HEBBORN FAMILY HISTORY & NEWS -  November 2004

A NOVEMBER ANNIVERSARY

The premier line of the ancient family of Hebborne of Hebborne ended in November 1806 with the death of Margaret Brudenell [C901]. Margaret was heiress of her father Robert Hebborne or Hebburn. I have conflicting evidence of Margaret’s year of birth. Her memorial tablet suggests that she was born about 1745. However, I found a Margaret Hebburn daughter of Robert and Mary was Christened at St Anne;s Soho in Westminster on 26th October 1741. This is a long way from the ancestral home in Northumberland, and my immediate reaction was that this Margaret was from an entirely different family. Then I found a marriage entry that made me change my mind. On 9th November 1764 Margaret Hebburn was married to Edward Brudenell in the same church. This was the marriage of the Hebborne heiress. A marriage settlement is dated 6th November 1764, and quite a lot has been written about the bridegroom.

Edward Brudenell is said to have been a descendant of Lord Cardigan and an army officer. He left the army to take holy orders and the living of Hougham in Lincolnshire, the gift of which was in the hands of his family. Edward and Mary’s two sons died in infancy. A memorial in Hougham church records their short lives and pays tribute to their mother:

Near this place are deposited the remains of Edward and William Brudenell
sons of the reverend Edward Brudenell rector of Hougham cum Marston
and Margaret his wife, daughter and heiress of Robert Hebborne esq.,
of Hebborne in the county of Northumberland.
Edward the eldest was buried July the 20th , 1767, aged 1 year
William February the 24th. 1770, aged 3 years.
Sacred to the memory of
Margaret Brudenell
of Hebborne
To an elevated and generous mind
she united
a grateful and affectionate heart
she died in the humble trust
of a blessed immortality
November, 1806
Aged 61

It seems strange that the Rector of the parish should receive only a passing reference on a memorial in his own church.  A possible reason becomes apparent in the autobiography of Margaret’s old friend Mrs Fletcher. She wrote of Edward Brudenell:

“The habits of dissipation he had acquired in the army were not forsaken, and his marriage to an heiress was a further step to the gratification of his expensive pleasures. He was a man of insinuating and accomplished manners, but totally without moral or religious principle, and the selfish hardness of his heart showed itself in utter disregard of the happiness of an affectionate wife, and in the grossest indulgence in illicit amours and profligate habits of expense.”

What a testimonial to a man of the cloth! Edward Brudenell’s behaviour was so bad that Margaret left him. At that time divorce was virtually impossible, but she was able to invoke the marriage settlement to obtain an allowance from her husband’s dwindling resources.  Edward Brudenell became chaplain to General Burgoyne’s army and sailed to America in 1776; at the height of the War of Independence. The following year Burgoyne surrendered to the Americans at Saratoga. I wonder if Brudenell was there.

It is possible that a Rev Edward Brudenell who turns up in Nova Scotia in the 1780’s is the same person. This man arranged for “Loyalists” to be settled in the area and is reputed to have been an agent of the British government. He returned to England in 1788.  It sounds a bit like our man, but I have only just come across this reference to him and need to do more research on this. Perhaps one of our American readers can follow up this enquiry.

Edward died in 1804 and the Hebborne estate was restored to Margaret. According to Mrs. Fletcher, by this time she was a “shattered and feeble old woman”. Brudenell had demolished part of the old family home to build a new house. Margaret died at Tadcaster on the 25th November 1806.  In her will she left the estate to the daughter of her old friend Mrs Fletcher, who in turn sold it to Lord Tankerville, who absorbed part of it into the Chillingham  Park estate.  The Hebborne connection with the place of the same name had come to a sad end after nearly six hundred years.

John Hebborn.

A Family Tree Chart LL901 outlines the early Hebborne of Hebborne family, an extension continuing to Margaret is in preparation.