Nicholas Blundell (1669 – 1737), sometimes styled "of Crosby",

lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

Little Crosby Little Crosby is a small village in the Sefton district of Merseyside, England. Despite being within 8 miles of Liverpool it has retained its rural character by, for example, opting not to have street lights. Until 1974 it was in Lancashire. T ...

, was an English landowner seated at Crosby Hall,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, and is best known for his

diaries Diaries may refer to: * the plural of diary A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally bee ...

which provide first-hand insight into the life of 18th-century

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

gentry Gentry (from Old French , from ) are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. ''Gentry'', in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to Landed property, landed es ...

Family

Devoutly Catholic since the Middle Ages, the Blundells were among the leading

recusant Recusancy (from ) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign of Elizabeth I, and temporarily repea ...

landed gentry The landed gentry, or the gentry (sometimes collectively known as the squirearchy), is a largely historical Irish and British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. It is t ...

prior to Catholic Emancipation in the 19th century, and progenitors of various

cadet branch A cadet branch consists of the male-line descendants of a monarch's or patriarch's younger sons ( cadets). In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets (realm, titles, fiefs, property and incom ...

es including the

Weld-Blundell family The Weld-Blundell family are a cadet branch, arisen in 1843, of the English Welds of Lulworth. It is an old gentry family which claims descent from Eadric the Wild and is related to other Weld branches in several parts of the United Kingdom, no ...

Life

The eldest son and heir of

William Blundell William Blundell (1946 – 3 July 2023) was an Australian painter and art copyist. He painted copies, which he called innuendos, for Sydney art dealer Germaine Marie François Toussaint Curvers. Blundell painted works with the style of, among ...

, also known as "the Cavalier" (being a

Knight of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, and commonly known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious ...

) for his exploits during the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

, Nicholas Blundell's

notebook A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking and more. ...

was first published in 1880 by the Revd. T. E. Gibson. ''A Cavalier’s Note Book'' and was referenced by

Lady Antonia Fraser Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, (; born 27 August 1932) is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and prior to his ...

in her work on English 17th-century women, ''The Weaker Vessel'' (Phoenix Press, London, 2002 paperback, originally published 1984). Blundell married The Hon. Frances Langdale and had two daughters, the younger of whom, Frances (Mrs Henry Peppard), reassumed the

surname In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

and

arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...

of Blundell by

Royal Licence Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Roy ...

upon succeeding to the ancestral estates.''Burke's Landed Gentry'' (1837)
/ref> Nicholas Blundell's descendants through her remain seated at Crosby Hall, now in

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

Sources

Three volumes of ''Blundell's Diaries'' were produced by Frank Tyrer and J. J. Bagley and published by the Record Society of Lancashire & Cheshire between 1968 and 1972. * The great diurnal of Nicholas Blundell volume 1 : 1702-1711 (1968) * The great diurnal of Nicholas Blundell volume 2 : 1712-1719 (1970) * The great diurnal of Nicholas Blundell volume 3 : 1720-1728 (1972) * A volume Blundell’s diary & letter book 1702-1728 was published in 1952. Edited by Margaret Blundell (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 1952). * A secondary source is J. J. Bagley, ''Historical importance of Nicholas Blundell's diurnal'', 1972.

References

Bibliography

* Crosby, Alan G. (2004)
"Blundell, Nicholas (1669–1737)"
In ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford: Oxford UP, n.p.

External links

* ''

Burke's Landed Gentry ''Burke's Landed Gentry'' (originally titled ''Burke's Commoners'') is a reference work listing families in Great Britain and Ireland who have owned rural estates of some size. The work has been in existence from the first half of the 19th cen ...