Many Blacketts have been Members of Parliament. Sir William Blackett (1621-1680) became Sheriff of Newcastle in 1660, Mayor in 1666, and was elected a Member of Parliament in 1673, and became the first Baronet on 12 December in that year. Soon after he had commenced business, he speculated most of his assets on a ship-load of flax. The flax fleet was reported to have been lost in a storm, and the price soared. On his morning walk, however, Sir William saw his ship making for port, having weathered the storm. He at once rode to London and sold his whole cargo at an extravagant price. This laid the foundation for one of the largest fortunes acquired in Newcastle, and the story is the basis for the title of A. W. Purdue’s book, “The Ship That Came Home”, published by Third Millenium Publishing Ltd. Sir William went on to develop a mercantile and industrial base, and acquired an additional fortune. His eldest son, Sir Edward Blackett, (1649-1718) also entered Parliament, and Sir William’s third son, another Sir William Blackett , was created a Baronet in his own right on 23 January 1684/5, became Mayor of Newcastle in 1684 and was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1685. He was High Sheriff of the county in 1689. In 1856 his great-great-great-grandson, Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, married Lady Margaret Anne de Burgh, a granddaughter of George Canning, Prime Minister 1827.

Canning was not the only British Prime Minister with connections to the Blacketts. In 1830 Beatrice Trevelyan, great-great granddaughter of Julia Blackett, married Ernest Augustus Perceval, son of Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister 1809-1812. Spencer Perceval was the only British Prime Minister ever to have been assassinated. In 1842 his nephew, Charles George Perceval, married Beatrice’s cousin, Frances Agnes Trevelyan, another great-great granddaughter of Julia.

U. K. Prime Ministers do seem to keep cropping up in the Blackett family tree. (For two more please see Other Royal Connections.) In 1812 Ann Blackett (who was not a descendant of Sir William’s, but a 4th cousin 4xremoved) married Robert Wrigley, a great-great uncle of Herbert Henry Asquith. Asquith was Prime Minister from 1908 until he was replaced by David Lloyd George in 1916, after dissatisfaction over setbacks in the First World War. Robert Wrigley was a descendant of the Wrigleys of Saddleworth, Yorkshire, who, like him, were cloth manufacturers. Another descendant of this family was William Wrigley Jr. (1861-1932) who developed the chewing gum that still bears his name.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, in 1912 Lavinia Marion Garforth, a 5xgreat-granddaughter of Diana Blackett, married Charles Lambton, the great-grandson of the 2nd Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the U.K. 1830-1834. During his ministry the Great Reform Act of 1832 was passed. Earl Grey tea was named after him. Earl Grey’s monument in Newcastle Upon Tyne stands at the head of Blackett Street. His father, the 1st Earl, was also an ancestor of Anthony Eden, Prime Minister 1955-1957, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister 1963-1964, and of Diana, Princess of Wales.

In all, Blackett family connections to 38 Prime Ministers have been discovered. (To view a complete list please click here). Many of these arise through the Blacketts’ links with the Eden family, and it is through that connection that links to a number of other notable figures can be found. These are detailed in The Eden Line.

But back to those Blacketts who bore the name….

Sir Walter Blackett, (see A Philanthropic Blackett), who was born Walter Calverley and assumed the name of Blackett to comply with the testamentary disposition of his uncle, Sir William Blackett* (Second Baronet) also became Mayor of Newcastle and an M.P. His ancestor, Walter Calverley, achieved notoriety by murdering two of his sons and wounding his wife at Calverley Hall, Yorkshire on 23 April 1605. The episode was the basis for a play “A Yorkshire Tragedy” published in 1608, and attributed (probably in error) to William Shakespeare.

*Sir William, who left no male heir surviving him, went to great pains to perpetuate his Blackett direct line. In his Will dated 14 August 1728, he provided that if Sir Walter Calverley should leave no male heir, then his estates were to be entailed to the male children of his sisters, on the same condition (i.e. the child to adopt the surname of Blackett.) On Sir Walter’s death in 1777, the only sister of Sir William with a male heir was Diana, married to Sir William Wentworth, whose son Thomas duly changed his name that year. However, Sir Thomas Wentworth Blackett, (as he had become) died leaving three daughters, and this male line of Blacketts came to an end. However, Sir William Blackett might, perhaps, have taken some consolation had he known that a number of his female descendants were to marry into families with connections to Prime Ministers and the mother of a future King.

Blackett connections with politics were not confined to the UK. Hill Blackett (1892-1967) was a Chicago advertising man who played a major part in running the 1936 U.S. presidential campaign of the Republican candidate Alf Landon, who was defeated in the landslide victory of the incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The early part of the Republican campaign was notable for the often heated disagreements between Blackett and his team of “think guys” and the Republican old guard, though peace was restored after a few weeks, with Hill Blackett retaining full responsibility for radio, movies and billboard advertising.

Born in 1892 in Alaska, where his father was working as a lawyer, and christened Vernive Hill Blackett, (Hill was his mother’s maiden name), he was largely raised by an aunt in his parents’ home state of Iowa. After managing an advertising agency in California, in 1923 he teamed up with John Glen Sample to form the Blackett & Sample (later known as Blackett-Sample-Hummert) agency, which by the late 1930s was the largest buyer of radio time in the United States. It was also the largest producer of radio material in the country, specialising in 15 or 30 minute daytime radio dramas and serials. Among its clients who sponsored the serials was the giant consumer products firm of Procter & Gamble. Thus “soap operas” were born, and by 1942 Time magazine was describing Blackett-Sample-Hummert as running “the biggest soap-opera factory in the world”.

Despite being a member of the Republican National Committee, Hill Blackett did not let politics stand in the way of good business, and, in 1939, three years after the failure of the presidential campaign he had guided, Blackett-Sample-Hummert collaborated with the president’s son, Elliott Roosevelt, in attempting to place transcriptions of some of its cheaper CBS and NBC serials for night-time broadcasting on smaller stations, including Elliott Roosevelt’s Texas State Network. When they met with opposition Elliott Roosevelt decided to set up a new radio network, Transcontinental Broadcasting System (TBS). Unfortunately the venture failed and TBS went into receivership. The Blackett-Sample-Hummert partnership was dissolved on 31 December 1943, but the agency continued under another name.

Blackett’s Ridge in Arizona (see Blacketts on the Map) is named after Hill’s son, Hill Blackett Junior.

On 4 January 1663/4 Elizabeth Blackett, eldest child of Sir William Blackett, married Timothy Davison, a wealthy Newcastle merchant. The marriage in 1739 of their granddaughter Mary Davison to Sir Robert Eden produced a line of descent that includes a surprisingly large number of notable figures, and which amply illustrates the web of family connections linking different parts of the British establishment at the time. (For a list of Prime Ministers with family links to the Blacketts please click here)

In 1803 Catharine Eden, Elizabeth Blackett’s great-great granddaughter, married Robert Duncombe Shafto M.P., who added the name “Eden” as a result of the marriage. He was the son of Robert Shafto (abt. 1732-1797) probably the subject of the well-known nursery rhyme “Bobby Shafto’s Gone to Sea".
The song is said to relate how Bobby Shafto broke the heart of Bridget Belasyse when he decided to marry Anne Duncombe. Robert Shafto’s supporters added additional lyrics to the song during the 1761 election campaign.

Catherine Eden, a great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett, married in 1770 Rev. Dr. John Moore. At the time of his marriage Rev. Moore was Rector of Ryton, Co. Durham, but his career swiftly advanced and on 26 April 1783 he became the 88th Archbishop of Canterbury. His tenure of office (1783-1805) was not without controversy and was described by Hartley Withers in his 1897 2nd edition of “The Cathedral Church of Canterbury” as follows:
“Although a promoter of Sunday-schools and foreign missions, he did not escape reproach for paying undue regard to the interests of his family. It has been well said that during his tenure of office and that of his immediate successor, the sinecures and pluralities held by the highest clergy were worthy of the medieval period.”

Certainly at least two of his sons entered the clergy, one of whom, Robert Moore, attracted some adverse comments himself. In 1854 an American visitor to England, Dr. Pleasant Jones, reported on the wealthy state of some of the senior members of the Anglican clergy. About Rev. Robert Moore he wrote:
“Robert Moore, a prebend of Canterbury Cathedral, is one of the sons of Archbishop Moore. This archbishop, about fifty years ago, gave his son a sinecure office in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, worth only £10,894 per annum. . . . . . . On reference to Sir Benjamin Hall’s penny letter, we find that in seven years, ending 1850, his Grace’s gross income was £210,134 8s. 4d.; his net income, £160,984 7s. 8d.; income from fines for seven years, £83,951 12s. 7d.; and his average salary, poor man, only £22,907 15s. 4 1/2d. a-year! How his Grace manages to sustain life upon such a paltry, unworthy income, we are totally at a loss to discover. . . . .”

In 1821 Caroline Eden, Elizabeth Blackett’s 3xgreat-granddaughter married the son of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker (1739-1807). Admiral Parker, who was in command at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, ordered his second-in-command, (then) Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, to disengage from the action. Nelson famously raised his telescope to his blind eye to ignore the order, thus giving rise to the phrase to “turn a blind eye” to something. (At the Battle of Trafalgar, four years later, Nelson’s second-in-command was his close friend Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, (see Naval Blacketts), husband of Sarah Blackett.)

The link to Earl Grey through his great-grandson, Charles Lambton, has been mentioned in Blacketts in Politics, but there are two further connections. In 1888 Lady Harriet Castilia Godolphin Osborne, a 5xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett, married Henry Frederick Compton Cavendish, a great-grandson of Earl Grey. Four years earlier Harriet’s elder brother, George Godolphin Osborne, 10th Duke of Leeds, had married Lady Katherine Frances Lambton, the younger sister of Charles Lambton and another great-grandchild of Earl Grey. Charles and Katherine Lambton also provide a link with yet another Prime Minister, their great-uncle, Earl Russell, who occupied the office 1846-1852 and 1865-1866. And to complicate matters still further, Earl Russell was also the brother-in-law of Louisa Blackett, the daughter of Sir Edward Blackett (1805-1885). (Earl Russell was also the grandfather of the Nobel prizewinning philosopher Bertrand Russell.)

As if more proof were needed of the interconnection of the political families around that time, in 1923 George and Katherine’s daughter, Lady Gwendolen Fanny Godolphin Osborne, married Algernon Cecil, the nephew of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, and 1895-1902.
In 1887 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil appointed his nephew, Arthur James Balfour as Chief Secretary for Ireland, reputedly the origin of the phrase “Bob’s Your Uncle”. Balfour, a 1st cousin of Algernon Cecil, was himself Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905. Later in his career, as Foreign Secretary in Lloyd George’s government, in 1917 he authored the Balfour Declaration promising the Jews a “national home” in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Sir Robert Eden and Mary Davison were 3xgreat-grandparents of Sir (Robert) Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, Prime Minister 1955-1957. Sir Anthony Eden had had a distinguished political career for 20 years before finally becoming Prime Minister in 1955, but his tenure was marred by the ill-fated Suez campaign of 1956. He is the only Prime Minister actually descended from a Blackett that we have discovered.

It is through the Eden line that connections to three further Prime Ministers can be established.
In 1824 Robert Henry Eden Henley, 2nd Baron of Chardstock, a great-great-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, married Harriet Eleonora Peel, younger sister of Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister 1834-1835 and 1841-1846. Peel was responsible for the introduction of the first properly organised police force, thus giving rise to policemen being known as “Bobbies”, (or in Ireland “Peelers”). He oversaw the foundation of the modern Conservative Party (which replaced the old Tory Party) and was responsible for the repeal of the Corn Laws. A second connection to Sir Robert Peel arises through the 1846 marriage of his neice, Julia Emily Augusta Peel to Anthony Henley, 3rd Baron Henley of Chardstock, a 3xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett.

In 1850 Charlotte Maria Eden, the 3xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett, married Dudley North, great-nephew of Lord North, Prime Minister 1770-1782. Lord North held office during most of the American War of Independence and was the first ever Prime Minister to be forced out of office by a vote of no confidence, following the British defeat at Yorktown. In 1774 Lord North would have been a near neighbour of William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland, Charlotte’s great-uncle, who in that year gave his address as “Downing Street, Westminster”. (Some of the houses in Downing Street were at the time privately owned, though not, of course, “Number Ten”.)

And in 1893 John Henry Eden, a 4xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, married Lady Florence Lowry-Corry, a great-niece of William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister 1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886 and 1892-1894. Gladstone was known to his supporters as the “Grand Old Man” or G.O.M. (which his arch-rival, Benjamin Disraeli, maintained stood for “God’s Only Mistake”). Unlike Disraeli, Gladstone did not always enjoy good relations with Queen Victoria, who once famously complained that “He always addresses me as if I were a public meeting".

The most illustrious branch of the line, however, stems from the marriage in 1824 of George Godolphin Osborne, 8th Duke of Leeds, 3xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, to Harriet Emma Arundel Stewart. Harriet was the illegitimate daughter of Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer by Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville. Henrietta, (whose sister Georgiana was the daughter-in-law of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Prime Minister 1756-1757), was married at the time to Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl Of Bessborough. In 1785, six years before the birth of Harriet, Henrietta and Frederick had had a daughter, Harriet’s half-sister Lady Caroline Ponsonby, who in 1805 married William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who later served as Prime Minister in 1834 and from 1835 to 1841.

Lord Melbourne, after whom the Australian city was named, was Prime Minister when the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne and was a great influence on her. His private life, however, had not been without scandal through the well-publicised affair of his wife Caroline with the poet Lord Byron (see A Blackett in Poetry). The tragic story of Lady Caroline Lamb was recounted, (with some historical inaccuracies), in the film of that name released in 1972, starring Sarah Miles and written and directed by her then husband Robert Bolt. Amongst the cast of the film was Sir Laurence Olivier (see below).

Lord Melbourne was not the only member of the Lamb family with connections to high political office, as his sister, Emily Mary Lamb, married in 1839 Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister 1855-1858 and 1859-1865. Among his many achievements Palmerston was influential in establishing Belgium as an independent nation, and his robust style of dealing with foreign powers spawned the phrase “gunboat diplomacy”. He famously said of the Schleswig-Holstein Question that only three people had ever understood it: one had died, one had gone insane and the third had forgotten it. Following his death he was given a State Funeral.

Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer provides the links to three particularly notable personalities, whose public lives require no further elaboration. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Prime Minister 1940-1945 and 1951-1955, was Henrietta’s 2nd cousin 4xremoved. Both descended from Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sutherland, and Lady Anne Churchill. Sir Winston’s great-great grandfather George Spencer, 5th Duke of Marlborough, changed the name from Spencer to Spencer-Churchill in 1817, and Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill, Sir Winston’s father, is said to have dropped the use of the hyphen, although it does not appear in the parish record of the 1819 marriage of his grandfather. Henrietta was also the 4xgreat-aunt of Lady Diana Frances Spencer who married in 1981 H.R.H. Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne. Their two sons, Princes William and Harry, are therefore 1st cousins 5xremoved of Lady Caroline Lamb. Their blood relationship to the Blacketts, however, stems from their descent through H.R.H. Prince Charles from King Malcolm III of Scotland (please see THE ROYAL CONNECTION CAVEAT in Blackett Family Tree).

The third link arises through the 1908 marriage of Henrietta’s great-great-granddaughter Lady Dorothy Beatrix Godolphin Osborne to Patrick Bowes-Lyon, 15th Earl of Strathmore,. He was the eldest brother of Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, later H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Lady Dorothy could also however claim direct descent from the Blacketts as she was the 6xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett.

Two more connections to the Blacketts via the Eden line are worthy of note. Sir Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman, 4xgreat-grandson of Elizabeth Blackett, was an Anglo-Irish baronet. Having previously fathered four daughters by his marriage to Edith Sarah Hamilton-Boyd, he lived for many years with his daughters’ former governess, Sarah Junner, the illegitimate daughter of John Lawrence and Elizabeth Junner. Sarah had adopted her father’s name, and Sir Thomas also took the name of Lawrence. The couple never married, but their five sons also bore the name of Lawrence. The second son, Thomas Edward (T.E.) Lawrence, was better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”, following his part in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916-1918, as recounted in his 1922 book “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and in the 1962 film of his life, starring Peter O’Toole in the title role. (The script was co-written by Robert Bolt, who also wrote and directed “Lady Caroline Lamb” – see above.)

And in 1861 Rev. Dacres Olivier married Emma Selina Eden, 4xgreat-granddaughter of Elizabeth Blackett. Rev. Olivier was the great-uncle of Laurence Kerr Olivier, later Lord Olivier,
the internationally-renowned actor, whose father and grandfather were also members of the Anglican clergy. Laurence Olivier is widely regarded as the greatest actor of the 20th century. Among the many Shakespearean roles he played was Macbeth, the 1st cousin 27xremoved of his great-aunt Emma. In Shakespeare’s play, (largely, though not entirely, based on historical fact), Macbeth murders his cousin, King Duncan, who was Emma’s 25xgreat-grandfather. Even had Olivier been aware of that, given the remoteness of the relationship between him and Duncan, it is doubtful if it would have affected his performance too much. Strangely, although he appeared in “The Scottish Play” (as Macbeth is superstitiously called by the acting profession) in supporting roles in 1925 and 1928, he only seems to have played the title role twice, in 1937 at The Old Vic and in 1955 at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974), later Lord Blackett, became a world famous physicist, and the author of a number of scholarly books. He was the son of a London stockbroker and was a great-nephew of Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture).
After distinguished service in the Royal Navy in World War I, he went on to obtain a Fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge. He worked as an experimental physicist in the laboratory of Professor Rutherford, and in 1933 made his most spectacular achievement when he discovered the positive electron. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948. Before World War II he was the leading member of the Committee for the Study of Air Defence, the first Operations Research team in the world. It became known as “Blackett’s Circus”. He did important work in cosmic ray research and rock magnetism, and from 1942 to 1945 he was Director of Operational Research with the British Admiralty. He was made President of The Royal Society in 1965, and was created Baron Blackett of Chelsea in 1969. There is a Blackett Memorial Hall at Manchester University, and a Blackett wing at Imperial College, London. Blackett Crater on the moon (see A Lunar Blackett) is named after him.

Sir Walter Blackett of Esholt and Wallington (1707-1777) was MP for Newcastle on several occasions between 1734 and 1777 and was a successful and wealthy businessman who had inherited the Baronet Blackett of Newcastle’s estates and vast mining interests through his marriage to Elizabeth Orde, daughter of his uncle, Sir William Blackett of Newcastle (2nd Baronet).
He also, however, seems to have been a man of noted benevolent and philanthropic qualities and well known for his generosity and public spiritedness at both the personal and public level.
For these and other qualities he acquired a number of nicknames including “the King Of Newcastle”, “the Patriot” and as an independant man “the Opposer Of The Court” and was made an alderman and freeman of Newcastle, and mayor on no less than five occasions in 1735, 1748, 1754, 1756 and 1771.
His charitable acts were well known and many personal acts included building a library at St.Nicholas’s church, Newcastle for public use, and to house books bequested to the Corporation Of Newcastle. The building was described as “a handsome fabric, consisting of two storeys” to which Sir Walter endowed an annual rent charge of twenty five pounds to support its upkeep.
Sir Walter was also one of the great benefactors to Newcastle Infirmary and gave two hundred pounds towards its construction in 1751 with an annual endowment of fifty pounds and, in 1754, he deposited with the Mayor and Burgesses of Newcastle twelve hundred pounds for the provision of a hospital to care for “six poor and decayed burgesses”. He also funded a fifty pound contribution towards the rebuilding of the church at St. John’s Chapel in Weardale, built the market hall in the market square in Hexham in 1766, and the greater part of St. Michael and All Angels Church in Warden, Northumberland in 1764.

So popular he seems to have been that on 17 October 1767, when laying the first stone of the bridge at the river at Hexham Abbey, in the presence of thousands of spectators, and amidst much entertainment, the streets reputedly rang out with “success to the bridge of Hexham” and “long live Sir Walter Blackett”
Not all gestures seem to have been so public or grand, one anecdote relates to an incident in Weardale when Sir Walter was hunting and
“happened to arrive at the cottage of a poor shepherd,
Who, though unknown to him, was one of his tenants.
To a visitor of Sir Walters appearance, the poor cottager
brought out the best his
frugal board could produce. During his stay, Sir
Walter enquired to whom the house belonged ? " To
one of the best men in the world," said the cottager;
“to Sir Walter Blackett, sir; no doubt you have
heard of him ; but these knavish stewards for these
three years past have advanced my rent to almost
double the value of the little tenement I occupy. I
wish I could have the honour to see my worthy land-
lord, I would acquaint him with my ill usage.” Sir
Walter smiled, but did not discover himself. On
departing, he presented the cottagers wife with a sum
of money, and soon after ordered the house to be
rebuilt, and a considerable abatement to be made.”

Christopher Blackett (1751-1829) played a significant part in the development of early steam locomotives. As owner of Wylam Colliery, west of Newcastle, in 1805 he ordered a locomotive from the renowned Richard Trevithick, which was built in Gateshead, but after trials Blackett did not accept the locomotive, and it was converted into a blower for the foundry.

In 1813 he asked Trevithick to supply a further locomotive. As Trevithick was too busy, Blackett instructed his colliery superintendent, William Hedley, to build one. The result, after an earlier experiment, was “Puffing Billy”. After nearly 50 years of hauling wagons along the Wylam Waggonway it was lent, and later sold, to the forerunner of the Science Museum in London, where it resides to this day. It is the oldest preserved locomotive in the world. Wylam Brewery Ltd. have produced a beer named after it. (See A Blackett Beer.)

George Stephenson, “The Father of Railways” was born in a cottage alongside the Wylam Waggonway in 1781, and as a boy worked for Christopher Blackett, keeping the wagonway clear of cows. George went on to build the Stockton and Darlington Railway and, in conjunction with his son Robert, to design and build the famous Stephenson’s “Rocket”.

Thomas Oswald Blackett (1790-1847) carried out a number of surveys for the early railway system, and in November 1824, working under George Stephenson, prepared the plans for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first passenger railway in the world. It was a hazardous occupation, as the local landowners, not wishing the railway to pass through their land, employed gangs of men to shoot at the surveyors, who consequently had to work largely at night. The official opening ceremony of the railway in 1830 was marred when the local Member of Parliament was run down and fatally injured by Stephenson’s “Rocket”, thus becoming the world’s first railway fatality. Thomas Oswald Blackett suffered a similar fate in 1847, when he was run down whilst working on the Newcastle to Carlisle line. His son, John Blackett (1818-1893) was also a surveyor and engineer. (See Blackett Aids to Shipping.)

Thomas Oswald was not the only Blackett to meet with an accident involving railways. In 1965 Sir Charles Douglas Blackett successfuly sued British Railways for being responsible for a broken femur he suffered when tripping over a mail-bag that had fallen off a luggage trolley at Kings Cross station. Damages were assessed at £1,500, but as Sir Charles was held to be one-third responsible for the accident he received only £1,000. It is assumed that the remaining £500 was awarded to the mail-bag. (NB. During World War I Sir Charles’s father, Sir Hugh Douglas Blackett (1873-1960), together with his friend and fellow-officer Fred Barnett, for whom he had fagged at Eton, were reputed to have commandeered their general’s train to transport their hunters.)

John Stephens Blacket (1833-1922) worked for some years as a surveyor for the East Indian Railway. During his time in the Agra district of India he became caught up in the Indian Mutiny and was forced to take refuge in Agra. His letters describing his experience are held by Durham University.

The only railway locomotive we have discovered containing the name “Blackett” is “Mount Blackett”, operated by East African Railways on the main line between Mombasa and Nairobi between the mid 1950s and the early 1980s. It was named after Mount Blackett in Rift Valley, Kenya. For the technically minded, it was an articulated steam locomotive 4-8-2+2-8-4 built by Beyer Peacock & Co. Ltd. of Manchester weighing 254 tons. Its number was 5922. Mountain Class locomotives were the most powerful metre-gauge steam locomotives ever built.

On 16 May 1811, while in Malta, Lord Byron wrote the following epitaph for Joseph Blackett, (1785-1810) “late poet and shoemaker”:

STRANGER! behold, interr’d together,
The souls of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe is gone, but left his all:
You’ll find his relics in a stall.
His works were neat, and often found
Well stitch’d, and with morocco bound.
Tread lightly – where the bard is laid
He cannot mend the shoe he made;
Yet is he happy in his hole,
With verse immortal as his sole.
But still to business he held fast,
And stuck to Phobus to the last.

Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only `leather and prunella*?’
For character – he did not lack it
And if he did, ’twere shame to `Black it.

Byron apparently had a club foot, so it is tempting to suppose that Joseph must have been a pretty good shoemaker. He spent his early days in London, learning the technique of ladies’ shoemaking from his brother John. As to Joseph’s poetry, some of his letters to Lady Byron, with verses, are held in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Lady Byron’s family, the Milbankes, had been patrons of Joseph, and his published work, “Remains”, was dedicated to “Her Grace the Duchess of Leeds, Lady Milbanke and Family, Benevolent Patrons of the Author.” Byron seems, however, not to have been impressed with Joseph’s poetry, and after Joseph’s death described him as “the laughing stock of purgatory”, though this may have been influenced by Lady Milbanke’s daughter, whom Byron was courting, having taken Joseph under her wing. In 1809 she stated that Joseph’s poems “display a superior genius and an enlarged mind”. Moreover, Joseph could count Princes and Princesses amongst his patrons, as well as a number of other members of the nobility, quite an achievement for someone who was one of twelve children of a day labourer. However, as the Monthly chronicle of North-country lore and legend reported in 1891: “Poor Blackett’s fame was only a November sun; he still felt the shivers while he stood in the shine. He does not appear to have unduly neglected his trade, but he never emerged from a poverty which was soon aggravated by ill health.”
Joseph, who spelled his name “Blacket”, was born in Tunstall, Yorkshire in 1785 (some sources say 1786). For much of his short life he did not enjoy good health. He died at Seaham in County Durham in 1810, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Seaham. Examples of his poems, together with correspondence, etc. can be found at The remains of Joseph Blacket.

[*A worsted fabric then used for the uppers of women’s shoes.]

Sarah Blackett, the daughter of John Erasmus Blackett, yet another Mayor of Newcastle, after whom Blackett Street in Newcastle is named, married Cuthbert Collingwood at Newcastle on 16 June 1791. Cuthbert later became Admiral Lord Collingwood, and served as second-in-command to his old friend, Lord Nelson, at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, taking over command after Nelson’s death. In later life he was appointed commander of the Mediterranean fleet. When his health began to fail he made repeated requests to be allowed to return home. His pleas were finally answered, but he died of cancer on board HMS Ville de Paris having just set sail from Port Mahon en route for Britain, without seeing Sarah and their two daughters again. Lord Collingwood’s statue stands at the mouth of the River Tyne, looking out to sea.

Approximately 200 years after Trafalgar, Commodore Jeff Blackett, (see also Sporting Blacketts ), then Commander of HMS Collingwood, the Royal Navy’s Weapons Electrical Training Establishment in Fareham, Hampshire, was asked to name newly built cabin accommodation. He decided to call it the “Sarah Blackett Suite” after Lord Collingwood’s wife, thus inviting the charge that he had named it after his own wife, Sally (a derivitive of Sarah)!

Several Blacketts served in the Royal Navy. In 1837 Midshipman John Charles Blackett, father of Admiral Henry Blackett, purchased at Pitcairn Island the medical book of H.M.S. Bounty from a descendant of Fletcher Christian. (The book is now held by the National Maritime Museum.) Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, the scene of the sinking in 1943 of PT109, commanded by a young John F. Kennedy, later 35th President of the United States, may be named after him. In 1841, four years after his visit to Pitcairn Island, John Charles Blackett arrived in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand in rather more style, in his own 80 ton yacht, Albatross, and entertained the Governor on board. Blackett’s Building in the centre of Auckland (see Blacket(t)s Down Under) is named after him.

In “My Name is Blacket” Nick Vine Hall recounts how he learned of a family story about “Ma coosin Jarmie Cook” the famous explorer. Details of the link between Captain Cook and the Blackets can be found on John Barker’s excellent website, The Lamplugh-Brooksbanks of Cumberland and Yorkshire.

In 1934 Julian Otto Trevelyan, the 5xg/grandson of Julia Blackett, married Ursula Darwin, the great-granddaughter of the eminent naturalist Charles Robert Darwin, who wrote “The Origin of Species” and “Natural Selection”. Ursula was also (through both Charles and his wife, Emma Wedgwood, who were first cousins) the 3xgranddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the famous pottery and china business. A link to Josiah Wedgwood was already established, however, through Margaret Jean Trevelyan, a 3xg/granddaughter of Julia Blackett, who in 1858 married Henry Thurston Holland, Josiah’s great-great nephew. Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin was a close friend of Josiah Wedgwood, who was also a grandfather of Charles.

Edmund Thomas Blacket (1817-1883) was one of the foremost 19th century architects in New South Wales, Australia. Born in Southwark, the son of a cloth merchant, he worked on the Stockton and Darlington Railway as an engineer and became a skilled draftsman and surveyor. He emigrated to Australia in 1842, following a marriage of which his father disaproved, and for much of the next forty years he dominated architecture in New South Wales. The Blacket Award for Architecture was introduced in 1964 by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in New South Wales and is still awarded to this day.

Edmund was the great-uncle of Lord (Patrick Maynard Stuart) Blackett and Sir Basil Phillott Blackett (see subsequent entries). For other examples of Edmund’s work see Blacket(t)s Down Under and Blackett Aids to Shipping.

Edmund was not the only architectural Blackett in Australia. William Arthur Mordey Blackett (1873-1962) had an architectural practice in Victoria from 1899 to the early 1940s. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

Johnson Blackett was an award-winning British architect. Born in Tranmere, Cheshire in 1896 he emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia in 1974 and died there in 1984.

The most illustrious architectural link to the Blacketts, however, is through Thomas Blackett (abt 1525-1603), who married Jane Wrenne. Jane was a 1st cousin 2xremoved of Sir Christopher Wren, who designed and built St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London, and who lies buried there.
[We are indebted to Malcolm Wren for establishing this connection.]

Sir Basil Phillott Blackett, KCB KCSI, another great-nephew of Edmund Thomas Blacket, was a senior civil servant and an expert on international finance. As First Controller of Finance at the Treasury he was largely responsible for the British economy in the difficult years of 1919-1922. In the latter year he went to India as finance member of the Viceroy’s council and over the next five years proved to be an outstanding financial administrator, introducing several major reforms. In 1928 he left the Treasury for the City and became a director of the Bank of England. He was a strong proponent of the “sterling area” and popularised the phrase. He was a keen student of Blackett genealogy.

The Blackett Observatory at his old school, Marlborough College, is named after him, (see A Lunar Blackett.) He was killed in a motor accident in Belgium in 1935. There is a memorial window to him in the North Transept of Durham Cathedral.

Cuthbert Blackett (1840-1891) was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Blackett (1814-1873). In 1864 he was charged with the manslaughter of John Emmerson at Crook, Co. Durham, but was acquitted. He then seems to have embarked on a life of crime, though not too successfully, as he was convicted of stealing in 1871, 1873 and 1877. In 1881 he was a guest of Her Majesty in Portland Prison, Dorset, serving 7 years penal servitude for larceny. Ten years earlier William Blackett, born about 1844 in London, was a convict in the same prison.

Cuthbert was not the first Blackett to fall foul of the law, as the following extracts from Durham Quarter Sessions Rolls show:-

- Edmund Blacket of Stanhope, yeo., on 4 July 1555 at Brandon Field lay in ambush on the highway to kill Nicholas Barrow of Woodcroft, lab., and assaulted the same.

- Edmund Blacket of Stanhope, yeo., on 18 July 1555 with force and arms broke and entered the close of Nicholas Blacket of Woodcroft, gen., and lay in wait to kill and assaulted Nicholas Barrow.

- Richard Blackett of Sowandburn in the parish of Stanhope, co. Durham, yeo., and Edmund Blackett of the same, yeo., with 4 other unknown malefactors on 20 Sept. 1555 assembled rioutously by the special order and procurement of William Blackett of Sowandburn at Ferrefeilde in the parish of Stanhope and assaulted Alice Maddyson, widow, so that her life was despaired of.

- Thomas Blackett of Woodcroft, gen., [and 11 other accused], with 30 unknown malefactors with force and arms, namely swords, sticks, knives, bows and arrows [etc.] in warlike fashion on 3 May 1556 assembled at the manor of John Lumley, knt., Lord Lumley, at Butterby, being a pernicious example to all such delinquents.

- Thomas Blackett of Woodcroft, co. Durham, gen., on 2 Dec 1599 assaulted Cuthbert Morgaine in the parish church of Stanhope, seated at the time of common prayer.

A burial entry at Stanhope records that “Thomas Morgan ye sonne of John Morgan of Mill Howses was buried the 17th June 1619. Ther was great disorder committed in the churche at this burial about ye grave making in ye stall that belongs to Woodcroft & Mill Howses which disorder was committed by ye Blacketts.”

The earliest Blackett transgression discovered, however, took place on 24 July 1307 when Richard Blachved others forcibly entered lands in Middleton –in-Teesdale belonging to Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and “plundered those lands of the earl’s beasts.” At his trial three years later, Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, was a co-defendant. They got off.

Not all Blacketts had improved their behaviour by the 18th/19th centuries, as a list of Blackett Convictions shows. And mis-behaving Blacketts were not confined to civilian life. In 1884 Henry Blackett enlisted in the Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment), but his military career suffered a setback in 1887 when he was imprisoned for striking a superior officer. In 1889 and 1890 he was in a civilian prison for theft and in 1890 he was discharged from the army as being considered “incorrigible and worthless”.

Lest it be thought that all early Blacketts were rogues, a number of them were church wardens, among them:-

Hamsterley/Witton le Wear

Parcival/Percival Blackett 1st March 1618/9 Christopher Blackett 1609

John Blackitt February 1637/8

Christopher Blacket 1638

William Blackett 1742

William Blackett 1743

In addition, several Blacketts were Anabaptists, including Thomas Blackett (1722-1806), a weaver, who recorded in his diary a visit to St. James’s Church, Hamsterley, where he witnessed “ye fighting of the parsons and people in the church, ye congregation being more like a Mob, then (sic) a congregation that met to serve the Lord”. Thomas did not record whether the fighting members of the congregation were Blacketts continuing the tradition of more than a century earlier.

More information on Thomas Blackett can be found in “My Name is Blacket” by the late Nick Vine Hall.

[Image courtesy of Family Tree Scriptorium]

In some cases Blacketts received outside encouragement to maintain a sober and respectable lifestyle. For example in 1652 John Blackett (1635-1707), the son of Christopher Blackett, entered into an apprenticeship with George Errington, a merchant adventurer and boothman (corn merchant) for a period of 10 years. One of the provisions was that he was expected not to frequent taverns or alehouses. That would have covered John’s years from the age of 17 to 27, but he seems to have obeyed the provision, or at least not been found out, as he went on to practise as a merchant in the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Not so lucky, however, was George Blackett, who was an inmate in the Tynemouth House of Correction in 1841. He must surely be the youngest Blackett to suffer incarceration, as at the time he was five years old.

The all time record for time spent by a Blackett in prison must surely go to William Stephenson Blackett, who spent 27 years and 7 months in Durham gaol (three-quarters of them voluntarily) under an execution for costs in a suit of Chancery. Life for most inmates of Durham gaol was harsh in the extreme, but William seems to have had a more comfortable time. As the adjacent pencil and watercolour depiction [see Note] shows, he hardly seems to have existed on a diet of bread and water, and was reputed to weigh 21 stone! William’s special priviliges may not have been confined to good food, as in 1818/19 his wife gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth Wolfe Blackett, and in 1822 to a son, Hugh Marshall Blackett. In Hugh’s baptismal record William is described as “gentleman”, which is certainly an improvement on “convict”. William died in gaol in 1840 and is buried in the family tomb at Hamsterley. Interestingly, Hugh was not buried there, but at Wolsingham, with his mother and his wife, but the headstone includes a memorial to his father.

It is not known if William stayed in prison after the end of his sentence due to his comfortable living conditions, or whether he was simply too fat to get down the prison stairs.

(Our thanks are due to Margaret Bainbridge, Keith Collinson, Gloria Norman and Marian Holstead for contributing to the research into William.)

For a more detailed account of William and his unconventional family please click here.

Note. The drawing is believed to be by Joseph Bouet. Many of his drawings are in Durham University Library, a selection of which are reproduced in Dr. David Cross’s book, entitled “Joseph Bouet’s Durham drawings from the age of reform”, published jointly by Durham County Local History Society, in association with Durham University Library, from either of which details of how to obtain copies of this interesting and informative book can be obtained. Our thanks are due to Dr. Cross for permission to draw on his book for some of the narrative above.

Sir John Blaket, “the hero of Agincourt”, is shown in many publications, including Burke’s Landed Gentry, as being one of the Blacketts of Woodcroft and Wylam, and the grandfather of Nicholas Blackett. Much is known of Sir John. He is listed among the retinue of King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415. He had charge of one man-at-arms and six archers during the battle, and was knighted by the King shortly afterwards. According to the expenses claim he put in, (a copy of which is held at the Public Record Office), Sir John received a total of £54 7s 8d in cash and “precious objects” for him and his men, though there seems to have been a later dispute with the King over various items that should have been returned. Sir John died in 1430, and his tomb is in the Chapel of the Blessed Mary at Icomb, Gloucestershire. Icomb, (pronounced “Ickum”), is the village where the original Tom, Dick and Harry lived.
All of which is very exciting and glamorous, except that we have found no evidence that he had any connection whatsoever with the Blacketts of North-East England. The Wills of Sir John and his son Edmund, together with the Writs of Diem Clausit Extremum issued after the deaths of Edmund and Sir John’s last wife, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s Inquisition Post Mortem have been examined and contain no mention of any property in North-East England, nor the names of any of the Blakheved (as the name was then spelled) family who are known to have lived at, or owned, Woodcroft at that time. It seems that Sir John has been confused with John Blakheved (1360-1418) who died “fuit seisitus de Wodecroft”, and indeed some references to Sir John erroneously show his date of death as 1418. The 45th Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 1884, contains an unbroken line of Inquisitions Post Mortem passing down Woodcroft to each successive heir. This starts with the Inq. p.m. of Richard Blachved (sic) dated 30 November 1349 and extends down to that of John Blakheved dated 24 January 1462/3, whose heir was John, aged 24. Sir John Blaket does not appear in this line of ownership of Woodcroft.

Nonetheless, there has been a family belief in a connection to Sir John since at least as far back as the early 19th century, and if anyone can provide information enabling us to establish a link please contact us.

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.

This silhouette is the only known image of Robert Surtees as an adult. (Courtesy of The Surtees Society)

In 1801 Alice Blackett (1781-1827) married Anthony Surtees, a fourth cousin of Robert Surtees, the great historian and genealogist of North East England. Robert Surtees was born in 1779 in Durham and trained as a lawyer, though he never practiced law. On the death of his father in 1802 he inherited the family seat of Mainsforth Hall, near Sedgefield, and lived there for the rest of his life. (It was demolished in 1962.)

By 1804 he was gathering material for what would become “The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham”. The first volume was published in 1816 and three further volumes followed, the last of which was published posthumously in 1840.

Although he did not enjoy robust health, Surtees and his wife, Ann Robinson, whom he married in 1807, enjoyed entertaining, and their guests at Mainsforth frequently included the novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott. Surtees had a well-developed sense of humour, and was good enough at writing ballads to deceive Sir Walter into thinking that “The Ballad of Featherstonehaugh”, which Surtees had written himself, was an ancient song. Sir Walter included it as such in his “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border”, along with two other “forgeries” by Surtees, and even went so far as to include in the 1810 edition a memorandum by “my friend and correspondent R. Surtees” purporting to explain many of the “ancient” references in the ballad.

In January 1834 Surtees complained of a cold, and complications developed. He died at Mainsforth on 11th February with Ann at his bedside. Later that year, The Surtees Society was established in his honour. It is the oldest historical publishing society of its type in England.

In addition to his published works, Surtees conducted a vast amount of genealogical research, including much on the Blackett family. In 2007 a bundle of old Blackett family papers was acquired at auction, and found to include several Blackett family trees compiled by Surtees. These have enabled us to ascertain the links between the various major branches of the family and combine them into the tree which forms part of this site. The original papers have since been donated to Durham University. [i]

Robert was not the only author to bear the name Surtees. His fourth cousin once removed, Robert Smith Surtees (1805-1864), the second son of Anthony Surtees and Alice Blackett, was a well known author of many humorous books on fox-hunting and country life, some of which are still on sale today. In 1885 his younger daughter, Eleanor, married John Gage Prendergast Vereker, 5th Viscount Gort. Their elder son, John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker VC, the 6th Viscount, (widely known as “Lord Gort”), became a Field Marshal and was Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France in 1939-40. He is credited by most commentators with responsibility for saving the BEF from likely capture by withdrawing most of his forces to Dunkirk. As Winston Churchill later said of Lord Gort’s decision: “At this moment here was the only hope of saving anything from destruction or surrender.” [ii]

[i] Details can be found in Durham University’s handlists. (When the page opens please click on “Add.MSS.1601-1650”)

[ii] “The Second World War” by Winston S. Churchill.

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 1704, 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.”

In addition to the blood link to H.M. The Queen (see next section), and those shown in The Eden Line there are two links by marriage to the British monarchy

In 1803 Sir Godfrey Bosville Macdonald, great-grandson of Diana Blackett, married Louisa Maria la Coast, the illegitimate daughter of Prince William Henry Hanover, grandson of King George II and younger brother of King George III. Illegitimacy was no stranger to this part of the family, as Louisa’s mother, Lady Almeria Carpenter, daughter of the 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, was a descendant of an illegitimate child of a Prince of Orange, and Prince William, at the time of his affair with Almeria, was married to Maria Walpole illegitimate granddaughter of Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford and Prime Minister 1721-1742.

In 1995 Christopher Godfrey-Faussett, the 7xgreat-grandson of Julia Blackett, married in Glamis, Scotland Lady Diana Bowes-Lyon, the great-niece of the late Queen Mother and 1st cousin 1xremoved to H. M. Queen Elizabeth II. Lady Diana is also the 4xgreat-granddaughter of William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland and Prime Minister 1783 and 1807-1809, and 4xgreat-great niece of Hon. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo and was Prime Minister 1828-1830.

A little further down the social scale, Thomas Blackett, born in 1859 in East Rudham, Norfolk, worked as a groomsman in the stables at the Royal Estate at Sandringham, Norfolk. In his late teens he walked from Norfolk well over 100 miles up to Yorkshire, where he found employment looking after pit ponies at a colliery in Rawmarsh, Yorks. (Source: Steve Blackett).

As well as several connections through marriage, the Blacketts’ blood connection with H.M. The Queen (see THE ROYAL CONNECTION CAVEAT in the family tree opening page) goes back to King Malcolm III of Scotland and Queen (and later Saint) Margaret. The Queen has at least three lines of ancestry back to Malcolm, only one of which is so far recorded in the tree. Malcolm’s line can be traced back to his father, Duncan, (who was killed by his cousin, Macbeth, in 1040, only to be avenged by Malcolm 17 years later,) and beyond, and Margaret’s to beyond Alfred The Great. The wider descendants of Malcolm and Margaret have not been entered in the tree.

Some 19th century Blackett researchers believed that descent from William the Conqueror could also be claimed through his daughter Maud, who married Malcolm’s son, David. Sadly, however, despite the inscription on her grave, she was probably William’s step-daughter.

Several sources claim that one of Malcolm’s descendants, Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, was the real Robin Hood. He certainly seems to have had his lands confiscated by King John, while King Richard was away at the Crusades, but that may not have been a unique experience during those times.

In Kirklees Park, Yorkshire, is an inscription on a wall which translates as:

Here underneath this little stone
Lies Robert Earl of Huntingdon
Never was there an archer so good
And people called him Robin Hood
Such outlaws as he and his men
Will England never see again
December 1247

Unfortunately, the stone is believed to date from the 17th century, so, in genealogical parlance, Robin Hood’s connection to the Blacketts may not be fully secure.