The life of the Hon. Henry Cavendish : including abstracts of his more important scientific papers, and a critical inquiry into the claims of all the alleged discoverers of the composition of water / by George Wilson.
- George Wilson
- Date:
- 1851
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The life of the Hon. Henry Cavendish : including abstracts of his more important scientific papers, and a critical inquiry into the claims of all the alleged discoverers of the composition of water / by George Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![cessors as famous in the history of their country, and as connected by intermarriages with the most illustrious houses of the king- dom, not excepting the royal families of England and Scotland.* Some doubts have been expressed by Sir Egerton Brydges, in his edition of Collins' Peerage, as to the descent of Lord Chief Justice Cavendish, from the Norman Gernons,t but even he expresses only a doubt, and that by no means strongly; and those learned genealogists, DugdaleJ and Collins,§ both unhesi- tatingly derive the Cavendishes from Robert de Gernon, a famous Norman who assisted William the Conqueror in his invasion of this realm, a.d. 1066so that I shall take for granted that he was their forefather. It would be out of place in a sketch like the present, to enter into any minute particulars concerning a family history so well known as that of the Cavendishes ; I shall confine myself, therefore, to the names of a few of its more distinguished mem- bers, so as to connect together the Norman warrior of the 11th century, with the philosopher of the 18th. Robert de Gernon received large grants of land after the Conquest, and his immediate descendants were long famous m Norfolk and Essex. A younger son of the family, Roger Gernon, seated at Grimstone Hall, in Suffolk, died xn 1318, having had to wife the daughter and heir of John Potton, Lord of Cavendish, in Suffolk, by whom he left issue four sons, who all took the surname of Cavendish, as was customary m those days. II This surname is variously spelled by its older-possessors, * Lady ArabeUa Stuart, who was grand-daughter of Sir WilUam Cavendisb a Queens of Scotland, vol. i., preface, p. ix. t Vol. i., p. 302. + Baronage of England, vol. ii., 1676, p. 420. ^ ^^.^^^^ - - th. oHgin Ca .rrit!rSts^;sion] or fro. personal V^^^^^l^^tZ:^ or from the Christian nan>e of the father or lo,d of a aristocratic, denoting a descent from an anc.ent ba^on^ ,1.,, m.) The n.anor.-(Lord Campbell's Lives of tke ^''^^^. tnyei fL the manor surname Cavendish comes within the kst category, being denvea of which Potton had the lordship.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21778115_0026.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
