Notes on the Blackley
Family
PART
TWO
John Fortescue served in the 27th
Regt. of Foot and was present at the taking of Quebec.
His writing case inscribed 'Lieut. Fortescue, 27th Regt.
of Foot' is now in the possession of his descendant John Fortescue
Blackley, who served in the same regiment. Also in the 27th
Regt. was his son William Faithful Fortescue, my great-great-grandtather,
who was severely wounded by a musket ball in the lungs at Waterloo.
He lingered on until 1812. He is buried at Mallow, then
a famous watering place to which presumably he had gone for treatment.
His grave in the old churchyard is remembered by the old residents
of Mallow but I have not succeeded in finding it.
As a boy I remember a silver kettle invariably used by my grandmother
and she told me it had been given to her mother, nee Honoria Fortescue,
by her cousin, Lady Goodricke (nee
Fortescue). This is now in
my possession together with four lovely Georgian tablespoons bearing
the Goodricke crest which presumably came from the same source.
Her son, Sir Harry Goodricke, was master of the Quorn and died
unmarried in 1833, when the baronetcy became extinct.
My great grandfather John Gibson of Kilboy Cloyne, was a close
friend of Sir Harry and used to stay regularly with him to hunt
with the Quorn and perhaps it was through him that he met his
wife, Honoria. Kilboy was sold in 1867 after my grandmother's
marriage and since then has changed hands several times and is
now in danger of being pulled down. It is an early Georgian
house, quite lovely in shape and size and it is easy to imagine
what Kilboy was like when the gracious life was lived there.
There seems to have been a close friendship as well
as relationship between Blackleys and Fortescues and I think that
the Blackley property at Farndreg Co. Louth must have come to
us through them and I imagine that it is by virtue of this property
that Burke rates us as landed. The coruscation of the Four Courts
destroyed the early records of Farndreg but there is a document
dated 1860 which I have seen and which is in the possession of
Messrs. Allen Halpin of Cavan. A Schedule to
this document records as an incumbrance on the estate dated 2nd
Jan. 1847 a recognisance entered into by the said Travers
Robert Blackley in the matter of the Fortescue minors, conditioned
that the said Travers Robert Blackley should account as guarding
of the minors. It will observe that this T.R.B.* (1807-1870)
gave his three youngest children Fortescue names. He also presented
to the Friendly Brother House in Dublin in 1850 a looking-glass
inscribed "in memory of brother Matthew Fortescue".
This Matthew Fortescue was Master of the Louth Hunt from 1822
to 1837. In 1900 out of this great Louth family only
one childless man, colonel M.C.E. Fortescue of Stephenstown, Co.
Louth, was still alive.
*He was a distinguished surgeon and wrote a pamphlet in 1839 of
the impact on the medical profession caused by the release of
Army & Navy surgeons after the Napolenic Wars. This is preserved
in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland.
(pamphlets Medical Reform
Vol. 1, 165 & 206) and is extensively quoted in Dr. Widness
account of the Schools of Surgery (1789-1948)
To return to the Blackleys. John Blackley (d. 14 Feb. 1797)
and Sarah his wife (d. 2 July 1802) and twelve children of whom
but four survived their father, and only one, viz.
Mrs. Anne Montgomery, survived both parents.
The elder son, Robert, married Anne,
daughter of William Hartley. They had no sons
but four daughters - Sally, Anne, Martha and Kate, of whom only
Kate married, her husband being Rev. Robert Drummond, D.D.
Robert Blackley died on 31 Jan. 1800. His sister Anne
married Robert Montgomery and had one
child, a son, Robery, who died
at Sandymount, Belfast on 8 Sept. 1851. His daughter Jane
married, as his second wife, on 10 May 1855, her cousin Travers
Robert Blackley (1801-1870). She was greatly beloved by her stepchildren.
John Blackley (b. 1767 d. 1801) the second son of John and Sarah
Blackley from whom we descend, was a man of means and position
and was settled in Dublin before the years of his marriage to
Temperance Hartley in 1797. He lived at 2 Belevedere Place, Mountjoy
Square. He was extremely good-looking and I have a lovely
miniature of him dated 1789 which has been generally ascribed
to Sir Thos. Lawrence, afterwards President of the Royal
Academy. But the signature is quite clearly "G. Lawrence"
which proves beyond doubt that the painter was George Lawrence,
a famous Dublin miniature painter of that time. From his
wife Temperance nee Hartley, we inherit the silver entree dishes
which were inscribed on one side with the Arme of
Travers Hartley (apparently as M.P. for
Dublin he obtained his own coat of arms "Ermine of a chief; gulls;
a rose with a fleur de lis on each side - Crest a demi-stag, horned").
and on the other, the arms of the East India Company to whom supposedly
he rendered a service. I also hold printed copies
of the electoral rolls of the Parliamentary election of 1782 and
among those who voted for our ancestor was Napper Tandy immortalized
in "The wearing of the Green". Travers Hartley was
a close friend of Gratten. Both were strongly opposed to
the Act of the Union in 1801. And oddly enough their descendants
were equally strongly opposed to Home Rule as advocated by Gladstone
and his Liberal succesors. This apparent inconsistency is
explained by the fact that before 1793 Catholics had no vote and
up to 1829 no representation in Parliament which was an entirely
Protestant body. Under Home Rule the great majority
of the seats would have been held by Catholics as indeed has come
to passing the Dai of Today.
John and Temperance Blackley are both buried in the same grave
as Travers Hartley in St. Johns Churchyard,
Fishamble Street, Dublin. The inscription
of the tombstone states that John died on 15 Oct. 1801 aged thirty-four
years and Temperance on 10 Feb. 1820 aged fourty-nine years. They
had two sons, John (b. 1798 d. 1862) and Travers Robert (b. 1801
d. 1870) both of whom went to Trinity (John entering in
1814) and so set a precedent which has been followed by their
descendants up to the present day, deviationists being my
father, myself and Barney and R. H. Blackley who went to an older
seat of learning at Oxford. I have a pen and ink sketch
of this John Blackley and a painted miniature of his lovely wife,
Mary Haverfield. The miniature of Travers Robert and his
even lovelier wife Elizabeth Lewery is in the poassession of my
cousin, Mrs. Edward Seymour. Generally
speaking, the Blackleys have had an eye for beauty
and have made, in general, extremely happy marriages and the practice
continues down to the present generation.
John Blackley entered the legal profession but I do not think
he ever practiced. He and Mary Haverfield had three children,
Susan born 1836, John Henry (Jack) born 1839,
and Frederick Travers, born 1841. Susan (cousin Susie)
I am sorry to say, I never met; she was a person of
character and charm. My grandmother Honorine who did not
suffer fools gladly had a great liking and regard for her.
She was a close friend of Andrew Lang and translated from French
and German sources large numbers of fairy-tales since incorporated
in his books.
She lived at Bristol and died there in 1916. Jack was a
regular soldier and spent 40 years in the Royal Artillery without
every going into action, retiring as a Colonel. He stayed
with us at Drumbar in about 1906 and gave me a pony but this kindly
act in no way lessened the terror which he inspired in me.
Frederick appears to have been the family rake and is believed
to have run off with his Colonel's wife and through her money.
He deserves to be remembered for sending
from Canada to my father, while a boy at Charterhouse, the
ham of a bear. During his married life he had a house at
Ascot and by all accounts a pretty gay time was had there.
I have not discovered the name of his wife but she was darkly
referred to in the family as "a very wicked woman". He died
in poor circumstances in Dinard in 1899.
Neither John nor Susan married and Frederick died childless and
so faded out the senior branch of this family.
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