|
|
This project began in 1968, the result of curiosity about the maiden name of my dear grandmother Julia Blennerhassett, and has continued on and off ever since. Delving deeper and wider, the ancient family proved a genealogical goldmine, revealing fascinating individuals from many walks of life and tales of historic and cultural interest from the 13th century onwards.
I soon realised that much printed and manuscript material existed that had not been referenced by any easily available source, and many branches of the family were not documented anywhere. The object is to complete the Blennerhassett pedigree world-wide, connecting all branches and recording a brief history of individuals. The extended family through female lines of descent, i.e. descendants carrying other surnames, are included whenever such information comes to hand but these are not systematically researched.
GENESIS
The origin of what is now essentially an Irish name may be found at the manor and village of Blenerhayset (now Blennerhasset, with single 't') in the northern English county of Cumberland, close to the border with lowland Scotland. Carrying no surname and owning no property, the family will no doubt have worked the land or otherwise served their Lord of the Manor. In the twelfth century one of them adopted or was given the name of his manor as a personal surname, he and his descendants being described as "de Blenerhayset" (i.e. of Blenerhayset); subsequently the whole family left Blenerhayset, moving to the nearby City of Carlisle, where in the 1350s is found Alan de Blenerhayset, a merchant active in local politics, who in 1390 sealed a deed using this coat-of-arms still borne by the family. How or why he acquired these arms is unknown, but the dolphin may indicate a connection with the sea. The earliest known representation of Blenerhayset arms appears in Thomas Jenyn's Roll, temp. Edward III (1327-1377).
|
Blenerhaysets prospered at Carlisle a further 200 years, during this period often serving as Mayor, Sheriff or Burgess, before establishing themselves in 1547 as "gentleman farmers" at Flemby Hall, Flemby (now Flimby) on the Cumberland coast. From Cumberland departed sons who founded dynasties in English counties Norfolk & Suffolk, also Irish counties Kerry, Limerick & Fermanagh. Ancestor of the Norfolk, Suffolk and Fermanagh lines was Ralph de Blenerhayset of Carlisle, who in 1423 married Joan de Lowdham of Loudham, a 14 year old heiress and widow(!). By this marriage Ralph gained the manors of Loudham, Toddenham & Halvergate in Suffolk, Frenze in Norfolk, Kelvedon in Essex, thus becoming Lord of the Manor for these places, a young man of property and some standing in East Anglia.
|
In 1430 Ralph travelled from England to France as one of the retinue of Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, one year before the boy king Henry VI of England was crowned King of France, a Plantagenet attempt to permanently unite the two crowns following Henry V's famous victory at Agincourt fifteen years earlier. Ralph was knighted, at date and place unknown. His tomb of 1475 at Frenze in Co.Norfolk displays a fine monumental brass with effigy of "Sir Ralph Blenerhayset, Knt" wearing armour of the early 15th century, the earliest surviving portrait of a Blennerhassett.
|
Of all these once flourishing branches only the Kerry and Limerick families survive, the others now extinct in the male line, thus all living Blennerhassetts are of Irish descent. Their common ancestor is Robert Blennerhassett of Flimby, Cumberland, who settled in Ireland soon after his father Thomas, on 14th August 1590, was granted land (by Sir Edward Denny of Dennyvale & Tralee) as planter or undertaker in the "Plantation of Munster". The plantation was established by Elizabeth I on the vast Munster estates forfeited by the rebel 15th Earl of Desmond, Gerald FitzGerald, who she had proclaimed traitor and outlawed in 1579 and who was murdered (at Glenageeny, Ballymacelligott) in 1581. Sir Edward Denny, as the principal planter, had previously been granted the Earl's chief castle of Tralee.
The grant to Thomas was contingent on him rendering "one red rose" at the festival of the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist (29th August) and paying rent of "six pounds sterling" per year. Robert established himself on the adjoining townlands of Ballycarty and Ballyseedy, close to Tralee, and since that time the Blennerhassetts have been a prominent and well-respected family in both Kerry and Limerick.
A distant cousin, Thomas Blennerhassett from Co.Norfolk, was serving as a soldier in Ireland c1600. A few years later this Thomas, with his brother Edward, settled by beautiful Loch Erne in Co.Fermanagh, having in 1610 been granted land in the "Plantation of Ulster", on confiscated Maguire property in the western part of the Barony of Lurg. Their property stretched from Belleek to the river Bannagh and there they built "Castle Hassett" (Crevenish Castle) at "Hassettstown" (Ederney), also "Hassett's Fort" (Castle Caldwell) and the new towns Belleek, Kesh & Ederney. Belleek is today famous for its pottery.
WHO WERE THEY?
Gentry, farmers, miners, craftsmen, engineers, medics, nurses, lawyers, teachers, clergy, seafarers, soldiers, police, writers, poets, painters, servants, labourers, paupers... Five were knighted, one made baronet "of Blennerville in Co.Kerry". Thomas Blenerhayset was installed as Rector of Hardingham parish in Norfolk at the tender age of 11 years, by Papal Bull of dispensation from Leo X. Generations loyally served the Dukes of Norfolk and Earls of Arundel, one attending the 4th Duke during his imprisonment at the Tower of London awaiting execution.
They were politicians, elected as Councillors, Mayors and Members of Parliament in England and Ireland. They sat as magistrates, on Grand Juries, as judges... and appeared before them. They were imprisoned. They fought duels. In Ireland they campaigned for Home Rule, and against Home Rule. Dr.Henry Blennerhassett was an active supporter of "The Liberator" Daniel O'Connell, signing the "Protestant Petition in favour of Catholic Emancipation" and presiding over a number of public meetings where the people of Tralee proclaimed support & sympathy for O'Connell.
They patrolled the western marches watching for invading Scots, served in Cromwell's army in the English Civil War and with the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. They were present at Trafalgar, Waterloo, the Indian Mutiny, the Crimea, on the Western Front, in North Africa, in Bomber Command. During the American War of Independence James Blennerhassett, a young Lieutenant on HMS "Serapis" (44 guns), was reported missing in action following an infamous naval duel with American privateer "Bonhomme Richard", whose commander John Paul Jones was later to write "...no action before was ever, in all respects, so bloody, so severe and so lasting...".
Brothers fought on opposite sides in the American Civil War, as John Blennerhassett attempted to raise his own Union regiment at New York. During the Great War Giles Blennerhassett was an "ace" with the Royal Flying Corps; Arthur Blennerhassett scoured the USA, Australia & New Zealand for army remounts while the ladies of Ballyseedy nursed wounded from Gallipoli on hospital ships in the Mediterranean; "Willy" Blennerhassett was in Military Intelligence (MI1), undercover in France, after the war serving in Finland, in Northern Russia, and as British deligate to the League of Nations.
Some were killed in action. In the Royal Navy of WWII, one fine man died assisting the evacuation of Dunkerque, another when the mighty H.M.S. "Hood" exploded and sank with the loss of her entire crew, save three. In the R.A.F. Dick Blennerhassett personally piloted Sir Winston Churchill on several occasions; while taking Churchill to the Casablanca conference they encountered a Messerschmitt squadron, escaping by cloud hopping, for which service Churchill arranged a medal be struck especially for him.
Many laboured long and hard farming the land in Co.Kerry; others produced flour at Blennerville Windmill, mined lead in Co.Cornwall, or sought their fortune in the gold rushes of California and Australia. They sailed from Liverpool, Queenstown or Blennerville Quay to become pioneer settlers and farmers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States of America; Harman Blennerhassett and his young bride fled scandal to create an island paradise in the Ohio River, only to be drawn into the grand designs of ex-vice president Aaron Burr and be charged with high treason against the United States. James Blennerhassett steamed to a new life in Australia on Brunel's S.S. "Great Britain", the first iron ship; William Leadman Blennerhassett in 1885 was first to drive a locomotive across the final bridge of the Canadian Pacific Railway, thus uniting Canada east to west by rail - a Canadian Pacific engine was later named for him, "Wm. Blennerhassett".
A few were among the fashionable taking houses for the season at Georgian Bath, while in the side streets others manufactured stays for ladies' undergarments. Lucy Blennerhassett and her husband John Sapsford were administrators for and personal assistants to philantropist Baroness Burdett-Coutts of London, who in the mid-nineteenth century devoted herself selflessly to providing housing for the poor of London's east-end and giving large-scale help to the south-west of Ireland, where during the famine she fed and clothed whole districts, lent money to restore the fishing industry and assisted large scale emigration.
Richard Blennerhassett was for several years ship's doctor on board the barque "Jeanie Johnston" , regularly sailing from Blennerville in Co.Kerry to Quebec, sometimes to New York or Baltimore, full of hopeful emigrants escaping the effects of famine for a new life in North America. The ship returned from these voyages laden with cargo, usually Canadian timber. During his service not a single passenger or crew member was lost to disease or injury, an almost unique record for shipping of the period.
In the USA William H. Blennerhassett held a license to sell Thomas Alva Edison's "Electric Pen", an early document copying system; in his leisure time the pitcher for the first Baseball club at Port Huron, Michigan.
They were royalist and republican, Catholic and Protestant, non-conformist and puritan, landlord and tenant, master and servant, rich and poor, genteel and scandalous...
SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
John Blennerhassett of Castle Conway was author of an early genealogy of his family in Ireland, commenced while held prisoner at Galway in 1689-1690 during the 'Williamite' wars, completed shortly before he died c1738. Two of his original manuscripts survive, the later and more extensive, known as "Black Jack's Book", having been transcribed twice, by Kerry historians Arthur Blennerhassett Rowan in 1855 and by Mary Agnes Hickson c1870.
Edward Francis Browne, whose grandmother Frances Browne was granddaughter of "The Great Colonel John" Blennerhassett of Ballyseedy, inherited a quantity of original documents relating to the family. From these and other sources he compiled a beautiful leather-bound manuscript pedigree, completed 1911.
An outline family tree was published in earlier editions of "Burke's Landed Gentry" but disappeared from that work after 1912. Reinstated in 1976 for "Burke's Irish Family Records", the Blennerhassett entry was wonderfully enlarged and rewritten by genealogist Brian Fitzelle. Despite this advance, many branches remained incomplete, undocumented or hidden, much history yet to be discovered.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Information has been drawn from published work, public records and archived manuscripts. Many individuals have made important contributions and continue to do so, kindly sharing their own research material, for which assistance and support I am grateful. You know who you are, I shall not list names, but among you is one so outstanding she has be publicly acknowledged. Beatty Blennerhassett of Bengworden, for many years organizer of family reunions, enthusiastic collector and guardian of a treasure-trove of papers relating to Blennerhassett and other families in Australia, New Zealand & elsewhere, is known and appreciated by everybody with an interest in this subject. Thank you Beatty.
That there is this interest among members of the family, other Blennerhassett descendants and local historians is shown by the size of the postbag. Several contributors have asked for information on earlier generations to be made more widely available, the website being a response to such requests. Personal information about living people is not placed on the site except where specifically requested by the individual concerned, hence the empty rectangles that appear along the right-hand edge of many pedigree pages. If you wish to see your own particular branch of the family tree in more detail, do get in touch.
PRESENTATION
To permit larger quantities of data to be viewed as single family trees, each pedigree page has been created as a flat spreadsheet, displayed here as a searchable PDF document. This method does not require use of a specialised genealogy program, therefore no GEDCOM format output is available. The site being new, some pages are incomplete and some not yet functional, these are marked UC (Under Construction) or differentiated by menu text of lighter colour. Thank you for your patience.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
I hope you find the site interesting. Your feedback is requested. Please report factual errors or omissions; any item which should be added or removed; spelling, grammatical or cross-reference errors; broken links; suggestions of any kind. Suitable photographs of people, houses, places, memorials or inscriptions are requested...
If you believe an image or text used on this website infringes your copyright do tell me, in order that permission to use may be requested and copyright acknowledged, or the offending material removed. For any of these Contact Us.
If you have your own genealogy or local history website and an interest in, or connection with, the Blennerhassett family, please consider adding a link to this page.
Bill Jehan
14 November 2008
site updated June 2009 |
|
