{28} Edward III Descents for Charles M. T. Western, Postmaster of Bath (1824-1894)

Abington Hall, seat of the Western family in the 18th century

For over one hundred fifty years, from 1790 to 1947, there were four successive generations of fathers and sons who bore the name of Charles Maximilian Thomas Western, all of whom appear on p. 307 of Ruvigny's 1908 Essex volume. The Western family came to prominence in London in the 17th-century. Thomas Western (1623-1707) was a wealthy grocer and ironmonger who purchased the estate of Rivenhall Place in Essex in 1692, and made it his country seat. In 1697, he purchased Abington Hall in Great Abington, Cambridgeshire, and earmarked it for his third son Maximilian Western (1656-1720). Abington Hall was the seat of Maximilian's branch of the Western family until it was sold in 1784 by his great-grandson Rev. Charles Western. Rev. Western was the father of the first Charles Maximilian Thomas Western, a military officer who began his career in March 1807 at age 16 as an ensign with the 6th Infantry Regiment. Nine months later in November 1807, Portugal was invaded by a French army (under orders from Napoleon), which launched the Peninsular War, and the first English victory at the Battle of Rolica in August 1808. Charles was promoted to lieutenant with the 29th Infantry (aka Worcestershire) Regiment in May 1809, which assigned him to act as a training-liaison officer to an elite Portuguese Light Cavalry force, the 8th Cacadores. Under the command of Sir Dudley St Leger Hill, the 8th Cacadores stormed Badajoz in April 1812, participated in the battle of Salamanca in July were in the Burgos retreat, where they lost half their number during the passage of the Carrion river valley. Charles was severely wounded at the battle of Tordesillas on 25 October 1812. He was promoted to Major, cited for distinguished service, and received a pension of £100 per annum. A year later in October 1813 at Lisbon, he married Harriet Clarke, the daughter of Captain Christopher Clarke of Twickenham House, King's County [now County Offaly], Ireland, paymaster to the 40th Regiment of Foot from 1809 till his death in December 1813, and his wife Catherine Stanley, widow of Maj. Brinsley Hewetson, and daughter of James Stanley of Low Park, co. Roscommon.

Battle of Salamanca 22 July 1812

Promoted to captain in 1814, Charles M. T. Western didn't fight in the battle of Waterloo the following year, probably the severe wounds he received at Tordesillas prevented any further active service. He and his wife retreated to the picturesque coastal town of Tavira in southern Portugal, where their first child was born (and sadly died three months later) in May 1815. Capt. Western retired on half pay on Christmas day 1816. Perhaps for reasons of health, he and his wife remained at Tavira. The 18th (King's Irish) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons (Hussars) promoted Charles from half pay to Captain in December 1820, but it was disbanded in Ireland the following year. At some point in the early 1820s, Capt. Western returned with his family to Britain. He was a decorated (Portuguese Order of the Tower and the Sword) war veteran without a family seat - Abington Hall had been sold by his clergyman father six years before his birth. His father was still living, the rector of Kingham in Oxfordshire, with ties to the university, and in his early 60s when his only son retuned home, but Rev. Western must have disapproved of his son's Irish wife. Capt. Western, the reverend's only surviving child, and his family were completely omitted from the will of the reverend, who left his estate solely to his wife, save for a £600 bequest to his brother James Western, a solicitor in Bath. Capt. Western settled in South Mimms, in Hertfordshire, and died there at age 33 in 1824, leaving a 30-year-old widow with two young daughters and an infant namesake son, only weeks old. The death must have been sudden, for, unlike his father, he left no will [*1].

St Stephens Dublin in late 19th-century

On 21 July 1824, two months after the death of her husband, Harriet Western was granted administration of his goods. His estate was estimated at £1,000, not a large amount for a widow with a young family. Her in-laws were of no assistance to her. Rev. Western died in 1835, leaving a widow with a chequered ancestry: Mary Pennyston (née Goostrey) Western, born in Jamaica, the illegitimate daughter of a British officer. Even if the reverend's widow had a more generous attitude towards her only grandchildren, she may not have had the financial ability to help her daughter-in-law to remain in England. It's also possible that Harriet may have preferred to return to Ireland, her birth country, and the good graces of her family there. In 1842 in Dublin, Harriet Western married her first cousin, a prominent general surgeon in his mid-50s: Dr. Richard Thomas Ireland (c.1787-1875), who received his medical doctorate from the University of St Andrews in 1814. Seven years later in 1822, when he successfully requested to be appointed principle medical officer to the police establishment, he claimed to have laboured as assistant medical officer in the district of Dublin for almost twelve years, stretching the amount of time he had spent in Dublin by at least five years. This ability to stretch the years would prove handy to the police surgeon when it came to his marriage, for his daughter Harriet Henrietta Ireland, who married Henry McCluskey in 1855 in Dublin, clearly had to have been born about five years before her parents' marriage. Harriet (Clarke) (Western) Ireland lived to see her two eldest daughters, those with her first husband, marry, and died in 1846 in Dublin, with the administration of her first husband's estate back in London uncertain of her fate as late as 1849, when her mother-in-law Mrs. Western died.

Edinburgh in 1847

Meanwhile, Harriet had sent her son, the second Charles Maximilian Thomas Western to Edinburgh to live with her childless younger sister Lady Jane née Clarke (c.1800-1853) and her husband Sir Edward Smith Lees (1783-1846). Lees had served decades as secretary to the General Post Office, first in Dublin, then, from 1831, in Edinburgh. In the 1841 census of Scotland, 17-year-old Charles Western was a clerk in the General Post Office of Edinburgh, living with his aunt and uncle. In 1844, 20-year-old Charles became the senior representative of the Western family when his kinsman, the politician Lord Western, died a bachelor in his late 70s. But Lord Western left his seat, Rivenhall Place in Essex, to another cousin, 50-year-old Thomas Burch Western, a decorated veteran of the Peninsular War, who had done his lordship cousin a good turn years before. Thomas would use his inheritance of Rivenhall Place as a springboard to a highly successful political career. He became a leading figure in the county, was returned to Parliament, and eventually received a baronetcy. Charles remained in Edinburgh, but instead of following in his father's footsteps with a career in the military, he continued his career with the postal service. When he married in 1850 at the age of 26, he was a surveyor for the General Post Office, a position which had a law enforcement element to it, and so was reflective of his stepfather's position as surgeon to the Dublin police force: in the mid-19th-century, a postal surveyor's duties included not just investigating prospective postal routes, but also investigating a range of crimes against the mail, such as post office robberies and employee assaults, and evasion of payment for postage. His new wife was the youngest daughter of a deceased naval officer from the Orkney Islands, and their first child, a daughter, was born in Edinburgh in 1852. In 1854, Charles moved his wife and daughter to Bath, where he had been appointed Postmaster, replacing the just-deceased Thomas Moore Musgrave, who, during his two decades as Postmaster of Bath, had been a secret agent for the British government. Charles Western was still Postmaster of Bath in the 1861 Census of England, but how long he held the position is uncertain. He seems to have removed to Brighton, then eventually to Italy, where he died in 1894.

Four generations of Charles Maximilian Thomas Western
on p. 307 of Ruvigny's 1908 Essex volume

CHARLES MAXIMILIAN THOMAS WESTERN, Postmaster of Bath, Somersetshire 1854-aft.1861, b. 14 Feb. 1824 South Mimms, Hertfordshire; d. 15 Oct. 1894 Sanremo, Liguria, Italy, only surv. son of Capt. Charles Maximilian Thomas Western (1790-1824, descended from Edward III - see Generation A16 below) and Harriet Stanley Clarke (c.1792-1846); m. 13 Oct. 1850 St John Church, Edinburgh, Scotland, HARRIET BALFOUR, b. Cliffdale House, Shapinsay, Orkney Islands, bap. there 1 Aug. 1835; d. 15 July 1915 Bath, bur. Perrymead Catholic Cemetery, Bath, yst. dau. of Capt. William Balfour, 4th Laird of Trenabie House (1781-1846, descended from James V) and his 2nd wife Mary Margaret Baikie (1795-1869), and had issue, three sons and one daughter.

Issue of Charles M. T. and Harriet (Balfour) Western:

St Mary Church, East Hendred, Oxfordshire

1) MARY HARRIET JANE MARIA WESTERN, b. 25 July 1852 Edinburgh; living 1908 Belgrade, Serbia, d. unknown[*2]; m. 12 June British Embassy/14 June Greek Orthodox Church, Vienna, Austria, Col. KONSTANTIN D. MITRITCHEVITCH, Russian Army, b. c.1848; d. 26 May 1902, and had issue, four sons and two daughters.

2) Maj. CHARLES MAXIMILIAN THOMAS WESTERN of The Coppice, Finchampstead, Berkshire, Royal Horse Artillery, b. 2 Sept. 1855 Bath; d. 1 Sept. 1913 Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway, bur. 11 Sept. 1913 St Mary Catholic Church, East Hendred, Oxfordshire; m. 1st 24 Dec. 1881 Bangalore, Karnataka, India, MAUD MURRAY-AYNSLEY, b. 18 Mar. 1860 Bangalore, bap. there 13 June 1860; d. 3 Mar. 1898 Jalandhar, Punjab, India, bur. there 5 Mar. 1898, dau. of Maj-Gen. Herbert Murray-Aynsley of North Kensington (1826-1887, descended from Henry VII) and Emily Elizabeth Hand (1829-1894), and had issue, two sons and one daughter; m. 2nd 23 Sept. 1902 Westminster, London, AGNES MARY EYSTON, b. 13 Aug. 1870 Hendred House, East Hendred, bap. 14 Aug. 1870 St Mary Catholic Church, East Hendred; d.s.p. there 5 Jan. 1961, bur. St Mary Catholic Church, East Hendred, dau. of Charles John Eyston of Hendred House (1817-1883, descended from Edward III) and Agnes Mary Blount (1834-1918, descended from Charles II).

3) EDWARD LEES WESTERN of Ceylon, b. 15 July 1857 Bath, bap. 9 Oct. 1857 St Swithin Church, Walcot, Bath; d.s.p. 10 May 1887 "Pansalaterne Estate", Ceylon; m. 15 Oct. 1886 St Peter Church, Colombo, Ceylon, (SARAH) NORAH BROWNE, bap. 15 Aug. 1858 St Andrew Church, Clifton, Gloucestershire; d.s.p. 13 Feb. 1939 Kensington, London, dau. of Nicholas Edward Browne of Plymouth, Devon, collector of customs (c.1803-1886), and his 2nd wife Catherine Frances Gibson (c.1819-1906).

4) Maj-Gen. Sir WILLIAM GEORGE BALFOUR WESTERN, KCMG (1919), CB, of St Benedicts, Exmouth, served in Egypt, India and South Africa before 1914; at Gallipoli, served at Mudros until appointed Major-General in charge of Administration, Southern Command 1916, b. 2 May 1861 Bath, bap. 14 June 1861 St Mary Church, Bathwick, Somersetshire; d. unm. 9 Jan. 1936 Exmouth, bur. 13 Jan. 1936 St John in the Wilderness Churchyard, Exmouth.

[*1] My primary source for the life of Capt. Charles M.T. Western is a very through online account compiled in 2004 by Peter Western and James Quinn, two of the Captain's descendants.

Ruvigny's 1908 account of the Mitritschevitsch family on p. 307 of his Essex volume

[*2] Ruvigny in 1908 seems to be the final British genealogist to have traced Mary (née Western) Mitritchevitch (the surname as spelled by the press in her marriage announcement). The marquis provides the date of death for Col. Mitritschevitsch (as spelled by Ruvigny), as well as lists the couple's six children, with full dates and places of birth - clearly, he had his information directly from the family. A search in British Newspapers Online resulted in only two instances of the surname (under either spelling) - the 1882 marriage announcement and an account of the 1933 murder in Belgrade of "a wealthy old woman named Mrs. Draga Mitritchevitch...one of the largest private shareholders of the Yugoslav National Bank, and had large property holdings in Central Belgrade and in the provincial towns of Serbia. Since she divorced her husband 40 years ago, she had become a man-hater" ['Goose as Watchdog: Fate of an Eccentric Man-Hater', Nottingham Evening Post, February 7th, 1933]. Mary would have converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith on her marriage to the colonel, and possibly have taken a new given name. One online genealogy database has Mary Mitritchevitch as dying "about 1930": could the wealthy Draga Mitritchevitch murdered in Belgrade in 1933 be the Mary Mitritschevitsch reported by Ruvigny as living a widow in Belgrade in 1908? Without any further hits on the surname, I've run into an online brick wall.

Major Western has five separate lines of descent from Edward III thru his paternal grandfather, the first Charles Maximilian Thomas Western.

Edward III had 4 sons A1, C1, D1 & E1 (see below)
A1) Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1355-1397) m. Lady Eleanor de Bohun (1366-1399, descended from Edward I), and had
A2) Anne Plantagenet, Countess of Buckingham (1383-1438) m. 3) William Bourchier, 1st Count of Eu (c.1374-1420), and had 2 sons A3 & B3 (see below)
A3) John Bourchier, 1st Lord Berners (c.1411-1474) m. Margery Berners (1409-1475), and had
A4) Sir Humphrey Bourchier, Heir of Berners (1443-1471) m. Elizabeth Tilney (1446-1497), and had

2nd Lord Berners 
- see Generation A5

A5) John Bourchier, 2nd Lord Berners (1467-1533) m. Lady Katherine Howard (c.1468-1536, descended from Edward I), and had
A6) Jane Bourchier (c.1497-1562) m. Edmund Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe (d. 1539), and had
A7) John Knyvett of Plumstead (c.1517-bef.1562) m. Agnes Harcourt (d. 1579, descended from Edward I), and had
A8) Sir Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe (c.1539-1618) m. Muriel Parry (d. 1616), and had
A9) Sir Thomas Knyvett, Heir of Ashwellthorpe (1567-1605) m. Elizabeth Bacon (1575-1632), and had
A10) Muriel Knyvett (b. 1594) m. Sir Charles Le Gros of Crostwight Hall (c.1596-1650, descended from Edward I), and had
A11) Katherine Le Gros m. Richard Harman of Wood Dalling (d. 1659), and had
A12) Charles Harman [later Le Gros] of Crostwight Hall (1652-1736) m. Elizabeth Turner (1673-1758), and had
A13) CATHERINE LE GROS, b. 1 Nov. 1700 Crostwight Hall, Norfolk, bap. 15 Dec. 1700 All Saints Church, Crostwight; d. 12 May 1776, bur. 21 May 1776 St Mary Church, Great Abington, Cambridgeshire; m. 19 Dec. 1726, THOMAS WESTERN of Abington Hall, b. 7 June 1694 London, bap. 8 June 1694 St Dunstan in the East, London; d. 18 Apr. 1754 Bath, bur. 23 Apr. 1754 St Mary Church, Great Abington, son of Maximilian Western of Abington Hall (1656-1720) and Anne Matthews (c.1656-1718), and had
A14) THOMAS WESTERN of Abington Hall, b. 22 July 1735 London, bap. 28 Aug. 1735 St Andrew Holborn, London; d. 30 June 1781 Bath, bur. 6 July 1781 St Swithin Church, Walcot, Bath; m. 7 May 1759 St George Hanover Square, London, JANE CALVERT (see B14 below), and had

Western coat of arms

A15) Rev. CHARLES WESTERN, Rector of Kingham, Oxfordshire 1785-1835, b. 22 Mar. 1760 Abington Hall, bap. 14 Apr. 1760 St Mary Church, Great Abington; d. 1 Oct. 1835 Rectory House, Kingham, bur. 9 Oct. 1835 St Andrew Church, Kingham; m. 7 July 1784 St James Church, Westminster, MARY PENNYSTON GOOSTREY, b. 22 Jan. 1762 Port Royal, Jamaica; d. 15 Jan. 1849 Coltham House, Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire, bur. 20 Jan. 1849 St Mary Church, Charlton Kings, illegit. dau. of Capt. William Goostrey (d. 1762) and Hannah Pennyston, and had
A16) Capt. CHARLES MAXIMILIAN THOMAS WESTERN of South Mimms, Hertfordshire, Captain 18th Hussars 1820-24, fought in battle of Salamanca with Portuguese 8th Cocadores, b. 4 Jan. 1790 Tiverton, Devon; d. 14 May 1824 South Mimms, bur. 21 May 1824 St Giles Church, South Mimms; m. 4 Nov. 1813 Lisbon, Portugal, as her 1st husband[*1], HARRIET STANLEY CLARKE, b. c.1792; d. June 1846 Dublin, Ireland, bur. Harolds Cross Cemetery, Dublin, dau. of Capt. Christopher Clarke of Twickenham House, King's Co., Ireland (d. 1813) and Catherine Stanley, and had
A17) CHARLES MAXIMILIAN THOMAS WESTERN of Bath (1824-1894 - see details above)

1st Earl of Essex - see
Generation B3

[*1] Harriet (née Clarke) Western m. 2nd 17 July 1842 St Thomas Church, Dublin, her first cousin, Dr. Richard Stanley Ireland of Stephen's Green, Dublin, general surgeon, b. 1767; d. 14 Mar. 1875, son of De Courcy Ireland of Low Park, co. Roscommon (c.1747-1812) and Susanna Stanley.

B3) Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex (1404-1483) m. Lady Isabel Plantagenet of York (see D3 below), and had
B4) William, Lord Bourchier (c.1428-1477) m. 2) Lady Anne Woodville (c.1448-1489), and had
B5) Cecily Bourchier (c.1473-1493) m. John Devereux, 9th Lord Ferrers of Chartley (1464-1501, descended from Edward I), and had
B6) Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford (c.1491-1558) m. 1) Lady Mary Grey (see C6 below), and had
B7) Sir William Devereux of Merevale Abbey (by 1525-1579) m. Jane Scudamore (c.1527-1607), and had
B8) Margaret Devereux (c.1555-1625) m. Sir Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall (1549-1610), and had
B9) Anne Littleton (b. 1581) m. Humphrey Salwey of Stanford Court (c.1575-1652), and had
B10) Edward Salwey of Stanford Court (b. 1603) m. Dorothy Dryden (descended from Edward I), and had

Calvert of Albury coat of arms

B11) Elizabeth Salwey m. Sir Francis Winnington of Stanford Court (1634-1700), and had
B12) Mary Winnington (1673-1729) m. Felix Calvert of Albury Hall (1658-1736), and had
B13) Felix Calvert of Albury Hall (1699-1755) m. Mary Calvert (1703-1757), and had
B14) JANE CALVERT, b. 29 Feb. 1736; bur. 15 Mar. 1819 St Swithin Church, Walcot, Bath m. 7 May 1759 St George Hanover Square, London, THOMAS WESTERN of Abington Hall (see A14 above)

C1) John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340-1399) m. 3) Katherine Roet (c.1350-1403), and had
C2) Lady Joan Beaufort (c.1377-1440) m. 2) Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland (1364-1425), and had
C3) Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury (c.1398-1460) m. Lady Alice Montagu (1406-1462, descended from Edward I), and had
C4) Lady Katherine Neville (c.1442-1504) m. 1) William Bonville, 6th Lord Harington (1442-1460, descended from Edward I), and had

Mary (née Grey), Lady Ferrers
of Chartley - see Generation C6

C5) Cecily Bonville (1460-1529) m. 1) Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset (c.1456-1501, descended from Edward I), and had
C6) Lady Mary Grey (c.1492-1538) m. Walter Devereux, 1st Viscount Hereford (see B6 above)

D1) Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (1341-1403) m. 1) Isabel of Castile (1355-1392), and had
D2) Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Earl of Cambridge (1385-1415) m. 1) Lady Anne Mortimer (see E4 below), and had
D3) Lady Isabel Plantagenet of York (1409-1484) m. 2) Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex (see B3 above)

E1) Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338-1368) m. 1) Lady Elizabeth de Burgh (1332-1363, descended from Edward I), and had
E2) Lady Philippa Plantagenet of Clarence (1355-1377) m. Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March (1352-1381), and had
E3) Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March (1374-1398) m. Lady Alianore Holland (1370-1405, descended from Edward I), and had
E4) Lady Anne Mortimer (1388-1411) m. Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Earl of Cambridge (see D2 above)

My next post will look at the Edward III descents for Major Western's second wife, Agnes Mary Eyston.

Cheers,                                       -------Brad