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A bombshell for anyone interested in Henry Delmar Van Toll:

I've just played a hunch and come up trumps with the will of Henry Philip Hope (1774–1839), scion of the Anglo-Dutch banking family of that name and a collector of art and gems who once personally owned the Hope Diamond. He left a great deal of money and some valuable mementos to young Henry Delmar Van Toll and his aunt (or 'aunt'?), Maria Minna Delmar. Hope's will states that Mrs. Delmar was his 'esteemed, beloved and valued' friend for 'upwards of 37 years', but that doesn't preclude the possibility that young Henry was their child, rather than her nephew.

I am writing to everyone I can identify with an interest in the extended family to ask if anyone has found evidence that young Henry's putative father, also Henry Delmar Van Toll, existed at all. It's certainly rather odd that he should carry the name 'Delmar' when Maria Minna Delmar is otherwise identified as the widow of one Colonel Delmar of the Dutch service, and her maiden name seems to be something like 'Vanderplan' (it's not clear on her marriage certificate of 1842, and three native Dutch speakers have yet to decipher it for me).

Hope's will explains how Maria Minna Delmar and Henry Delmar Van Toll both came to be wealthy, but it deepens the mystery of his birth and her early life. In the event, her second (?) husband, Frederick Orlando Tompson Delmar, inherited her money and her name, and on his death endowed a charitable trust that exists to this day.

Any light any other family historian could shed on this story would be appreciated by the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, who are now keeping a watchful eye on the Grade II Listed Tompson Delmar monument, one tangible legacy of this remarkable story.

Another dimension to the Delmar Van Toll connection: the Grade II Listed Tompson Delmar monument in Kensal Green Cemetery commemorates Frederick Orlando Tompson Delmar (1812-1895) and his wife, Maria Minna Tompson Delmar (c.1796-1859). Notices of their marriage, in 1842, identify her as the widow of Col. Henry Delmar of the Dutch Service, and although the marriage certificate is scrawled, her father's name looks something like Henry Vulderplan; I have yet to find any surname quite like that, but it certainly seems to be Dutch, and her birthplace on the census of 1851 is cited as Holland. So, there's a connection to the Netherlands, and the unusual coincidence of the names Orlando and Delmar. Could Maria have been the unnamed aunt on Henry's naturalisation papers? Can anyone identify her maiden name?

Maria left £3000 in her own right in 1859, a considerable sum for the day but nothing compared to the £185,699 left by Frederick in 1895. Of course, he was also a shareholder in various railways, so he may have made at least some of his own fortune. However, after Maria's death, Frederick gradually changed his surname from Tompson to Tompson Delmar, and then simply Delmar; his final bequest established the Delmar Charitable Trust (still active today, supporting hospital and animal charities as he wished). The business of the surname, and the fact that Maria was some 20 years his senior, suggests that the money came from her side, possibly with a condition that the Delmar name be adopted by beneficiaries.

It's all the sadder to think of the poor young widow's having to sue to recover her own inheritance, and then going bankrupt, when there was serious money in the extended family. The naming of Frank Orlando Henry Delmar Van Toll ties all these strands together, but how does Henry Delmar Van Toll relate to the Dutch-born Maria Minna Delmar? She could certainly have been his aunt, quite possibly through the Delmar connection, since they both got the name and probably some money also. But then, who were the Delmars?