Frank Reed's 1935 Memoir

The Heurtley or Heurteleu Family 

In a Memoir published in 1896 after the death of Charles Abel Heurtley D.D.,
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity ChristChurch Oxford also Canon of Oxford
and of Durham who is included on my Genealogical Tree and referred to in the
Supplement to the History of National Biography, the following family
history is contained, which may be relied upon except as regards the du Crux
connection and the escape of Captain Heurtley from Inverness Castle. The
former of these statements being based only on the fact that the Huguenot
Charles Abel had on his arrival in England about 1700 a passport in the name
of du Crux. I cannot ascertain any other evidence. The Heurtleys have none.
	
As regards the alleged escape of Capt. Abel from the castle of Inverness
he may have been made prisoner after the battles of Prestonpass in
Falkirk which the Pretender won and probably he was one of the English
officers who broke his parole, referred to in Langs History of Scotland.

The Memoir states as follows:

"The family name was originally Heurteleu. The earliest member of which
authentic record is traceable was M. Heurteleu Seigneur du Crux (= Lord)
described in 1613 as Controlleur de la Maison du Monsieur le Prince
(Reign of Louis 13th). His grandson Charles Abel Heurteleu who lived
near Rennes, Brittany emigrated from France owing to the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes and came over to England at the end of the 17th or
beginning of the 18th century. He settled in London residing in Red Lion
Square W.C. and supported himself by teaching French and Mathematics.
This emigrants second son was (Captain) Charles Abel born Sept 9th
1707 and baptised in the French Protestant Church Baron Street Soho
London. He entered the English Army in which he held a captains
commission, fought against the Young Pretender (Chas. Edward Stewart)
(1745-6) was taken prisoner and confined (?) in the Castle of Inverness
from which he and another contrived to escape (? while on parole)."

I will now continue the narrative from my own investigations:

Captain Abel Heurtley 1707 -1756

was twice married, firstly in 1737 at Barnsley Church (Yorks) to Dinah
Stone of Barlborough Hall near Chesterfield who died 1742, leaving one
son Charles Abel 1740 -1806 who became a banker at Sunderland,
Durham, where (at Bishop Wearmouth) he is buried. His only son was that
great divine Charles Abel Heurtley D.D. before mentioned. In 1747
Captain Heurtley married Margaret Wenman his second wife after an
elopement with her, they were my great great grandparents; their grand
daughter Eliza Heurtley married Anthony Reed my grandfather.

After this second marriage Captain Heurtley changed his name from the
French "Heurteleu", to the Anglicized "Heurtley", a Frenchman was then
no persona grata in England.

Margaret Wenman (m 1747 d 1757)

was the only surviving child of William Wenman and his wife Ellen and was
their prospective heiress, William Wenman Esquire being an influential
and wealthy landowner, the owner of considerable freehold estates at
Edwinstowe, Mansfield Woodhouse and Harley, also copyhold estates at
Durham and Laneham all in Nottinghamshire. So incensed was he at his
daughters elopement and marriage that he promptly made another will
dated March 1748 leaving his estates and property to others, securing to
his widow only a life interest therefrom, obviously to prevent her from
leaving such estates to his daughter of her children. A synopsis of this Will
I have added in the Appendices.

He refers to his "unkind daughter Margaret who without our knowledge or
approbation unwisely allied herself in marriage with one Mr Abel Heartley"
also writing "I will not give anything to the man who has robbed me of my
daughter." To provide against her "wanting bread" he left £1200 (the
equivalent of 5 times our present British currency) the interest from which
to be regularly paid to Margaret, and after her decease (9 years later) to
be placed in Chancery for the use of her children if any (she had 3).

William Wenman died in 1750 two years after making his Will. His widow Ellen
née Farr whom he had married in 1711 and who survived him 15 years
(i.e. until 1765) being kindly disposed towards her daughter and
grandchildren, evidently adopted them and provided for them in her Will
dated 1757, immediately after Margarets death, Captain Abel Heurtley her
husband having predeceased her by one year. Thus their married life was less
than 10 years. The widow Wenman bequeathed "the proceeds of the immediate
sale of all her goods and personal estate to trustees to invest the same in
securities and apply the interest therefrom towards education bringing up
and putting into business, or providing other employment for all and every
of the children of my late daughter Margaret the wife of Abel Hartley deceased." 
Their decease occurred between 1755 the year of the birth of their 
youngest child and 1757, the year of Mrs Wenmans Will.

I have no knowledge of the place of their marriage, residence or burial,
but probably Margaret went occasionally to live with her mother at
Edwinstowe in 1750 after Williams death, later when she died in 1757 her
orphaned children went their permanently to reside until the widows death
in 1765, when Edwinstowe passed by Williams Will to the Duke of
Portland.

Captain Abel Heurtley made no Will, he evidently had nothing to leave; his
first wife Dinah owned landed estates which he evidently went through -
All the evidence goes to show that he was an impecunious heiress hunting
adventurer and soldier of fortune whom Wenman had reason to dislike as
a son in law.

The only relics of Captain Abel which were preserved in my time were the
"du Crux" passport of his father the Huguenot previously referred to. A
seal bearing a shield on which was an heraldic cross with crosslets,
signifying two crusades, as crest, consisting of a martlet with crosslet in
beak, and below the motto "Nil Admirari," whether he was entitled to bear
such arms has never been ascertained.

An oil painting supposed to represent him is now lost.

He is shown in a scarlet, gold laced coat, with large wig - About 40, dark,
perhaps handsome, but sinister, no smile or kindly expression, having
eyes which stared at the beholder at any position. My aunt Anna owned
this life sized portrait, I remember it.

Abel and Margaret my great great grandparents children were
   William  1751 -1840; 
   Catherine Dorothea 1753 -1840; and 
   Richard 1755 - 1832; 
who were respectively 5, 3, & 1 years old when orphaned and adopted 
by Mrs Wenman and they lived with her at Edwinstowe until her death 
8 years later.

Subsequently her executors no doubt supervised them, until their
attaining their majority.

William my great grandfather became an artist and I have no knowledge
of any other occupation, he married Anna Owtram of Rayton near Worksop,
of an old and well known yeoman family long resident there and in the
Chesterfield district, two members of the family being buried in 
Westminster Abbey viz - William Owtram D.D. (1626 -79) and Sir 
James Outram Bart (1803 - 63), the famous Lieut. General of the 
British Army in India. The earliest spelling of the name being the former.

William and Anna resided at Worksop in their house situated near the
Abbey Gateway (and which my father sold in 1880). They had 12 children,
including my grandmother Eliza, who married Anthony Reed. I  will later
refer to these children. William socially held a respected position in the
county, and gave his family very good educations, his daughters married
well. He was a really good artist, but neglected his interests through pride
and a natural dislike to exertion; so I have read in old family letters.

Catherine Dorothea the only daughter of Abel and Margaret, married C.R. Dunn
Esquire of Saltwell Hall, Gateshead on Tyne, a wealthy Roman Catholic. They
had no family, they brought up the famous divine Charles
Abel Heurtley D.D. (1806 - 95) whose father was Mrs Dunns
half-brother also named Charles Abel.

Richard, they youngest son of Abel and Margaret, became I was informed
a cashier in the Bank of England, and eventually went to New York; he
died abroad.

The Family of William and Anna were as follows:

1: Richard who became a physician, he settled at
the Cape, he married but had no issue therefrom, he became a leading man and
resided a few miles from Capetown, where his tomb is. His widow married his
solicitor.

2: Frances remained single. She kept a ladies
school at Worksop, Notts, at which my aunts were pupils and later assisted.
She was fair, passably good looking, and austere; she wrote during 1842 a
letter to Dr Heurtley (which I have seen) very disparagingly of the
"degenerate race," her sister Eliza (Reeds) family; altho' she Frances had
an illegitimate son, Dr Haze.

3: Archibald was a surgeon and later captain RN,
he died at Worksop from a wound received in action during the war with
France. He married Miss Walters, they had two children, Richard Walter and
Anna, both of whom married and had issue, but I understand there are now no
living descendants of Archibald; so the Revd Chas Heurtley informed me. Thus
the Reeds are the only living descendants of Abel and Margaret Heurtley; and
of William Wenman.

4: Ellen, who married Dr Nunn of Worksop, they
had no issue.

5: Anna joined her brother Richard at Capetown
but died going unmarried.

6: William, who became an artist of distinction,
whose landscapes are said to be the equal of those of Constable and Cox,
seven are in the possession of the Revd Charles Heurtley MA of Oxford, three
of which I gave him. Unfortunately he was eccentric, and it is recorded that
he lived a nomadic life, when, wandering in pursuance of his art, sleeping
in haystacks, and milking the nearest cow for his breakfast. For drinking
the health of Buonaparte then at war with England, he was interned in
prison, where he died of consumption at the age of 30 unmarried. His
portrait shows him to have been handsome, dark and of melancholy
countenance.

7: Catherine, who married Mr Pilkington of
Nottingham. I have no information concerning her.

8: Charles Abel, who migrated to Ceylon and there
died of yellow fever aged 18.

9: Sarah, who married in 1832 G. Frith M.D. of Worksop
where they resided, their only child Harriet, married in 1852 John
Boyd Kinnear of Kinnear Scotland, some time Gladstonian MP for Fife, she
died without issue 1866. Prior to her marriage she was a well known
Shakespearian actress (see Appendices). Her mother survived both Dr. Frith
and her daughter, and in somewhat straitened circumstance died at my aunts
house at Norton, Stockton on Tees about 1870. She was buried in the Reed
family vault at Bishop Middleham. I remember my great aunt Frith.

10: Eliza my grandmother, the youngest daughter was 
three years old when her mother died, but her father William Heurtley
[?] survived his wife 47 years. She married during 1819 in Co. Durham my
grandfather Anthony Reed as before mentioned; whose acquaintance she
probably made when visiting her aunt Mrs. Catherine Dorothea Dunn at
Saltwell Hall Co. Durham. After the death at Stockton in 1861 of Anthony her
husband, she resided with her daughters at Norton, until her death, 14 Nov
1868. I well remember her, altho' only 5 years old then.

11: Frank or Frances probably died in infancy.

12: Abel joined his brother Richard at Capetown
died 1842 aged 40, unmarried.

Of this large, well educated and socially esteemed family only Richard
attained any degree of wealth, and of the daughters who married only Eliza
(Reed) was left well provided for. It is remarkable that the only living
descendants are our Reed family, the only remaining descendants of the
Nottinghamshire county families of Wenman and Farr and of the Reeds of Co.
Durham.