Published in Windlesora 26 (2010)
© WLHG
In her article The Gwyn Inheritance: Windsor’s First Family 1680-1777 for Windlesora 25, Hester Davenport has sketched the lives of Beauclerk family notables. The offspring of Charles II and Nell Gwyn gave Windsor society colourful and committed leaders that were the subjects of gossip for several generations. Many of the descendants of the pair, she writes, ‘played a part in Windsor affairs’. Among the Beauclerks, the greatest contributions to Windsor seem to have come from Lord Sidney who Windlesora identifies as the only surname-bearer to be buried in adulthood in St John the Baptist, the Windsor Parish Church. But, writing in the late 1920s TE Harwood reveals that a derogatory title of ‘Sid, the beggar’ had been selected for Lord Sidney by Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough, She was good friend to Her Majesty Queen Anne. Beauclerk earned Sarah’s wrath for determined efforts to win unjustified inheritances from Windsor freemen, especially Richard Topham. Lord Sidney’s campaigns only targeted citizens who were very wealthy and learned but lacked his significant Royal charm and influence.
Part of the memorial to Topham Foot in the entrance to the Church of St John Baptist, High Street, Windsor. There is no E at the end of the surname on the memorial.
While no direct court challenges to this fortune-hunting from other relatives have yet been located, there is a suit that was brought against Dr. Richard Mead and his son James, relatives of Arabella (née Topham) later Foote then Reeves, and another executor for retaining profits from lands, tenements, etce, that should have been shared with Lord Sidney and his son Topham Beauclerk,
However, Foote family descendants who emigrated to the United States starting in 1688 have left traditions and limited records that show Footes in America launched a separate, belated attempt to regain some of the lost property and wealth that was willed by Richard Topham to Sidney Beauclerk. Richard Topham’s sister Arabella married Samuel Foote, the son of Richard Foote of Rood Lane and parishioner of St. Dunstan’s in the East in London. Samuel Foote and Arabella had one son Topham. His memorial containing a bust and the Foote/Foot family crest is just inside the main High Street entrance to Windsor Parish Church. After Samuel Foote’s death in 1689 his widow waited many years before marrying Thomas Reeve. Both Thomas Reeve and his wile Arabella Reeve are remembered with a large monument in the West Porch of the Church.
The busts of Thomas and Arabella Reeve on their monument in the West Porch of the Parish Church
Governor Henry Stuart Foote, wrote a letter on 23 February 1846 to a member of an unrelated New England Foote/Foot family. Governor Foote named his ancestor as Richard, who is documented to have arrived in Virginia in 1688 from London. Governor Foote writes about Samuel Foote of Windsor in the letter. He makes the following statement in reference to his ancestor Richard’s brother Samuel:
‘His elder brother, whom he left behind him, died after his settlement in Virginia, and thus by right of primogeniture, he succeeded to the family estates across the waters; or rather to the titles; for the estates he never got, neglecting in season, to take the necessary steps to secure the enjoyment of his right of heirship.’
Governor Foote then tells that he has seen various letters from Lord Mansfield, who he states was then Mr. Murray. Lord Mansfield refers in the letters to pending suits on the estates which the Governor states ‘were finally lost’. William Murray was leader of the House of Commons in the 1750s under the Duke of Newcastle, and later Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. He became Earl of Mansfield in 1776.
Over thirty years later, before 1880, Governor Foote created a family tree listing ancestors and relatives in England, and descendants and relatives in the states of Virginia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. Among the children of Richard Foote of London he lists Samuel and adds next to Samuel’s name the phrase ‘buried at Windsor.’ He also lists Samuel’s younger brother Richard, who is Governor Foote’s ancestor.
Before Samuel Foote’s death in 1689, he owned Tyle Place Farm and Clay Hall Farm, near the Home Park at Old Windsor. His widow Arabella and son Topham Foote inherited his property and belongings. Before Topham Foote himself died as a young man, his mother invested some of his money in estates after permission to do so was received from the House of Lords. After her son’s death, Arabella Foote sold Clay Hall Farm to her brother Richard, and Richard willed it to Lord Sidney Beauclerk. .
My 1982 book – Chotankers: A Family History – is in the Windsor Library. Regular family history updates are added to Chotank.com. The University Press of Mississippi book (2003), Shelby Foote: A Writer’s Life, calls me the ‘family historian’. It seems a timely coincidence that Cousin Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate recently completed a Broadway run at the Booth Theatre.
Windsor Local History Group 