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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    1653 to 1680 have been missing for many years, as noted in the Register Census Act Report of 1830 (“Middlesex and Herts Notes and Queries,” vol. iii., p. 11). But in the Subsidy Rolls for Harrow we find the following [see “ Middlesex and Herts Notes and Queries,” vol. iii., p. 136, and iv., p. 187] :— 1642. Subsidy Roll. In Roxeth—Thomas Greenhill, in lands xxs. William Greenhill, in lands xxs. John Greenhill, in lands xxs. In Greenhill—William Greenhill, gent., in lands iiju. 1675. Hearth Tax. In Roxeth—William Greenhill pays for 7 chimnies. John Greenhill, for 5 chimnies. In Greenhill—Mr Greenhill, for 6 chimnies. The last shews that Mr. Greenhill held his house in Greenhill ; had it been let the tenant’s name would have appeared. I think it likely that the anonymous writer has given the date of the death of another William Greenhill and not the father of Thomas, who was of Greenhill and of Hyde in Abbots Langley. I have given a picture of the Arms as in the margin, because there is much confusion as to the term “ Leopard.” In James Coat’s “ New Dictionary of Heraldry, 1739,” is this explanation : French Heralds laid it down that Lions passant-guardant were to be called “ Leopards,” but English Heralds declined to follow so absurd a distinction. It is thus that we sometimes meet with “the Leopards of England”! Even Papworth, at p. 19, blazons the Greenhill Arms granted 1698 as “ Vert 2 bars erm., in chief a lion pass, guard, or,” and so it seemed desirable to give the original picture shewing the ordinary “ Felis Leopardus.” I, too, found it impossible to get distinctly the important thirty-nine mullets on the Crest ! and so have left it, like the original office copy, merely an uncoloured sketch. It will be noticed that the gryphon is disposed with wings addorsed, so as to leave the greatest possible space for these mullets, but the artist abandoned the attempt to shew them there !