blackett, a Trinity House agent born in neighbouring Bamburgh. This line of Bamburgh Blacketts can be traced back to John Blackett, baptised in Bamburgh in 1663, the son of Nicholas Blackett. (See Can You Help Us?).

John Blackett, a labourer, also known as John Abraham Blackett, lived in the East End of London with Mary Ann Hawkins for nearly 50 years and the couple had at least ten children born between 1826 and 1856. On 5 March 1873 the couple finally wed at St. Mary’s, Whitechapel. They are described in their marriage record as a bachelor and spinster, both of full age, which seems something of an understatement as John was then nearly 70 and Mary Ann 62. John died early the following year and Mary Ann a year later. It is not known if John was aware of the Blackett family motto, “Nous Travaillerons en Esperance” (we labour in hope).

In December 2010 Tyler Thomas Blackett Bennett was born in Newport Beach, California. He was the first of his direct line to bear a Christian name of Blackett since his 4xgreat-grandfather, William Blackett Wood, (1837-1906), who was himself a great-grandson of Isabel Blackett (1725-1770), a member of the Blackett family of Helmington Hall, County Durham (see The Blacketts of Helmington and Shull).

Tyler’s mother, Janette, a keen genealogist and researcher into Blackett family history, decided to add the name of Blackett in the knowledge that Tyler will have to explain the story of his name for the rest of his life! And so the Blackett tale lingers on…

(NB. This is the first instance we have encountered of the Blackett name being adopted as a direct result of genealogical research.)

In the Museum of London is the Blackett Dolls House, believed to have been a gift by Sir Edward Blackett to his wife Anne on the birth of their two younger children William and Mary c.1758. Models such as these were known at the time as “baby houses” and were intended for display, rather than to be played with by the children of the household. They were frequently commissioned as miniature replicas of real houses, and the dolls house, other than its lowest floor, displays some slight resemblance to Newby Hall, near Ripon, North Yorkshire, which had been rebuilt by Sir Edward’s grandfather in the 1690s and sold by Sir Edward in 1748.

The dolls house was presented to the museum in 1912 by Ida Frances Blackett, a great-granddaughter of Sir Edward and Lady Anne Blackett.

Image courtesy and copyright of the Museum of London.

John Blackett (1777/8-1858) was from at least 1814 to 1851 employed by the Ordnance (the government body charged with supplying armaments and munitions), and was based in 1841 and 1851 at Harwich, Essex. He named one of his sons Edmund Phipps Blackett (1830/1-1887), almost certainly after Hon. Edmund Phipps, (the son of the 1st Earl of Mulgrave), who in 1812 became Clerk of the Deliveries of the Ordnance, a government ministerial position, and held the post until it was abolished in 1830.

It is not clear whether Edmund Phipps had shown a special kindness to John Blackett or whether John bestowed the name on his son in the hope of advancing his own career. If the latter, it appears to have met with only limited success as John is shown as a store keeper for the Ordnance at the baptism of an elder son John Griffiths Blackett in 1814, but was still no more than a clerk there in 1841 and 1851.

Please also see Blacketts of Essex and Cambridge in Can You Help Us?.

In 1856 Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont, a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, was granted a patent for improvements to the Adams revolver. This enabled it to be be fired after first cocking the hammer, as in Colt single-action revolvers, but for subsequent shots by merely pressing the trigger. It was the first true double-action system ¹ and was adopted by the British Army later in 1856 and subsequently by Holland and Russia. Approximately 1,750 of the revolvers, manufactured under licence by the Massachusetts Arms Company, were purchased by the Union Army at the beginning of the American Civil War.

Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont was descended from the Blacketts on both his mother’s and his father’s side, and was the 1st cousin of Wentworth Blackett Beaumont (see An Engineering Achievement). He also invented the Beaumont tunneling machine, which was used in the construction of the Mersey Railway Tunnel in the mid-1880s, and was associated with the Channel Tunnel Company. He sat as Member of Parliament for South Durham from 1868 to 1880.

¹ Link to Wikipedia article.

In 1823 Powell Charles Blackett, a naval surgeon, donated to the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons a tourniquet he had developed for applying pressure to the carotid artery. The curator of the museum, on whom Blackett had tested the device in front of the Board of Curators recorded in his diary that “the compression was so great as to produce numbness for many hours; & felt for some days afterwards”. The tourniquet, together with a medical support belt, also developed by Blackett, are held by the museum.

Please also see Roman Catholic Blacketts in Can You Help Us?

In 1879 Edward Umfreville Blackett married Florence Rachel Theresa Laura Cleland in Belfast, Ireland. Florence was the daughter of John Cleland of Stormont Castle, then just outside the boundaries of Belfast. The Stormont estate had been in the Cleland family since the early 19th century, but it was John Cleland who substantially enlarged the original house in 1858, following which it became known as Stormont Castle. The Clelend family ceased to live at Stormont in 1893 and the estate was let.

In 1921, following the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which partitioned Ireland, the Stormont estate was purchased as a site for the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Stormont Castle itself was for 50 years the official residence and/or offices of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and is now the main meeting place of the Northern Ireland Executive. In 1932 the much grander Parliament Buildings were completed in the grounds of the Stormont estate. They now act as the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Several Blacketts have been or are prominent in marketing and media.

In addition to Hill Blackett, the father of the “soap-opera” (see the final paragraphs of Blacketts in Politics), Tom Blackett, the former group deputy chairman of Interbrand, was appointed Chairman of the international brand consultancy Siegel+Gale UK in 2009. He is author of a number of books on brand management, including “Trademarks” (1997) and is a descendant of Alexander Blackett (see Can You Help Us?).

In 2011 Karen Blackett was appointed Chief Executive Officer, UK of Mediacom, the UK’s biggest media-buying group. Born in Reading, she descends from the Blacketts of Barbados (see West of the Pennines and Barbados in Can You Help Us?).

When Sir William Blackett (1689-1728) married Lady Barbara Villiers in 1725 he laid on so much alcoholic refreshment for the inhabitants of Newcastle and surrounding areas that much of the county was drunk for several days. The Devil’s Punchbowl, a natural basin in a rock at the highest point of Shaftoe Crag, was enlarged, before being filled with wine for the celebrations.
As can be seen from the adjoining photograph, it does not seem the safest of places for imbibing large quantities of wine, but there is no record of any fatalities marring the celebrations.

In his book “My Name is Blacket”, published in 1983, the late Nick Vine Hall describes a drapery and linen business being established at 31 West Smithfield in London by John Blackett (1747-1795). The business was eventually taken over by his son James Blackett, who by 1842 owned a factory in Smithfield manufacturing “butchers’ requisites”. Around that time James was said to have invented the well-known blue and white striped material used in the manufacture of smocks and aprons, which was known as “Blacket Cloth”.

James Blackett (shown in the censuses with one “t”) is described as a draper in the 1841 census and as a clothier in 1851 and the business is described as butchers’ clothiers in the London Post Office Directories of 1848, 1851 and 1856. Given his premises close to the meat market at Smithfield, it is not surprising that he specialised in suppling the butchery trade, and the business continued in the family through three further generations. Harold Frank Blackett, great-grandson of James, was described as a butchers’ clothing manufacturer in the 1911 census.

Whilst no proof has been discovered of James Blacket having invented “Blacket Cloth”, he was undoubtedly an extremely successful manufacturer of clothing for the butchery trade, and on his death in 1858 he left an estate valued at £16,000, the equivalent in 2010 of £1.5 million. He was the father of Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture).

On 17 October 2013 the Daily Telegraph reported that Phil Blackett, a sunglasses salesman, had been named the most prolific UK restaurant reviewer of 2012 on TripAdvisor after notching up 780 reviews of restaurants, takeaways and hotels, in 501 cities in 36 countries.

Mr. Blackett, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, travels the length and breadth of Britain for his work and rates every establishment he visits. He is not overawed by haute cuisine and often rates fast food outlets above Michelin-starred restaurants. “I have given some of the top restaurants zero stars and the scruffiest of kebab shops high acclaim. I’m not fussy, I just have my standards,” he said.

Papa John’s pizza takeaway in Newcastle received a rare five-star review.

A number of Blacketts and their descendants have been blacksmiths. Few, however, carried on the trade to such an advanced age as Walker Blackett who is believed to have been still working as a blacksmith and farmer in Witton Park, Co. Durham up to his death in 1938, just a few months before his 84th birthday.

(Images of Walker Blackett courtesy of Dale Daniel.)

It is well known that ‘the Mounties always get their man’, but the diligence and perseverance of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police doesn’t stop there.

On 20 March 1900 James Henry Blackett, of Souris, Prince Edward Island, enlisted in the North West Mounted Police. He served only one year and one day, before being discharged on medical grounds on 20 March 1901. He died in 1933 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Souris.

About 80 years later the RCMP Veterans’ Association, after considerable research, managed to locate the grave and decided to erect a headstone marker as part of their Gravesite Inspection and Maintenance program. The re-dedication ceremony and unveiling of the grave marker took place at St. Mary’s Cemetery, Souris on Saturday 28 May 2016, attended by a substantial contingent of RCMP members and veterans and members of the public, including Francis Clayton ‘Frank’ Blackett, a 1st cousin 1xremoved of James Henry Blackett, and Donna Flynn, a 1st cousin 2xremoved.

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the only instance of a grave marker being erected so many years after the death of a Blackett, and is testament to the astonishing lengths the Mounties will go to to ensure that a past member of the RCMP does not lie unrecognized.

To visit the RCMP Veterans’ site please click here and to read an article in The Eastern Graphic newspaper covering the ceremony please click here.

The images below, courtesy of RCMP Veterans’ Association (PEI), show (L-R) (i) the contingent arriving for the ceremony, (ii) Frank Blackett with RCMP veterans Richard MacAulay, Ernie MacAulay and Jack Jans (iii) the grave marker. Many more images can be viewed by clicking here.

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For details of the background of the Blacketts of Prince Edward Island please click here.

Most people with the surname Blackett acquired it either by birth or by marriage. In the case of Thomas Sharples (1837-1882) of Clayton le Moors, Lancashire, however, he chose to adopt the name of George Blackett, and married and had his three children baptized with the surname of Blackett.

Born in Clayton le Moors, east of Blackburn, Lancashire in 1837, Thomas appears in the 1841 census as part of the household of his father, Edmund Sharples, a printer, and appears again as Thomas Sharples in 1851 when he was working on a farm in the area. However, we have not been able to find him in the censuses of 1861 or 1871. In 1872 George Blackett, a carter, 28 (his true age was 35) married Ellen Johnson, 21, of Manchester at Rochdale Register Office. George’s father’s name is shown as Edmund, a block printer. This George Blackett is undoubtedly the same person as Thomas Sharples.

‘George’ and Ellen had three children baptized with the name Blackett over the next few years, but the family appear in the 1881 Clayton le Moors census with the surname ‘Sharples’ and George has reverted to the Christian name of Thomas. He died and was buried under that name in 1882. By 1891, his widow, Ellen, and her children had re-adopted the name ‘Blackett’, which they retained.

The great-granddaughter of Thomas/George and Ellen remembers as a teenager learning from her grandfather Edwin Blackett that his father had changed his name from Sharples to Blackett. His motive for so doing remains unknown, though possible reasons could be an earlier marriage that was still legally in force, or perhaps being sought by the law, e.g. for a criminal offence, desertion from the army or navy, etc. Although several instances of a Thomas Sharples being sentenced to prison appear in the Lancashire criminal records between 1861 and 1872, there is no evidence that they refer to this Thomas Sharples.

The more intriguing question, however, is why Thomas Sharples chose ‘George Blackett’ as a new name. No Blacketts have been found in his family and there were very few Blacketts in Lancashire at the time. One possible connection may be to Edwin Blackett, who married Ann Bentley in Manchester in 1852. Edwin was a relatively unusual name for a Blackett anywhere in 19th century England, and yet Thomas Sharples/George Blackett chose the name Edwin Blackett for his son. Whilst this may be no more than coincidence, it is worth exploring this family in a little more detail.

This Edwin Blackett descends from a branch formerly based in Appleby, Westmorland (see third paragraph of West of the Pennines and Barbados) and Edwin’s family is an interesting, and occasionally colourful, one.

No baptism for Edwin has been found, though in the 1861 census he is shown as aged 37 and born in Selby, Yorkshire. At his marriage in 1852 Edwin Blackett is described as a schoolmaster, the same profession as his father, Lancelot, though this does not seem to have been his permanent profession as he was an apprentice draper in Leeds in 1841 and a draper in York in 1861. He has not been found in the 1851 census but an Edwin Blackett, aged 16 (in 1841) born Leeds, appears in the Register of British Merchant Seamen for 1841-1844, with just one voyage on the ‘Satellite’ recorded for 2 Dec 1843. According to family legend Edwin was eventually lost at sea and/or captured by pirates, though no evidence to corroborate this has been found, and he may have been confused with an elder brother, Joseph Wilkes Blackett, who was lost at sea in 1849 on his way to America. Edwin’s wife, Ann, and children were living with him in 1861, but in 1871 Ann is shown as a widow.

No hard evidence has been discovered linking this Edwin Blackett to Thomas Sharples, however, and the reason for Thomas changing his name remains a mystery.

(Our thanks are due to Theresa Hindle, nee Blackett, great-granddaughter of Thomas Sharples/George Blackett, for some of the family information above.)

On 13 February 1777 Susanna Blackett was baptized at the Foundling Hospital in Guildford Street, London. The hospital had been established in 1745 in accordance with a 1739 charter, and originally a basket hung on a rope attached to a bell outside the door. Mothers of poor, and/or illegitimate, children would place their baby in the basket and the gatekeeper would come and collect it. No attempt was made to trace the parents. By 1777, however, indiscriminate admissions had ceased.

It is not clear whether Susanna Blackett was the real name of the child, or whether the name had merely been assigned to her by the hospital authorities. If the former, then Susanna could have been an illegitimate child of one of the London Blacketts familes. But whatever her biological ancestry, Susanna did well for herself, marrying William Gill, a whip maker of Smithfield, London, and one of their sons, John Gill (1806-1860) became the Secretary to the London Gas Company. John’s son was christened ‘John Blacket Gill’ and he became a Master of Merchant Taylors Company and was later Chairman of the European Gas Company. John Blacket Gill’s son, Blacket Gill (1879-1957), became a solicitor and his daughter, Frances ‘Fay’ Blacket Gill, Susanna Blackett’s great-great-granddaughter, became one of the first female solicitors in England.

For a descendancy chart of Susanna Blackett please click here.

(NB. We are grateful to Allan C. Smith for supplying us with a copy of ‘John Blacket Gill: His Wife and their Relatives Vol. 2’, published in 1934 with accompanying family tree, which has provided the basis for this research.)