The Ancestors of the Duchess of Cambridge

[wannable]

George V eh! That long ago!
The Luptons were of the northern merchant class, and wealthy. Of course members of these families attended Society balls and in some cases public schools However the Aristocracy and country gentry always knew they were different to them.

And very very few of the merchant class  were close friends of members of the royal family, the Peels being an exception due to PM Robert and his friendship with Prince Albert, and the Gladstones of Liverpool later in the century, with Bertie Prince of Wales.

The Royal family then sought Kate's ancestors for patronages, from education, to music, to health care. Just saying it wasn't the other way around, hence my comment of the men and women of Kate's family being educated.  The Royal Family knew they not only had influence in the community, but were book smart so to speak.  If one compares and contrast society during those times, being educated was a awe thing of having knowledge to create benefits to the population.  Celebrity culture didn't exist, if you know what I mean. Today celebrity culture doesn't require to be smart.

[Curryong]

Local people who were prominent in their communities and in city affairs often put themselves forward to take patronages in various areas of interest. It?s highly unlikely that members of the Royal Family would pester anybody to take roles in charities etc if they had showed no interest before.

And many middle class people of the professional and merchant class were university educated in those days, if we are talking about between the wars, the 1920s and 30s. It wasn?t that unusual for the professional classes to send sons to Oxbridge universities from the late 19th century onwards nor for them to attend ancient grammar schools and public schools. It?s got nothing to do with celebrity culture now. However, class distinctions were still rooted very strongly right up until the 1950s, especially in the shires..

[wannable]

But the Yorkshire Post archives report it as such. Who married who within the Royal Family, the ''interest'' that particular person has, then the knowledge that x member great great uncle of Kate was into music, voila. Same with Olive and her ties with infirmary (health care) and a royal female  ''requesting'' her help to raise moneys long term.

[Curryong]

But the Yorkshire Post archives report it as such. Who married who within the Royal Family, the ''interest'' that particular person has, then the knowledge that x member great great uncle of Kate was into music, voila. Same with Olive and her ties with infirmary (health care) and a royal female  ''requesting'' her help to raise moneys long term.

Yes, that was how local patronages worked, raising money for this cause or that. Female members of the Royal Family, especially the Princess Royal who interested herself in such things in the north of England wouldn?t have been able to become patron of everything she was asked to do. So she deputised.

Local committees, usually of ladies in northern towns and cities, were formed and the chair took charge to raise money and local interest. That was the way things worked in those days, especially as there was no National Health Service and every hospital, from Cottage Hospitals up, and every clinic in every town, relied on donations each year from the middle and upper classes.

[wannable]

Carole's family were very ordinary versus Michael's family had education and money to do what they did, so of course the papers then would report of their comings and goings. How to not, when they were every weekend at either a society ball or countryside trip.

[Curryong]

And is the thread The Extended Middleton Family, which deals with great-great Lupton uncles and such also to be moved there, TLLK?

[TLLK]

@Curryong-Yes that is my plan to merge the more recent threads relating to Catherine's family into the wider ancestors thread. It will likely happen over the next few days. Likewise, I'm going to be doing something similar for the Markle and Ragland families.

[Curryong]

Carole's family were very ordinary versus Michael's family had education and money to do what they did, so of course the papers then would report of their comings and goings. How to not, when they were every weekend at either a society ball or countryside trip.

Are we talking about the Luptons or the Middletons? Because I don?t think the Middleton ancestors, who were north country solicitors, were forever at society balls and taking trips to the countryside, except perhaps for business, or no work would ever get done in their offices!

[Curryong]

@Curryong-Yes that is my plan to merge the more recent threads relating to Catherine's family into the wider ancestors thread. It will likely happen over the next few days. Likewise, I'm going to be doing something similar for the Markle and Ragland families.

Okey Dokey!

[TLLK]

Please keep an eye out for any stray threads relating to the families of Catherine and Meghan. I fear that  my eyes will begin to cross as I comb through these old threads to organize this part of board. Occupational hazard! :wacko:

[wannable]

The best and most extensive research to date is the book The Ancestry of Catherine Middleton by William Addams. All his sources are verifiable.

[Curryong]

Yes, I know. Such as the great great grandparents he lists here, among the clerks, drapers and chars, good heavens, a prisoner of her Majesty in Holloway!

40   Edward Thomas Glassborough, b. Shoreditch, Middlesex, 19 June 1826, bapt. St. Mary, Newington, Surrey, 20 Aug. 1826 [IGI], in 1841 1847 1851 1859 1861 and 1871 a messenger, in 1881 a prisoner in Holloway Prison, Islington described as an "Insurance Co's Messenger", in 1891 "living on own means", d. 17 Vicarage Road, Leyton, Essex, 11 Aug. 1898 [entry no. 207]
m. Parish Church [St. Mark's], Kennington, Surrey, 13 Nov. 1847 [entry no. 282]
41   Charlotte Elizabeth Ablett, b. Lambeth, Surrey, ... , bapt. St. Mary's, Lambeth, Surrey, 20 Nov. 1825 [IGI], d. 70 Vicarage Road, Leyton, Essex, 21 July 1900 [entry no. 416]
42   John Elliott, b. Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, 22 June 1818, in 1841 a messenger, in 1843 a silversmith, in 1859 1871 and 1881 a messenger, d. ... [by 1886]
m. [by banns] Church of St. Mary Lambeth, Surrey, 21 May 1843 [entry no. 371]
43   Elizabeth Powell, b. Kennington, Surrey, ... [ca. 1816], d. 21 Approach Road, Bethnal Green, 27 Aug. 1871 [entry no. 231]
44   James Cockburn Robison, b. ... , in 1845 a clerk to the East and West India Dock Company, d. ... [?St Geo Southwark Jan-Mar 1849?]
m. Irvine, Ayrshire, 26 Nov. 1831
45   Mary Newbigging, b. Irvine, Ayrshire, ... [ca. 1806], d. 20 Cedars Ave., Walthamstow, 30 Aug. 1895 [entry no. 208]
46   Edward William Gee, b. Bishopsgate St., London, ... [ca. 1818], in 1846 a draper, in 1851 1852 1861 and 1871 a grocer and draper, in 1875 a grocer, in 1881 a draper, d. Upgate, Louth, Lincolnshire, 17 Sept. 1883 [entry no. 37]
m. Parish church [St. Matthew], Bethnal Green, Middlesex, 16 Dec. 1846 [entry no. 55]

[TLLK]

Incredible what can be found via the Internet these days. @Curryong-Do you know how far back these types of records in the UK might go? I can see the notations for the 19th and early 20th centuries, but I wonder if going further back into the 17th, 16th, 15th century might be difficult especially when researching people who were part of the lower classes in Great Britain, England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

My cousin has spent years working on detailed family trees for her maternal and our shared paternal relatives but has hit an impasse especially around the 16th centuries.

[wannable]

And there are very interesting stories about some of them, because of their feat, if not their moneys, if not their community involvement....

[Curryong]

Births, deaths and marriages began in July 1837 in England, TLLK. However, with many adults who were illiterate, I think births were often not registered in urban populations until regulations got toughened up in the 1870s, and of course, more children were sent to school following Education Acts of the same decade. And many working class couples in large cities and towns just lived together without the benefit of clergy!
 
A bit different in villages, where the parson kept an eye on his flock and many were married in the village church. There was even trouble with that however, as John Wesley converted many people to Methodism in the 18th century and so parish records weren?t often kept for those families until Chapels were allowed to be built later for non-conformists.

As for centuries before, I would guess that it all depended on the parish priest. If he was dutiful and conscientious then records were kept properly. If he was lazy or very old, or didnt employ a curate, then they weren?t. And even if they were excellent record keepers you can?t discount the decay of centuries, some churches falling into ruin, or the depredations of two periods especially in the Reformation and in Puritan times. Church interiors and their records were often destroyed. 

I?m lucky as far as my paternal ancestors go. In earlier centuries they didn?t leave their Norfolk fishing village for about 300 years until the mid 19th century, and the church there was left alone. On the other hand my maternal ancestors seem to have tried half a dozen trades in dozens of locales all over England. A restless lot!

[TLLK]

@Curryong-Thank you for the information. I'm astonished that so much has survived over the centuries especially in those countries that saw enormous destruction in WWI and WWII.

[Curryong]

Yes, I?m always amazed too. Germany, which suffered such heavy bombing at the end of WW2 for instance. Australia is a nation of migrants and many have difficulties in tracking ancestors, especially accessing Irish records for various reasons. Shipping records are fine and there?s a  lot online now, but large gaps sometimes.

[wannable]

Not an ancestor, but cousin Lucy Middleton (who was at the dating time of William and Kate, the unknown but always present female friend at ski holiday trips) works as a Senior Publishing Lawyer, Penguin Random House.

Lucy Middleton, who's said to be the Duchess of Cambridge's favourite cousin and is godmother to Prince Louis, is involved in a bitter legal dispute with royal historian Anna Pasternak.

Middleton is a senior lawyer at publishing giant Penguin Random House, one of whose authors, American novelist Lara Prescott, is being sued by Pasternak over allegations of plagiarism.

Pasternak claims that Prescott, in her bestseller The Secrets We Kept, which told the story of Doctor Zhivago's publication, plagiarised her book Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago. Anna is the great-niece of Russian author Boris Pasternak, who wrote Doctor Zhivago, which was turned into an Oscar-winning epic.

Sinead Martin, Group Legal Director for Penguin Random House UK, tells me: 'Ms Pasternak elected to bring proceedings, in the full knowledge that they would be defended by Lara Prescott and her publisher, both of whom consider the claim to be unfounded and entirely without merit. At Penguin Random House UK, we have a long and proud history of supporting our authors against unfounded claims and we will continue to do so in this case.'

In turn, Pasternak is the author of the Tatler Kate Middleton story this past December 2020, and was said at that time that William and Kate had sent to the magazine a complaint to not publish (it went digital but wasn't physically published). Complaint versus lawsuit is if complaint doesn't prosper a lawsuit is surely to come, or a W&K KP bluff. ie. like the Times bully MM complaint at the top of 2 article.

[PrincessOfPeace]

^^^ Lucy is part of a long line of lawyers in the Middleton family.

The Duchess of Cambridge's great-grandfather Richard Noel Middleton and his cousin Ralph Middleton, grandson of Sir Henry Berney, 9th Baronet, were solicitors at the Leeds law firm Messrs Middleton & Sons founded by their ancestor, William Middleton in 1834.

[sara8150]

The Duchess of Cambridge?s great-great aunt died in a mental hospital, in an uncanny echo of Prince William?s great-grandmother?s fate.

The similarities between the two ancestors have not been recognised until now ? with the discovery by an Australian historian that the two women led ?parallel lives?.

Kate?s ancestor, Gertrude Middleton, and William?s great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, both became nuns who were volunteer nurses in the First World War.

The two women also had darker sides to their stories.

The duchess?s great-great aunt, the sister of her great-grandfather Noel Middleton, was treated at the Lawn Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases in Lincoln the 1930s.

She died at the facility, which treated ?superior patients?, in March 1942, aged 66.

Prince William?s great-grandmother, the mother of the late Duke of Edinburgh, was also treated at a sanatorium.

Michael Reed, a historian at Ilim College in Australia ? who made the discovery about Kate?s ancestor ? told The Daily Telegraph: ?They basically lived parallel lives, a few years apart.

'Both were volunteer nurses in connection with the Red Cross ? Gertrude during the First World War, and Princess Alice during the first and second.

'They both acted as dedicated social workers for the homeless and disadvantaged and proved to be generous financial benefactors.

'But most startling of all was the revelation that Gertrude, like Princess Alice, had been a patient in a mental hospital. Their stories are both fascinating and sad.?

Gertrude Middleton was a bright student and went to a boarding school for girls, which was next to the University of St Andrews, where Kate and William met as undergraduates.

Like the Duchess, Gertrude was sporty and played both lacrosse and tennis, a favourite pastime of Kate?s. She also played the piano, performed impressively by Kate herself during a Christmas carol concert last year.

She volunteered with the Red Cross with her sister-in-law Olive Middleton, the duchess?s great-grandmother.

Both Gertrude and Princess Alice followed a very religious path as their lives went on, with Gertrude becoming a nun at the Anglican Convent of the Epiphany in Cornwall, and Princess Alice founding a Greek Orthodox order of nuns.

After receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia, Princess Alice was sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1930.

She died at Buckingham Palace aged 84, in 1965.

Asylum past of Kate Middleton's great-great aunt echoes Prince William's great-grandmother's fate | Daily Mail Online

Kate Middleton and Prince William relatives' fascinating parallels discovered | Royal | News | Express.co.uk

[PrincessOfPeace]

White Wells, Ilkley: The historic Yorkshire spa building paid for by Kate, Princess of Wales's ancestor.

Long an enduring, almost mandatory feature of Yorkshire calendars, White Wells is a spa bath said to date from around 1700 when a pool was constructed to gather water from a natural spring in order to provide a health remedy known as the "cold water cure" to stimulate circulation.
Unlike other spas, the water has been found to have no medicinal properties.

The work was paid for by local landowner Peter Middleton, an ancestor of the Princess of Wales, formerly Kate Middleton:

https://archive.ph/cseBL