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THE HORNES OF MEXBOROUGH.

BY J. FLETCHER HORNE, M.D., F.R.S. E.

GOETHE in his autobiography likens a man's surname to his skinnext to which it is probably the most characteristic thing about him. It is no mere cloak, as that great philosopher remarks, to be assumed and abandoned at pleasure, indicating, as it frequently does, his ethnology, his nationality, and perhaps even the country of his birth, which are all circumstances that to a certain extent determine his type of character and constitution. In most of the counties of England will be found families of yeomen, perhaps dwelling in quiet and possibly remote parishes, in which their ancestors lived two or more centuries ago. Each family is represented in the church register by an uninterrupted succession of entries-births, marriages, and deaths, in which the same Christian names occur over and over again.

In the sixteenth century the yeomanry was a body which in antiquity of possession and purity of extraction was probably superior to the classes that looked down upon it as ignoble.1

In this paper we have ventured to place before the Society something of the history of one of these old Yorkshire yeoman families. The surname Horn or Horne, for both appear to have been used indiscriminately, is probably purely Teutonic. There seems little doubt that originally this family came with the Jutes or Angles to England from the islands of the Baltic. The surname is a common one in Denmark and Sweden. Galle instances the Swedish family of Horn as one of three only, as bearing their original distinctive coat of arms, in all its branches, as a shield of pretence, or an escutcheon on the centre of the field.2

Barber considers the family name to be Anglo-Saxon. He says that among the names of persons in Domesday Book holding land he finds that of Horne; while Bardsley says that one Alvin Horne held land in Middlesex and Herts. before the making of Domesday. As a personal name Horne is of great antiquity, and is borne by the hero of a celebrated old English and French romance."

Ferguson says there was an Anglo-Saxon settlement Horningas,this Anglo-Saxon name would give rise to the place-name Hornes

1 Stubbs' Constitutional History.

2 Jenkins' English and Foreign Heraldry.

3 Barber, British Family Names.

VOL. XIX.

4 Bardsley, Dictionary of English Surnames.

5 Wright's Essays.

6 Ferguson, Surnames as a Science.

BI

beorth, and the English surname Horne. Guppy' considers the name had probably its origin as an Anglo-Saxon clan-name; he considers it synonymous with Hern or Herne, and in the latter form is common as a place-name in Kent, Hants., etc. Horn is the usual spelling in Kent and Norfolk, but in the West Riding Horne is perhaps the most frequent.

As confirmatory evidence of its early use as a surname, and its association with South Yorkshire, Hunter prints a Latin document which Dodsworth found amongst the Evidences of Barmby, the Lord of Midhope. It is styled "The names of the Midhope Lords who lived after the Conquest." It commences with Horne of Midhope, a soldier who died in company with King Harold, at the place where Battle Abbey now stands, when he fought with William the Conqueror, &c. &c.

Adam Fitz-Swein was the founder of the priory of Burton Abbey. He was prior of the house of St. John at Pontefract, and first prior of the new foundation. The foundation and endowment appear to have been complete before his death, in 1158. Adam the prior granted six bovates of land at Hickelton, held by Hugh Horn and others, to Nichola daughter of Randolph de Newmarsh."

In the time of King Edward I. there lived in the neighbourhood of Kirkburton Richard de Horn, who at a Court of the Manor of Wakefield, held at Kirkburton on the Monday before Pentecost (June 2nd) in the year 1275, before Alexander Lucas the Steward, gave evidence in an inquisition on behalf of the plaintiffs concerning half a bovate of land in Hepworth. This Richard de Horn is probably the earliest known member of the Kirkburton branch of this family; and from this date the name appears never to have left the neighbourhood, nor have the members of this family practically ceased to be engaged in the pursuit of agriculture. He possibly gave the name to Hornthwaite (the clearing of wood or stubble, thwaite or twaite), situated near Thurlstone.

In the return of the Poll-tax of the West Riding of the county of York, laid in the second year of the reign of King Richard II., A.D. 1379, there were then ten families bearing the cognomen of Horne or Horn in the Riding. The English yeomen in the past were in no sense nomadically inclined, passing their uneventful lives on their own acres, which frequently remained in the hands of the same family for five or six generations, and were handed on from father to son with a regularity that betokened long life, and but natural decay. Each died as a rule well stricken in years, piously 2 Hunter's South Yorkshire.

1 Guppy, Home of Family Names.

3 Ibid.

bequeathing in his last will and testament his soul to God, his body to the earth from whence it came, and his land to his descendants. From the wills of these ancient English yeomen we can extract much that throws an interesting light on their ways of life, and a little, too, that in the musty parchment still preserves its pathos. They supply us often with the only information we possess of many an unhistoric line, and their somewhat monotonous character is eminently suggestive of peaceful and contented lives. Of a typical example is that of the forbear of the Mexborough Hornes.

Richard Horne of Havercrofte, in the parish of Felkirk, made his will 14th November, 1536, "of woole mynd and good remembrance. To be buried in the churchyard of St. Peter, Felkyrke. High altar of Felkyrke viijd, Wm Bothe, priest, xijd, Sr. Barnard Hosclyf xx3, Jenet Copley xx. To a preste to synge for me iijd, Jenet Walker iijs iiijd, Jenet Robuke xijd, Richard Horne a cow. To the mending of the Whenegrene gate viijd. Residue to wife Jenet and son William, Exors. Wits.: Wm Booth, the parish priest, Wm Horclyf, and John Kympe." Proved April 18th, 1537, by the exors.

Bernard Oscliffe was the incumbent at this time of the chantry of St. Mary, in the parish church of Felkirk. The lands belonging to this chantry were in the hands of Sir Thomas Gargrave in the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth (1562), who by deed of feoffment indented, dated 23rd of November in that year, conveyed them to Robert Norfolk, Henry Raynie, Edward Jenkinson, Richard Horne, Bernard Jennett, Francis Pitt, Thomas Clarke the younger, etc., by name of a tenement and lands in South Hiendley and Brierley, to hold to them and their heirs, to be employed to the good of the parish of Felkirk in charitable uses about the repair of the church there, and other public uses. Deeds of 1576, 1583, 1585, and 1586 give William Horne, Richard Horne, and Ann his wife, Cotton Horne his son and heir apparent, as buying land at Ryhill, Havercroft, South Hiendley, and Thurlstone. This Cotton Horne (son of Richard Horne) lived at Hemsworth, and was bailiff to Sir Cotton Gargrave (died 1588), and married Jane, daughter of Burton of Kinsley Park, near Hemsworth. This marriage would probably be brought about by the fact that Kinsley Park passed from the heirs of Sir John Burton to Sir Thomas Gargrave about the close of the reign of Henry VIII. Their family we have note of, are Cotton, Ann, Elizabeth, William (of Havercroft), Richard, and Francis (of Almondbury). (See pedigree.)

Cotton Horne was the donor of almshouses at Wakefield. These were rebuilt in 1793, on the site of existing ones founded by Cotton

1 Guppy, Home of Family Names.

Horne in 1646, and William Horne in 1649, the first benefiting ten poor women and the last ten poor men. The devizes made by the two (Cotton and William) and by Mary Horne were of real estate in Wakefield and the neighbourhood, partly now retained and partly exchanged for other lands. In 1869 some of the poor folk received coals and 5s. a week; others only the house. On August 1st, 1902, a block of twenty new almshouses, to be known as the Cotton Horne and William Horne's Almshouses, were opened by Dr. Statter on behalf of the Governors of the Wakefield Charities.

The families of Horne and Gargrave were closely associated for many years. Sir Thomas Gargrave descended from Sir John Gargrave, knight, of Snapethorpe and Gargrave, in the county of York, who was Master of the Ordnance and a governor in France, under Henry V., and military tutor to Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who was slain at the Battle of Wakefield, 1460. Sir Thomas was made a member of the Council of the North in 1539. He became Speaker of the House of Commons, and commanded Pontefract Castle for Queen Elizabeth, in the great Rising of the North. Sir Thomas purchased a portion of the manor of Wakefield from the Earl of Leicester in 1565.

Cotton Horne was an attorney at Wakefield and Steward of the Honour of Pontefract. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Anthony Wade, of King's Cross, Halifax, and afterwards, Elizabeth Bubra, of Wath-upon-Dearne. He was no doubt the purchaser of the Mexborough estate, and later also he purchased the manor of Cold Hiendley on the break-up of the Gargrave family through the dissipation of Sir Richard Gargrave.

Nostell was sold in 1613, and Hiendley probably about the same time. A farmhouse at Cold Hiendley bears on the front the date 1656, with a coat of arms unheraldically cut, which doubtless refers to Cotton Horne, the purchaser; "a bend invected at the lower side with three bugle horns, and a chevron above and the same below."

The name Cotton was probably derived from the connection with the Gargraves, and is found in nearly all the branches of the Horne family as a Christian name. Judith is also found frequently amongst the female members as a favourite appellation. Cotton Horne had two sons and two daughters

William, of whom hereafter.

John, who appears to have succeeded his father at Wakefield; he married Elizabeth Parker, of Otley. (See pedigree.)

1 Commissioners' Report on Charities.

2 Bank's Walks in Yorkshire,

Judith, who married Mr. (afterwards Sir) Mathew Wentworth, baronet, of Bretton Hall, in October, 1641, and died without

He was the fourth son of George Wentworth, Esq., by Mary his wife, daughter of John Ashburnham, of Ashburnham, in Sussex, esquire. Sir Mathew died in the 63rd year of his age, August 1st, 1678. He and his three wives are interred in the Wentworth Chapel, in Silkstone Church.

Mary, the younger daughter; married Lucian Lewins, of Rusholme, co. York.

Cotton Horne was buried in Mexborough Church, 13th December, 1656.

William Horne was probably originally placed with a merchant in Leeds, and he there met and married Sarah, elder daughter and coheiress of John Sykes, of Leeds. He was the eldest son of Richard Sykes, merchant, alderman, and lord of the manor of Leeds. He was descended from the Sykes of Sykes-dike, near Carlisle. This gentleman had four sons and four daughters. Of him it was said by Thoresby, the antiquary and historian, that he left, "besides vast estates to his sons, £10,000 apiece to his daughters, from which four knights and baronets' families are descended." The issue of this marriage was one son, Thomas Horne, who married Mary, daughter of Eyre, of Stroxton, co. Lincoln. At the death of his father he inherited the settled estates, and resided at Horncastle, Lincolnshire. William Horne, by his second marriage, which took place about 1642, had three sons and three daughters. Amongst these he divided his estates, by a will made fifteen years before his death.

He resided at Mexborough Old Hall. The grounds on the south at that time, from present appearances, probably stretched down to the immediate vicinity of the church. The house is now best approached from the Doncaster road through an archway, in buildings which were probably once the barns and stables of the hall. It is now built up all round, except in front, by squalid cottages. The old building has the appearance of having been much larger than the remains, and is now divided into three tenements, and bears the look

of much rough usage. It is built of stone, but here and there repaired with brick. The chimneys have been repaired in a very rough and ready manner, which has much destroyed their contour and shapeliness. On the south aspect is a venerable old pear tree, which has the appearance, from the thickness of the trunk, of great age, amounting probably to 200 years.

Internally the house has undergone many changes. In its zenith it was evidently profusely panelled, but much has been removed.

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