A heraldic and physiological curiosity : thirty-nine children of one father and one mother (seven sons and thirty-two daughters), amply proved / by Geo. Grazebrook.

  • George Grazebrook
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A heraldic and physiological curiosity : thirty-nine children of one father and one mother (seven sons and thirty-two daughters), amply proved / by Geo. Grazebrook. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    one husband. They were all born alive and baptized, and all Single births save one. The last child, who was born after his father’s death, was a chirurgeon in King Street, Bloomsbury, and wrote Neicpoicgheia. (Signed) “ Rich. Ashby, a clergyman.” As no family connection seems at all probable, I think this picture must have been purchased and hung up at Wallingwells as a curiosity in natural history (?). In “ Notes and Queries” for September 1852 (First Series, vol. vi., p. 303) is given a MS. note written in a copy of N6KpoKi)heia and sent by E. D.: “ M1S Green- hill, mother of the author, had 39 children,” etc., just as above, and almost word for word up to “ Bloomsbury.” “ ’SeKpoKrjSeia or the Art of embalming, wherein is shewn the right [sic] of burial, the funeral ceremonies, and the several ways of preserving the dead bodies in most nations of the world,” etc., 4to, London, 1705 [British Museum Press Mark 454, A. 22], was written by our Thomas Greenhill. Among the subscribers are William Greenhill, Esq. (three copies), and Mr. John Greenhill (one copy). In an allegorical frontispiece, on the left hand top corner, is a curtain against which hangs a shield of Arms and Crest as granted in 1698, but the artist has failed to get thirty-nine mullets into the limited space on the Crest. The work consists of three letters, viz.: (a) To Chas Bernard, Serj.-Surgeon to her Ma‘y & present Master of the Surgeons Company & one of the Surgeons to S4 Bart8 Hosp1; (b) To Dr John Lawson, sometime president of the Coll, of Physicians, London ; and (c) To D1' Hans Sloane, Sec^ to the Royal Society and F.C.P., London. The second and third letters are quite interesting reading, and contain accounts of Egypt, the Nile. Pyramids, etc., with many illustrations, culled from the works of travel published at that date. I would warn my readers against the inaccurate account given in the “ Dictionary of National Biography,” vol. xxiii., pub. 1890, of Thomas Greenhill (1681—1740?). The writer cannot have seen the original grant of Arms, 1698—“born 1681.” Are we to suppose that a young surgeon astatis 17 (if he could hold a diploma at that age) could venture to apply for such a distinction ! and could thus, still an infant, have earned that the Earl Marshall should be “ well satisfyed of his Qualifi- cations,” and “ in consideration of his Services to his Grace and his Family,” etc.? Such language could only apply to the experienced medical attendant upon such an illustrious household. Nor does it seem probable that a young man of 24 could have published the book in 1705 and addressed his letters to such distinguished heads of the profession. That may be possible. The other case pointed out is not. If William the father died in 1681, Thomas cannot have been a posthumous child ! The grant is absolutely exact evidence, and was given to this Thomas and his descendants. Again, it seems to me that the, I am glad to say anonymous, writer never saw the original grant, or he would not have said that the lady’s maiden name was White ; she was daughter of John Jones. The Greenhills have been at Harrow for many generations—I suppose they may be found even as early as the thirteenth century—and there were several branches. The Abbots Langley Registers of Births, Marriages, and Deaths from