13 Mar 1800

Henry Stanyford Blanckley remarries a second Mary: Mary Richards at Sulham, Berkshire, England (left)

HSB’s name is given as “Henry Stanyford Blanckley, Esq., of Bath,”

1802

Henry Stanyford Blanckley and Mary née Richards first child, Elizabeth is born on the Isle of Man

(year and place of birth given in 1851 census)

17 Apr 1802

Both newborn Elizabeth and 12ish-year-old Edward are baptised in Malew Parish Church, Isle of Man (left).  There is a note that Edward was ‘received’ into church, meaning he’d been baptised previously, but not in a Church of England church, suggesting this was his first visit to Britain.

Edw.d & Eliz.th children of Edw.d Blankley Esq.r & Mary his wif. being [???} and Rec.d 

The curate appears to have named their father as Edward not Henry – according to an Isle of Man archivist,clerical misnaming was not uncommon.

This was HSB’s sister Ann Elizabeth Shaw’s parish

C. 1804

Henry Stanyford Blanckley and Mary née Richards second child, Henrietta is born on Minorca

Year and place of birth given in 1851 census

13 Jan 1804

Henry Stanyford Blanckley’s sister Ann Elizabeth Shaw dies after a short illness (right and below).

 Alexander was twice married.  

….By his second wife, Anne Elizabeth, daughter of

  Henry Blanckley, he had four sons and four daughters.

  The sons were

 …. 4. Charles, Ensign 91st Regiment, 2 and Lieutenant

  17th Regiment ; drowned in Glenluce Bay,

  in 1804, on his way from Dublin to attend

  his mother's funeral ; unmarried.

Alexander Mackintosh Shaw, Genealogical account of the Highland families of Shaw, London : Privately printed by W.P. Griffith & Son,1877. p. 110  (available digitally on digital.nls.uk/histories-of-scottish-families) ––page image: left

21 Jul 1804

Probate of Charles MacKintosh of Paragon Buildings, Bath’s will (Henry Stanyford Blanckley’s father in law). 

He names his deceased wife as formerly the widow Blankley and her children as ‘Henry Stanyford Blankley and Ann Elizabeth Blankley now Mrs Shaw’.  He also states at the top of page 4:

The house I live in household furniture

I desire that my carriage and horses may be sold immediately after my death and all my household furniture and the liquors in my cellar within the space of three months thereafter and neat product remitted for my account to my friend Mr Simon Fraser of Kings Arms Yard London excepting my plate the whole of which as it belonged to my late wife before our marriage I leave to her two children, my step son and step daughter aforesaid in equal shares and be it observed that I delivered to my stepson Henry Blankley the use of a tea kettle and lamp which must be considered as part of his half share thereof.

Charles MacKintosh bequeaths the bulk of his annuities to his sister in law Anne Harrison (HSB’s maternal aunt), saying ‘whose attention to me and my interests has always been such as I never can sufficiently acknowledge’  and states that she can continue living in his leased house in Paragon Buildings, Bath for 3 months after his death.

Anne Harrison (and HSB) turn up at 8 Paragon Buildings 10 years later and it seems likely this is the same house.

Source: England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858 Ancestry.co.uk

17 Jan 1805

Edward Blanckley joins the Royal Navy

on Madras 54, under Captain Charles Marsh Schomberg as Midshipman (A_Naval_Biographical_Dictionary/Blanckley,_Edward) guarding the coast of Malta

The Blanckley’s firstborn, Anne was married to Maltese resident, Edward Dalzel

I send the first transport to receive your baggage and to carry you to Malta […] your long quarantine at Cagliari must have been very irksome.

Auckland Libraries heritage collections, MS 18, Letter from Horatio Nelson to H. S. Blankley. March 28th, 1805

By 1806

HSB and Mary née Rogers’s daughters Ann and Maria are married.  Elizabeth Broughton née Blanckley writes at the time when she was four and newly moved to Algiers:

I was my most indulgent mother’s first-born (although I ranked but as my dearest father’s third daughter,) and from a very early period, by the marriages of my sisters, I became the eldest daughter of the house.

Six Years Residence in Algiers, Mrs Broughton,1839, page 3

The British Consul Henry Stanford Blanckley resided in this villa with his family from 1806 to 1812.

https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.arpc.dz/%3Fq%3Dfr/villa-brossette.html&prev=search

Algiers, 9 October 1806. Oblong Folio (ca. 25x39 cm). Official printed form of the British Chancery Office in Algiers, with woodcut arms at head; finished in manuscript in secretarial hand and signed by Blanckley in the right lower corner. Brown ink on laid paper. With official red wax seal on the left margin. Overall a very good document. "We, H. S. Blanckley Esquire, His Britannic Majesty's agent and consul general in this City and Kingdom, certify that We do constitute and appoint Lewis Tonna Esqr. Our Secretary and do hereby Order that he is to be obeyed and acknowledged as such by all and every Person whom this may concern". Issued at the British Chancery Office at Algiers in 1806 and signed off by the then consul general Henry Stanyford Blanckley, this document appointed Lewis Tonna as his secretary. Blanckley, an army Mayor, had taken part in the siege of Gibraltar in 1782 before a nineteen year stint as consul in the Balearic Islands. He was the British Consul General in Algiers in 1806-1812 and went on to play a role in shaping British policy towards the Barbary Coast. Lewis Hippolytus Joseph Tonna (d. 1828) later became a British vice-consul in Algiers and at Bona, vice-consul for Spain and consul for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in Liverpool. He married Blanckley's daughter Maria, and their son Lewis Tonna (1812-1857) was a polyglot, fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and evangelical protestant campaigner.

Villa Brossette, currently occupied by the ARPC (National Agency for the Management of Achievements of Major Cultural Projects), is located at 19 Avenue Souidani Boudjemaa Algiers; with its garden and other outbuildings it occupies a plot of 8600 m2, it is bounded on the North East by the Boulevard des Martyrs and South West by Souidani Boudjemaa Avenue.

https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.arpc.dz/%3Fq%3Dfr/villa-brossette.html&prev=search

Description of the Blanckley’s life there extrapolated from Six Years Resident in Algiers below)

Although the house was built in the Moorish manner, around an open courtyard, much of it was decorated in the English style….

    Away from the cliffs, the house was surrounded by groves of fruit trees – pomegranates, almonds, orange and lemon trees, as well as the bergamot, or sweet lemon – in which nightingales sang. The fig trees bore fruit of such perfection that it had hitherto been considered fit for the Dey alone, while the apricots were so abundant that two of their pigs died from a surfeit of them. (It was not only the pigs who became over-excited at the prospect of so much wonderful fruit: a local synonym for apricot was ‘kill-Christians’.) Their vegetables grew in prodigious quantities, too. In her potager Elizabeth’s mother grew cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, carrots, turnips, onions, leeks, peas, french beans, haricots blancs, artichokes, calabash, pumpkins, cucumbers, musk and watermelons, aubergines, tomatoes and several kinds of capsicums, okra, strawberries and potatoes. 

    The Blanckleys kept so many pets that their ‘Garden’ also became something of a Noah’s ark. Their animals included a spaniel, a tortoise, a hare, a silver fox, a lamb, a tame gazelle and a goat called Phyllis. Mr Blanckley tried to keep wild cats, but they did not survive captivity. Nor did their pet lamb, which was eaten by jackals; nor their father’s eagle, for whom an even worse fate was in store. One day, mistaking the bird for a guinea fowl, the cook killed it, plucked it, and hung it in their already well-filled Christmas larder. If Elizabeth and her sister had not missed it, no one was in any doubt that it would have been served up at table.

    …It was against this background of domestic harmony that the Blanckleys’ most important work was carried out. While they survived the worst excesses of the Dey’s regime, some of their countrymen were not so fortunate. One of Mr Blanckley’s main duties in this ‘very nucleus of piracy’ was to claim any British national taken into slavery by the Algerians. He was able to do this under the terms of a treaty agreed with the Turkish Sultan in 1761, known as the Ottoman Capitulations, which also gave European consuls wide-reaching powers of jurisdiction over their countrymen in both civil and criminal cases, liberty of movement around the Dey’s dominions, freedom from restrictions in commerce and religion, and (in theory at least) inviolability of domicile. After these captured Britons had been identified and set free, it was to Mrs Blanckley that the care of these unfortunates most frequently fell. Sometimes they were English sailors, or a handful of travellers on board a foreign passenger ship which had fallen into the hands of Algerian pirates. Sometimes they were the crew of an English merchant vessel captured on the high seas with its cargo of cotton, opium or oil. If the captain of one of these ships (who was often accompanied by his wife and family) was not properly insured his capture would spell certain ruin. At least he would have been allowed to keep a change of clothing; the rest of the crew on board such vessels were routinely stripped of everything they possessed, right down to their underclothes. Mrs Blanckley grew adept at making up not only extra beds, but also new shirts with which to clothe her destitute countrymen. On one occasion fifteen Englishmen were shipwrecked on the Barbary Coast, at a place called Gigery. The Blanckleys first received knowledge of their capture when a small piece of bluish-white paper was delivered to their house, much creased and soiled, on which a few scarcely legible lines had been scratched with charcoal and water. It told a distressing but all too familiar tale. The ship belonging to these English mariners, laden with a cargo of pigs of lead and barrels of gunpowder, had been on its way to one of the Mediterranean ports, when a storm had driven it onto the rocks. The ‘inhospitable savages’ who inhabited this remote piece of coast had overpowered the exhausted men and diverted them of everything, including all their clothes. Freezing with cold and half-starved, the fifteen men watched helplessly from the shore as, in their haste take possession of the ship’s cargo, several of their captors tied pigs of lead to their waists, instantly sinking to their deaths as they attempted to swim back to shore. Another group later blew themselves up when they built a fire too close to one of the barrels of gunpowder. Perhaps anxious to be rid of these unlucky Christian devils, they were now demanding a large ransom. It was only with difficulty that the outraged Mr Blanckley could be made ‘to comprehend the truth of the Dey’s reply, which was, that he had not the least command or influence with the men of Gigery … that they had ever continued a wild and completely savage people; and that had any Algerine subjects fallen into their hands, he, the Dey, would equally have been obliged to pay a ransom for their liberation.’ The compassionate Blanckleys paid the ransom from their own pocket, and a few days later the thirteen mariners – ‘two having sunk under their misery’ – arrived in Algiers. The men had scarcely a rag upon them, but Mrs Blanckley was well prepared and already had beds and clothing waiting for them. She tended their wounds and fed them, although her greatest anxiety over the following weeks was that ‘they might be injured by taking too great a quantity of food, after their long state of almost starvation; and she used great caution in having nourishment distributed to them.’ ‘In this, and in every other instance,’ Elizabeth wrote, ‘did my excellent parents act a part worthy of the good Samaritan; their house, their purse, and even their wardrobe, being opened and freely bestowed according to the wants of their unfortunate fellow-creatures.’

Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives, Hickman K. 1999 - citing Six Years Residence in Algiers by Elizabeth Broyghton née Blanckley

20th.–– Our Janissary went to town at day-break, on account of information, that two frigates had anchored last evening, and on his return, to the great joy of Mr B., was accompanied by –––––––.  The children are in an ecstasy of happiness; he is much grown, and much liked by his commander, the Honourable Captain Duncan, who is, with Captain Rosenhagen of the Resistance, come out to dinner with a party of remarkably fine young men.

Six Years Residence in Algiers, Mrs Broughton,1839, page 220

7 Sep 1813

Henry Stanyford Blanckley and family are resident at 8 Paragon Buildings, Bath (pictured left).  He writes from there to his daughter Maria (now Mrs Tonna) on this date:

My dear Maria,

    Yours of 30th last month received, I deferred answering it until your brother [HSB Jr.’]s return here, which he did on Sunday last, in order to save postage. I leave him the remainder of this sheet to give him an opportunity of telling you the reception from the Regent on his presenting him Joe’s sword & also of his future proceedings.

    The two little girls are with us for a few days from school to see Harry, Augusta and Milly also, we make up nine; these with Mrs Blanckley unite with me in affectionate wishes to you and your children I am yr. affectionate father H. S. Blanckley

The nine in the household would have been: 1 & 2) the two little girls: Elizabeth (b. 1804) & Henrietta (b. 1804); 3) Harry: HSB Jr., 4 & 5) Augusta and Milly: the orphaned daughters of HSB’s sister Ann Elizabeth and Alexander Shaw.  They were born in 1796 and ’89 respectively); 6) Mrs Blanckley: HSB’s 2nd wife Mary née Richards, 7) HSB himself.  Nos. 8 and 9 are unspecified, butter evidence (below) shows HSB’s maternal aunt Anne Harrison was also resident at 8 Paragon Buildings. –– please see family tree below.

Harry then writes to Maria commenting, ‘we have not heard lately from Dear Edward.’

Blanckley Family Papers, Box B-000820; Folder 8, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library https://findingaids.princeton.edu

London 47 Bridge Street Westminster

8 March 1815 

In commencing a correspondence with you my dear sister I shall have a double pleasure from your being the sister of my dear Harry.  The hurry and bustle we have been in, in removing from Cheltenham here will I hope apologize for my apparent neglect in not before acknowledging the receipt of the parcel, which arrived in perfect safety, the cap I think beautiful, and shall value highly as being your gift.  The little handkerchief I shall preserve until my dear boy, whose name is Henry Ellis, is old enough to use it.  Perhaps you have not heard of Edward’s promotion, which took place on the 6th of last month.  I know this news will give you pleasure as it has us all, for he was poor fellow so unhappy about it.  Harry had a letter from him a few days since dated 19th February at sea, he was quite well, but did not then know of his good fortune.  From Bath we have not heard for some time, your Father has I believe some idea of coming to town.  I regret it was not in your power to visit us at Cheltenham, as I assure you nothing would have given me more pleasure than to have become personally known to you, but hope at some future time that happening is still in store for me.  I shall send by this days mail a small parcel containing a ring for your self and a frock for your dear little girl and boy.  The ring your dear brother begs your acceptance of, and the frocks are from me to my niece and nephew.  We shall leave this about the 13th for Portsmouth, from whence we embark for America.  Harry will write to ou again before we sail. 

With respects to Mr Toner, and a kiss for your little ones.

    I remain your affectionate sister

        Elizabeth Blanckley  

Blanckley Family Papers, Box B-000820; Folder 8, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library https://findingaids.princeton.edu

23 Apr 1816

HSB writes to Maria saying he is planning to emigrate to somewhere warmer and that Edward has stayed with them over winter partying (below).  For explanation of relations, please see family tree following letter)

Bath 23rd April 1816

My dear Maria,

    As I now answer your little girls pretty letter, I would not miss the occasion of giving you a few lines, to tell you of my intention of quitting Bath principally on account of my health, as assuredly it does not agree with me; a third winter each of which I have been laid up in my bed; a proof of it is that when I am out of Bath I am quite well; last spring I went from this to London was absent four months, during that period I enjoyed perfect health.  I had not returned here three days when I was taken and indeed more or less have continued down to this; the difficulty of getting rid of the lease has so long detained me, but have now surmounted it, by giving up the remaining two years to Mrs Bignall; the furniture I dispose or rather say give away to a broker, rather than be troubled with an auction.

    Whither we proceed on leaving this [house] we have not determined, but for change of air towards the sea coast I fancy we shall ramble, most of the summer, and please God I mean to cheat an English winter by going somewhere to the southward on the Continent; in short no fix’d plan have we thought of.  Ten or twelve days I fancy will finish our present residence 

    Edward is still with us he has passed a gay winter, every night (Sunday excepted) has he been dancing, the gayest fellow in Bath.  I hardly see him but at dinner as he keeps such late hours, that he does not rise early, & our breakfast is generally over before he comes down.  This seems to agree with him, and after his long fag as a MIdshipman he ought to be indulged in recreation.  I know not at present how he intends to dispose of himself when we leave this [house]. I shall leave it to himself, it will be well if he can get employed.

    I suppose you have heard of your cousins Mr & Mrs Graham and Isabella Rogers having been here most of the winter; they left this [house] about a month ago, but where they are I know not, as they never wrote to me since their departure 

    Elizabeth & Henrietta are with us the latter last week came to us from Corsham, where she was principally on account of health, although her education was attended to, but the person who had been her music mistress previous to her becoming a partner in a school there, quitted it in consequence of not agreeing with the other lady and therefore I would not have her left behind

    They are both in perfect health and unite with me in best love to you and am 

            Your affect.te Father

                H. S. Blanckley

Blanckley Family Papers, Box B-000820; Folder 8, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library https://findingaids.princeton.edu

C. 1816

The touring Matchams frequently met the Blanckleys (Mr and Mrs plus their son and daughters). 

This Blanckley son must have been Edward, as HSB Jr. was married and starting a family.  This is referenced in Winifred Gérin’s quote below Edward and Harriet’s marriage): “The frequent mention of the Blanckleys, the General (a fomer consul-general at Algiers), his wife, their son and daughters, throughout the Matchams' travels, their irruption in varying countries and places where ever the Matchams happened to be…”

1817

The Blanckleys are established in Paris and help the Matchams find somewhere to rent.

The Matchams showed little inclination to return to England , and indeed were seriously contemplating leaving England for good.  The family’s frequent letters home showed how settled they were in the Paris of Restoration, which offered so many attractions to the throng of English tourists.  Under the guidance and help of their old friends, General Blanckley and his family, who lived there much like Thackery’s old Anglo-Indians on their half-pay, the Matchams found a house on the outskirts of Paris at Bologne-sur-Seine, where for a rent of £116 a year they lived in style.  It was, young Eliza Matcham wrote home on 11 September 1817, ‘so immense that it quite resembles a Mrs. Radcliffe House with immense Coach House and Stabling’.  A carriage to take the family into Paris could be hired for £5 a week, and allowed them to visit the theatre, opera, the great picture ‘Gallery’, the parks, the site of the Bastille, the palaces at St. Germain and St. Cloud ; and to ‘return  home of an evening with a relish for a comfortable dinner and quiet evening’.  In company with one of the Blanckley girls, Horatia and Susannah Matcham attended a weekly boarding-school where they found themselves ‘very comfortable’.

Gérin, W. (1970). Horatia Nelson. Oxford: Clarendon P. Pp. 231 - 232

24 Apr 1819

Edward Blanckley marries Harriet Matcham in Naples (below).

My 3rd great-grandparents

The frequent mention of the Blanckleys, the General (a fomer consul-general at Algiers), his wife, their son and daughters, throughout the Matchams' travels, their irruption in varying countries and places where ever the Matchams happened to be, was eventually explained by the growing romance between Harriet Matcham and Captain Edward Blanckley R.N., whose marriage in Naples in April 1819 only shortly preceded the marriages of Kitty and Eliza. Travelling about Europe with a family of charming daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Matcham could not expect less, or hope for more. "Why doth not Tom marry?" His uncle Matcham wrote from Naples on 8 February 1819 … [The birth of George Matcham Jr. and Harriet née Eyre’s first child preceded by only a few days] the marriage of Harriet Matcham to Captain Edward Blanckley at Naples on 24 April 1819. Leaving her there (where her husband was temporarily posted) the Matchams set off by sea for Marseilles. 

Gérin, W. (1970). Horatia Nelson. Oxford: Clarendon P. Pp. 232, 241 and 234

1 Nov 1819

Harry (HSB Jr.) drowns in a boating accident at Arcot, Madras, India (right) and is buried the next day (below left).

Blanckley was drowned while boating on the Cauverypauk tank ; Handcock died from the effects of the immersion. The two- tombs are imposing fluted columns some 30 feet high. There is a third column in the same enclosure, bearing no inscription. It is said to be in memory of a lady who was drowned in the accident referred to above. 

From Full text of "List Of Inscriptions On Tombs & Monuments Madras Vol 2 ( Cotton)"

… we have received most gratifying accounts, that Harry Blanckley, at the taking of Martinique, was the ensign who first planted the British colours on its walls…

Although I refrain, as much as is consistent with fidelity to the office I have undertaken, of transcribing (and in some parts explaining) my beloved mother's journal, from alluding to the individuals of my family ; yet it would be impossible for me to resist copying the last written sentence, relating, as it does, to a brother, whose worth and deeds of glory are almost the only inheritance he left to his orphan children ; one of them is now a follower in his father's noble career, a lieutenant in one of Her Majesty's Regiments in India[.]

Six Years Residence in Algiers, Mrs Broughton,1839, pp. 150 - 151

C. 1820

Edward Blanckley’s maternal uncle, Henry Rogers Lieut. Col. RA (Chief Storekeeper, Ireland), writes to Maria from Dublin:

I happened yesterday to say that I was in hourly expectation of my dear niece [sailing] from Liverpool when up starts Mr Edward Blanckley saying he had forbid his sisters (sic) coming until she heard again from him.  Now why he has done so must be for him to explain on a later occasion.

Blanckley Family Papers, Box B-000820; Folder 4, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library

7 Feb 1820

Edward and Harriet’s first child Henry Duncan Blanckley is born on Malta.

Henry Duncan BLANCKLEY, born 7th February 1820, the son of Harriett and Edward Blanckley

Malta Family History, British Residents 1800 - 1900

1825

Edward Dalzel, husband of Edward’s sister Anne is Deputy Auctioneer and Magistrate in Valetta living at 166/168 Strada Stretta (below).

E. DALZEL, Deputy Auctioneer and Magistrate, lived at 166/168 Strada Stretta, rent free, as authorized by the Local Government, in 1825

Malta Family History: British Residents 1800 - 1900

Apr 1825

Edward Blanckley is made Acting Commander of Sloop Sophie (16) in the Burmese War.

A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Blanckley, Edward

Edward’s granddaughter (my great grand aunt) Ethel Ward, later wrote that, following a British victory at Rangoon:

Grandpapa and some other officers were walking over the ruins when he found a beautifully clothed baby who was evidently a young princeling or high born child […] it was impossible to trace the parents so Grandpapa brought [him] home with him.’

Style family papers (author’s collection)

19 May 1828

Henry Stanyford Blanckley dies in Versailles aged 75. His memorial in Cimetière Notre-Dame read:

Stanyford BLANCKLEY (Henry). Sacred to the memory 

of.... who departed this life 12th May 1828 into which he was born 29th September 1752, Of the 75 years which he sejourned on earth , 47 years were spent in the service of his country. — He was brigade major at the memorable Seige of Gibraltar, served many years in the American war, subsequently to which he was agent and consul general to his britannic majesty, at Algiers and in the Balearic isles. 

In testimony of his honorable career unsullied by a single stain, and closed, as it is hoped in the believing prospect of immortality, this monument has been erected by his afflicted and affectionate widow Mary Blanckley.

Biographie des hommes remarquables de Seine-et-Oise depuis le commencement de la monarchie jusqu'à ce jour: précedée d'un aperçu

22 Jul 1828

Burial of HSB’s eldest child Anne Dalzel in Malta (below).

Ann DALZEL, buried 22nd July 1828, the wife of Edward Dalzel, and daughter of the late Major Blanckley, formerly HM Consul in Algiers

Malta Family History: British Residents 1800 - 1900

28 Sep 1828

Burial of HSB’s son in law, Edward Dalzel in Malta (below).

Edward DALZEL, buried 28th September 1828, aged 43 years, Magistrate

Malta Family History: British Residents 1800 - 1900

1828

Death of HSB’s son in law, 

Lewis Hippolytus Joseph Tonna, husband of Maria (mentioned in biography of his same-named son below).

He had been a consul based in Liverpool

TONNA, LEWIS HIPPOLYTUS JOSEPH (1812-1857), author, was born on 3 Sept. 1812 at Liverpool, where his father was vice-consul for Spain and the Two Sicilies. His mother was the daughter of Major H. S. Blanckley, consul-general in the Balearic Islands. In 1828 he was at Corfu, a student, when the death of his father threw him on his own resources,

Tytler, Full text of "Dictionary of national biography" Volume 57, 1899, available online

The Voyage of Pylades 1831 - 34

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