Spedding Family - Knight Family History and Genealogy


	The Spedding Family Knight family history and genealogy

James Horn Elphinstone Dalrymple Mansfield

James H.E.D. Mansfield was born in Edinburgh 24 Sept 1798. He was the 5th son of James Mansfield and Marion Horn Elphinstone Dalrymple of Midmar Castle, Aberdeen.
He served in the Royal Navy as a midshipman at the siege of Algiers under Lord Exmouth in 1816 and is believed to have served under Hood.
He married Henrietta Knight in 1822 at Gretna Green and his daughters were Isabella born Cockermouth 1823, Marion born Bridekirk 1825 and Eleanora born Bridekirk 1827, all in Cumberland.
James died aged 29 in Papcastle and was buried in Bridekirk six days later. The Carlisle Patriot paper for Friday October 19th 1827 stated, "At Papcastle near Cockermouth on the 7th inst. Mr. J.H. Mansfield, fifth son of the late James Mansfield, Esq. of Midmar." His daughter Eleanora was baptised 31st December of that same year. Eleanora lived with his widow, Henrietta for 63 years and only married after her mother had died.
His memorial stone in Bridekirk reads, "Erected to the Memory of J.H.E.D. Mansfield, died 7th of October 1827 aged 29 years, by his affectionate Wife Henrietta Mansfield, also of Marion D. Mansfield their Daughter who died on the 3rd Day of March 1849 aged 24 years."
As James and his brother John, the two surviving sons, had between them seven daughters and no sons and heirs, Midmar Castle was eventually sold in 1842.

Charles Spedding - Knight Family History and Genealogy

Charles Spedding Letter
In 1880 Charles Spedding received a letter from his grandmother, Henrietta Mansfield (Knight). The letter informs Charles of his family history but part of the letter has been purposefully obliterated. Wombat is confident he can solve the mystery.

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Francis Spedding

Francis Spedding was born 4 November 1818 in Gilling West, North Yorkshire, to Francis Spedding, brewer, and his wife Mary Sayer. He was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1839 and gained his B.A. in 1843. He was ordained at Durham and was curate at Winston, Durham at the time of his marriage in 1846 to Isabella Mansfield.
Their six children were James, born in Flimby in 1847 and Francis 1848, Henry 1850, Marion 1856, Charles 1857 and Isabella 1861, all born in Shifnal, Shropshire, where their father was curate from 1850 to 1865. Only Francis, Marion and Charles survived infancy.
He then became Vicar at Donisthorpe, Derbyshire from 1865 till his death in 1884. It is believed that his wife Isabella Spedding died in the USA in about 1871, probably on a visit to family living there. Francis died at the Vicarage of cerebral congestion aged 66.
In his Will he asked to be buried in Gilling, but no doubt to it being winter, he was buried in the New Cmetery in Donisthorpe. Today, Donisthorpe is in Leicestershire.

Charles Spedding

Charles Spedding, the second son of the Rev. Francis Spedding and his wife Isabella Mansfield was born 16 November 1857 in Shifnal, Shropshire. His education is unknown and he left England for India in 1885, the year after his father died, when he was 28 years old. In 1891 he founded Spedding and Co., Civil Engineers and in the same year he became involved in the northern India Hunza-Nagar Expedition with the local rank of Captain. This involved a contract from the British Army to build a military road from Gilgit to Hunza and beyond for the defence of the Hindu Kush from the Hunza-Nagaris, a tribe who terrorized the locals by taking prisoners during raids and selling them as slaves. Under very difficult conditions Charles and his sappers built a mule track, protected by his personal army of Pathans. Queen Victoria subsequently awarded Charles the India Medal of 1854 with the Hunza clasp of 1891, a very rare medal. In 1896 his kinsman, the Rt. Hon. Sir Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn, later the 5th Lord Headley, joined Spedding and Co. as an assistant engineer when the company was constructing the Baramula-Srinagar Road through the mountains, 33 miles long and involving 167 coverts and bridges.
In 1897 Charles left India due to illness and met Bessy Phillips, his future wife, in a hospital in Paris where she nursed him and put up with his swearing in Hindustani. They retired to England and bought Cary Castle in St. Mary Church, Devon, where their only child Frank Spedding was born in 1901.
In 1902 Charles returned to India but in 1904 Spedding and Co. was wound down and he finally left India in 1905 with a huge company pension. When a relative casually mentioned taxes, Charles is said to have replied, "What is income tax?" Shortly afterwards, the family left for the Continent and the life of wealthy tax exiles, living in hotels on the French Riviera. He never recovered his health and used a small covered carriage and pony to get about. They eventually moved to the Channel Islands and lived at Holly Lodge, St. Saviour, Jersey and where he died 9 December 1925.
He was always known in the family as "the Famous Engineer" and his exploits in India were told in the book, "Where Three Empires Meet" by E.F. Knight, his first cousin, written in 1895.

Brigadier Charles Francis Carlisle Spedding CBE

Frank Spedding - Knight Family History and Genealogy

Frank Spedding, the only child of Charles Spedding and his wife Bessie Phillips, was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, 19th September 1901. He was raised on the Continent by his parents and a series of nannies, living the wealthy emigre lifestyle in French hotels. His earliest memory is of sitting on his mother's knee in a French doctor's office. A slug of brandy was poured down his throat and the doctor reached into his mouth to cut out his tonsils.
He was a brilliant man. He was educated at Wellington College, Berks., and passed into the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in June 1920 with the highest marks ever recorded while using only his left hand, his right arm having been broken in a motorcycle accident. He was commissioned on 31 August 1922 into the Royal Artillery. The same year he eloped with his first cousin, Phyllis Carter whom he had known nearly all his life, their disapproving mothers being sisters. They had two children - Michael born in 1930 and Sarah Erif, born in 1942. Sarah was never well and died in 1953 aged 11, a great sorrow to her family.
Frank was a lecturer and instructor in ballistics at the Royal Military Academy. When war broke out, he worked on weapon development at the War Office and Ministry of Supply, was Secretary of the Ordnance Board and appointed Brigadier in 1943. Postwar, Frank was with the Control Commission in Berlin, contacting German rocket and atomic specialists and was Assistant Chief in the Reparations Division. He returned to the Army and was seconded to the Indian government as advisor on weapon development from 1950-52. He retired from the Army in 1953 and took on a diplomatic career. He was appointed Scientific Attache to H.M. Embassy, Bonn, Germany and later to Vienna from 1957-63 where he had great rapport with German and Austrian scientists as he spoke fluent German. He was honoured with a C.B.E. in 1961.
In his private life he was on the Council for Psychical Research from 1955-78. He and Phyllis were a warmly hospitable couple with dearly
loved homes in Wotton under Edge, Glos., and Bath, Somerset. After Phyllis passed away he lived with Michael and Nan in Feckenham, Worcs. He died 17th August 1979 while staying at Osborne House, the Senior Officers Rest Home, the former home of Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight.