Hi Matt,
Since last posting two years ago, I have found out a great deal more about our ancestry, thanks mainly to Brian Howitt, who lives in Heanor.
My father (who died in 2006 aged 91) was actually trained by T.C. in Nottingham before WW2 and he knew well the Council House and many other of his buildings.
During the 1960s my father took me to visit T.C. at his office in Nottingham and I was quite taken aback by his attitude - "Is this your young man then? - Huh!"
He was a typical ex-army officer - stiff upper lip and all that.
T.C.'s father was actually James Cullen Howitt (1858-1941), and his mother was Annie Elizabeth Gibson (1862-1951).
James Cullen's father was another Thomas Howitt (b.1833) who married Anne Cullen.
J.C.'s father was another Thomas Howitt (b.1805) who married Charlotte Pickup, and his father before him was another Thomas Howitt (b.1771) who married Mary Mee.
This Thomas was the son of yet another Thomas Howitt (born about 1730) who married Elizabeth Mellers.
His father in turn was William Howitt of Shipley (b. about 1700), who married Rachel Mee, who produced five children. One of these was William Howitt of Taghill (b. 1727 in Heanor) who married Mary Bestwick and (among their seven children)fathered another Thomas Howitt (b 1763) who in turn married Phoebe Tantum and had another seven children, including the famous author William Howitt and his Australian pioneer siblings.
It seems to have been the custom then to have extremely large families, but a lot of children died young. Another of William Howitt of Taghill's sons married three times, producing no fewer than twelve children. We cannot be sure how many of these were legitimate. The full tree is complicated in the extreme, but I think we have finally cracked it, and discovered some amazing facts!
William Howitt of Shipley was the son of Squire John Howitt (b. 1671) who married Katherine Charlton, a well-heeled lady from an aristocratic family, then proceeded to spend her money. Katherines's ancestry has been traced by a professional genealogist and traced right back to the Plantagenet King Edward III, so we really can claim descent from royalty, along with around five million other people in English-speaking countries who probably don't even know it!
This William's father Robert had also married a well-heeled heiress (Anne Middleton) and thereby acquired ownership of Wandesley Hall at Selston, Notts. She also was apparently descended from the Plantagenets. The Middleton family were very angry when the Howitts let the property go to rack and ruin, a fact which you can readily verify if you look it up on the net.
Another horrifying fact - THREE of our direct ancestors were actually beheaded at Tower Hill during the Reformation - their only crime was of being Catholics and having a Yorkist claim to the throne!
As they say, truth is often stranger than fiction!
I hope this helps to answer your question.
