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Messages - amateursleuth

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Antrim / Re: Cobham family in Carrickfergus
« on: Saturday 07 October 17 13:05 BST (UK)  »
Dear tony marter,
Thanks for your comments. I do indeed have information about the Martyr/Cobham connection and the Cobham and Martyr families, and would be happy to exchange information. I have not quite worked out the Personal Message system on Roots Chat, so I am not sure how to communicate with your personally. My sources are, I am afraid, not always wholly reliable or well researched, so I may not be of great use to you. I go back to a Joseph Martyr (b. 1708) via a mutual relation in Australia, whose researches are not fully sourced or corroborated. I have seen (I think on the internet) the " Martyr of Guldeford Family Tree", which does not fully tally with the information I have. I am on firmer ground when we reach Joseph Martyr who married Catherine Cobham. Then I have the marvellous transcript of the trial of Martyr v Craig, when old Alexander Cobham's will was challenged. Your message to me was 'filtered' by the Rootschat system to remove your email address. My name is Howard Palmer and I am a British barrister. You can google me and find my office email address easily enough, if you wish to communicate. It obviously has a spam filter, but I expect I will find your email to me!
yours ever
Howard Palmer

2
Antrim / Re: Cobham family in Carrickfergus
« on: Wednesday 18 May 16 19:21 BST (UK)  »
... continued from previous post ...
On 11th July 1809 Alexander was returning to Shinfield from Reading, when he fell from his horse and broke his back. He was completely paralysed. His failure to return home was noticed and a search party located him and returned him to the house. He was resigned to his death in the very near future and sent for his solicitor. During the night of the 11th/12th July he altered his will (by a duly executed codicil, prepared and witnessed by the solicitor who had been sent for) to leave everything to his 13 month old relation, Alexander Cobham Martyr and his heirs (on condition that he change his surname to Cobham). Only in the event that Alexander Cobham Martyr died without issue would the estate revert to those Craig children still living. On 12th July, at about 10 a.m. Alexander Cobham died.
The change to the will which was effected on the night of the 11th July 1809 was challenged in the High Court (before Mr. Baron Wood and a jury), on the ground that the testator was not of sound mind when he executed the codicil. I have the beautiful copperplate transcript of the entire proceedings. The challenge was made by the Craig family, but it failed.
In due course the infant Alexander Cobham Martyr changed his name and became Alexander Cobham Cobham (1808 - 1902). He married Jane Hulse Chambers (1809 - 1877) and they had 6 children, the eldest being Alexander William Cobham (1834 - 1913); he married (2ndly, his first wife having died very young) Celina Kate Blyth (1844 - 1918); they had 12 children and the eldest son was my great grandfather, Alexander Blyth Cobham (1869 - 1950).
Returning to Catherine Martyr, née Cobham. She was the daughter of Dr. Thomas Cobham (c. 1735 - 1798), who is much mentioned in a memoir by a Miss Schaw called 'Journal of a Lady of Quality’ (can be found on the internet), referring to the days of the American Revolution, when Dr. Thomas remained a loyalist.
The important thing that comes out of the trial about the will is that Dr. Thomas is clearly stated to have been the first cousin of Alexander Cobham (the testator) and not the brother. After all, one reason why the Craigs were so outraged by the alteration of the will was that Mrs. Craig was the testator’s sister, whilst the eventual beneficiary was descended from a mere cousin. Many internet sites seem to insist that Thomas was a brother to Alexander. There is then an Archibald Cobham - I am sure he was a brother of Thomas’s and therefore only a cousin of Alexander.
There is one fly in this ointment. In a story about John Wesley’s visit to Ireland in 1760, recorded in “Proceedings and Report of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (1946).” (can be found on internet) Wesley stayed with Mary Cobham (later Craig)’s parents, and Wesley records: “Mrs. Cobham said: 'My daughter [i.e. Mary] came running in and said “Mamma, there are three Indiamen come into the bay, and I suppose my brothers are come in them"’ (who had been in the East Indies for some time).” This suggests that Mary Cobham/Craig had more than one brother. However, there may have been a mistake in the record of that story or it may be the case that there were brothers other than Alexander, but they died young and had no issue, and are separate from Dr. Thomas and Archibald.
I hope this is helpful. If you have further detail or can correct any of the above, do please post a reply.

3
Antrim / Re: Cobham family in Carrickfergus
« on: Wednesday 18 May 16 19:20 BST (UK)  »
With regard to your questions, my amateurish efforts (almost all via the internet) are as follows:
Alexander Cobham was indeed born in Ballycarry, Broadisland (also known as Templecorran), in County Antrim in what is now Northern Ireland. The date of birth was (I believe) 24th March 1736 (source: Family Search.com).
His father was James Cobham (m. abt 1735; died 1797; buried in Templecorran church), whose father was the Rev. James Cobham, a famous Presbyterian minister. James Cobham junior was well to do and a wine merchant in Carrickfergus. His name appears in the list of Grand Jurors for the County of the Town of Carrickfergus in 1754, and also appears amongst the elected officers of the Carrickfergus Royalists Company of Volunteers in 1784.
He is referred to as a host of John Wesley when the latter visited Carrickfergus in May 1760.
James Cobham junior owned two houses outside the Irish Gate on the north side of the Irish Quarter, in one of which he may have resided. At a date, now impossible to determine, he removed to a house on the south side of West Street, where he resided in 1771 and probably until his death. He also owned other properties in Carrickfergus.
The Rev. James Cobham (1678 - 1759) was the Presbyterian Minister for over 50 years (from c. 1700) in Ballycarry (or Broadisland), County Antrim. This was the oldest Presbyterian church in Ireland, founded by Edward Brice in 1613.
The Rev. James Cobham’s father was the Rev. Thomas Cobham (d. 1706), who was Presbyterian  minister of Dundonald and Holywood Presbyterian churches in Co. Down, from his ordination in 1678 to 1702 (or 1704), when the two churches were separated. He then continued at Holywood until he died in 1706. [Note that there was another Rev. Thomas Cobham, Presbyterian Minister at Clough in Co. Antrim, but in Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society it is stated with some confidence that it was “Dundonald and Holywood” who was the father of the Rev James.]

Returning to Alexander Cobham, the records of the India Office show that he sailed to India in the ship Success in 1783 - 4 as a ‘free merchant’. The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review, Volume 79, Part 2 (Aug 1809) in reporting his death stated that he "acquired a handsome fortune in the service of the East India Company".

Until 1786 he was ‘Alexander Cobham of Binfield’ (Binfield is near to, but separate from Shinfield) ; in 1787 he married Charlotte Slade, was appointed by commission a Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire and purchased the Shinfield Estate from his brother in law John Slade and the Earl of Fingal (possibly they were trustees); however, he pulled down the old Manor House and removed with his wife to Shinfield Grange. He served as High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1790.
The couple had no children, and Alexander made provision for leaving his money to his relations. He made a will in 1804. As was the fashion in the days of primogeniture, he wanted to leave everything to one relation (preferably male), to carry on the family dynasty, but if that heir died without male heirs, the property would pass to a different male heir of the testator. In the will in 1804 the estate was to go to his youngest nephew - the third son of Alexander’s sister Mary Craig (1750 - 1825) - called William (aged about 17 at the time). He was preferred over the eldest nephew, Edward (3 years older) who, it is speculated, had blotted his copybook whilst serving as a Lieutenant for the East India Company. Then, in 1806, William died and so Alexander changed the will to make the middle nephew (Thomas Craig) the primary heir, with Edward next in line if Thomas were to die without male issue. If both Thomas and Edward were to die without male issue, the estate was to go to the three Craig nieces, Mary, Sarah and Charlotte Craig, in a similar way. Only if none of the 6 were to have male issue was the estate to go to "cousin Catherine Martyr for life and her male issue successively". Catherine Martyr’s maiden name was Cobham, and she was the only child and daughter of Dr. Thomas Cobham (of whom more, below).
After 1806 and before 1809 the heir Thomas died. However, Alexander Cobham did not get round to changing the will again to accommodate this fact.
By 1808 Catherine Martyr had 5 living children, the youngest of which was a boy born in 1808; he was named “Alexander Cobham Martyr” in honour of his elderly relation, who was asked to be godfather to the boy. Relations between Alexander Cobham and the Martyrs became rather close … [to be continued ...]


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