A gentry family long seated on the south coast could properly claim military and naval careers, as well as a parliamentary presence, but a laboured attempt to heighten its exploits and give it a pedigree dating back to 1066, turns out to be fantasy, writes Barry Jolly…

 

THE Burrard Neale Monument at Walhampton, near Lymington, celebrates the life of Admiral Sir Harry Neale, who was born a Burrard, but changed his name on marriage to inherit his wife’s fortune.

The Burrards were a modest gentry family that succeeded in gaining control of Lymington Corporation during the 18th century. This gave them the right to return two members of parliament to Westminster. In an age when “rotten boroughs” were commonplace, there was nothing unusual in this arrangement – the Bankes family of Kingston Lacy, for example, returned both members for Corfe Castle.

Control of Lymington was, however, only secured by the Burrards after bitter political battles fought in 1745 and 1774-5 with the Dukes of Bolton, who were grandees and major landowners in Hampshire. To the great benefit of subsequent historians, the proceedings of those turbulent years were recorded in detail by Neale’s nephew, Sidney Burrard, who has been included in the Hampshire Field Club’s Celebrating Hampshire Historians project.

He was born on November 4, 1826, at Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, where his father, Rev Sir George Burrard (3rd baronet) was rector. Like his grandfather, Lt Colonel William Burrard, he served in the Grenadier Guards and achieved the same rank. As the third son his expectations of inheritance were limited and it was only after his death that the baronetcy did eventually pass through him to his son.

Sidney’s only book, The Annals of Walhampton, published in 1874, is a record of the Burrard family over several generations, highlighting the period 1679 to 1834. It is particularly valuable for covering the two periods when the Burrards and the Dukes of Bolton were locked in battle.

It includes the full correspondence of 1744-45 between Sir Harry Burrard (1st baronet) and the third Duke of Bolton and others, which had the effect of re-establishing control by Burrard over one of the parliamentary seats for Lymington. Also included is a day-by-day account of Burrard’s later coup of 1774-75, when he succeeded in completely ousting the sixth Duke of Bolton from the Corporation!

The Annals also covers important areas of naval history, with revealing insights into the appointment of the Port Admiral, Portsmouth, including the full correspondence on the matter in 1832-33 between Admiral Sir Harry Neale (2nd baronet) and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham.

Graham, who was a Whig, offered this prestigious post to Neale, a staunch Tory and a royal favourite, on the orders of the monarch of the day, William IV, a Tory sympathizer. But he took fright when Neale decided to stand again for parliament. It was unacceptable to Graham to have an admiral sitting in the Opposition who could interfere in naval affairs in parliament from a base in Portsmouth.

He had already had similar problems which had led to him dismissing a lifelong friend of Neale, the long-serving Comptroller of the Navy, Admiral Sir Thomas Byam Martin, for using his position as MP for Plymouth to criticise the Whig government.

This revealing episode, hidden in the pages of The Annals, has been largely ignored by historians, but it goes a long way to explaining how Neale cemented his popularity in Lymington, and his position as both a politician and leader of local society.

It is a demonstration of the considerable value of some local history sources – but that said, it must be admitted that much of Sidney’s book was an attempt to impress readers with the altruistic character of the Burrard family, a claim which does not stand examination.

First the question of corruption: Sidney’s great uncle, Sir Harry Burrard (1st baronet), was in the pay of every Prime Minister throughout a parliamentary career that lasted from 1741 to 1790. He accumulated profitable sinecures, including “Riding Forester of the New Forest” and “Governor of Calshot Castle”, both of which were “inherited” by his nephew, Lieutenant General Sir Harry Burrard (also a baronet, but of a separate creation).

Sidney’s father, Rev Sir George Burrard, also benefited from a sinecure as “Undersearcher of the Port of London” – worth £1,000 a year – and previously held as far back as 1722 by other family members, not only by Sir Harry Burrard and his brother George, but also by their father, Paul Burrard. This particular sinecure was even bequeathed by the clergyman to his brother in his will!

Sir George, it must be said, was also a pluralist – as well as holding Yarmouth and Shalfeet on the Isle of Wight, he was rector of Middleton Tyas in Yorkshire and Burton Coggles in Lincolnshire, although he was rarely ever seen in these distant parishes. Pluralism was, of course, not unusual, but even at a time when patronage and corruption were commonplace, his Port of London appointment raised eyebrows.

Sidney Burrard waved away such criticisms, claiming that the Burrard family’s political conversion from Whig to Tory reflected the changing meanings of such labels over time, rather than the idea that supporting the Tories brought richer pickings.

The other weakness of Sidney’s book is that it relies too much on anecdote: stories passed down from generation to generation and accepted as true, without any attempt to look at the evidence.

The first of these concerns Sidney’s grandfather, Lt Colonel William Burrard, whose first wife delighted in the name Elizabeth Jacintha de la Rosa. She was said to be the daughter of “the Spanish Minister” in London, whom William is supposed to have met first in Madrid. But genealogical research has failed to support this romantic tale.

William’s military career was said to have ended in 1759 in dramatic circumstances in Quebec on the famous 170-feet high cliffs, the Heights of Abraham, during the illustrious triumph of General Wolfe. It is certainly true that William served under Wolfe, but it was in 1739, not 1759, by which time he had long since retired.

The fantasy that he was present at the taking of Quebec was elaborated by a story that he sustained wounds and was blinded in the campaign, and had to be nursed back to health by his doctor’s daughter, whom he subsequently married. It’s true that he did marry the daughter, but he did not lose his sight until 15 or so years later.

Sidney laid great emphasis on the ancestry of the Burrard family, repeating his father’s assertion that the family was descended from a Norman knight – with, amazingly, a Saxon name – who came to England in 1066. George’s etymological interpretation of the Burrard name, however, was no better than his genealogy. Even so, these extraordinary assertions were repeated in the 1860s in another family history by a distant cousin, Eleanor Orlebar.

Thirty years later, Sidney’s son, Major General Sir Sidney Gerald Burrard KCSI FRS (7th baronet), who was a distinguished surveyor and cartographer in India, attempted to resolve these idiosyncrasies. Drawing on research of the day, he put forward a new interpretation of Burrard etymology in his The Families of Borard and Burrard: A genealogical sketch, published in 1892. Sadly, the research on which his theory was based was also deeply flawed.

The Annals of Walhampton is episodic rather than a complete history. In common with many other works of the time, it is heavily reliant on family tradition and legend, which do not stand up to scrutiny. His father’s claims for the family were no more than fashionable genealogical fantasies of the period.

His account of the life of his uncle, Admiral Sir Harry Neale, has largely held sway until very recently. But, although Neale was favoured in Royal circles, he was a hero in his home town of Lymington, and a naval officer in the best traditions of the service, Sidney overstates his importance in a well-documented mutiny that took place in 1797 at The Nore, in the Thames Estuary. He also gives undue significance to his role in the spat with Sir James Graham in the 1830s.

Whatever the weaknesses of The Annals of Walhampton, the fact that Sidney, who died in Brighton, on 7 October, 1893, put pen to paper has left an invaluable contribution to the history of Lymington. And for that he deserves his place in Celebrating Hampshire Historians. For full details of the more than 200 historians included, visit: https://www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk/ihr100/index.html.943), St John’s Church, Boldre. Image: Barry Jolly