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Letter from: Timothy H S Duke, Chester Herald, College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street, London Addressed to: Ms Robin Askew, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 24 October 2013
Dear Robin, Following my e-mail of 3 July, the search in the official registers into your Cary ancestry has been completed and I now write to report the results. As you know, your Askew forebears are on record here down to your great-grandfather the Rev. John Askew (born 1804), who was son of Thomas Askew of Cheltenham (born 1771). The pedigree registered in 1828 names his wife as Lucy Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Cary of Hampstead, Middlesex, by his wife Lucy Susanna, daughter of Daniel York of Thrapston, Northamptonshire. You will recall that Robert Cary also had issue Amy Ann, by his first wife Ann, daughter of John Smith of Combhay, Somerset. The recorded pedigree shows that Amy Ann was born on 18 February 1758, and married on 7 March 1782 Adam Askew, brother of your ancestor Thomas [College of Arms ms 12.D.14, 114-5]. No dates or other particulars are given for either Robert or Lucy Cary, nor any indication of the origins of their family. Your two typescript accounts of your Cary ancestry give particulars of Robert Cary’s forebears back to his grandfather James Cary of London, merchant and Salter, whose first marriage took place on 10 March 1658 at St Michael, Paternoster Royal in the City of London, and whose will was dated 21 October 1694 and proved on 20 December that year in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. A marriage-date of 1658 might suggest that he was born from, say, 1628 to 1636, if he married between the ages of twenty-two and thirty. The papers you sent me suggest that since James Cary’s will mentions a niece named Mary Busby, he might have been a brother of Sir Henry Cary of Cockington, Devon, whose daughter Grace was married in 1662/63 to Robert Busby of London. A search was first carried out in the heralds’ visitations of the counties of England, which began about 1530 and ceased after 1687, to determine what might be recorded for James Cary and his son Robert. Various families of Cary and Carey entered pedigrees during the visitations, but none at the visitations of London made in 1568, 1633-34, 1664 and 1687. One entry should be mentioned in passing: there is a Cary connection in a pedigree of Hudson entered at the visitation of London begun in 1687. The pedigree includes the issue of William Hudson of London, who died in 1686. His daughter Esther married Thomas Cary, son and heir of John Cary, both of whom were merchants of London [College of Arms ms K.9, 397]. Our pedigree registers, beginning in the late 17th century and continuing to the present day, also have a number of Cary and Carey entries, but there is nothing which can be linked to your own Cary line. I should mention that an extensive continuation pedigree recorded here in 1883 shows the descent of John Cary, Barrister at Law (1770-1820), from Cary of Torre Abbey in Devon, whose arms were confirmed as Argent on a bend Sable three roses Argent [College of Arms ms Norfolk 14, 119]. He is recorded as living in Hampstead, where we know your ancestor Robert Cary (died 1777) and his father Robert Cary (died 1751) also lived. At this stage, I am not sure whether this is any more than coincidence. A search in grants of arms from the early 16th century down to the year 1880 did not reveal any entry for Cary or Carey of London. At this point it is clear that there is no record of your known Cary ancestors in a College of Arms pedigree before the time of Robert Cary of Hampstead (1731-1777), and no record of their establishing a right to arms. If they had such an entitlement, they did not go to the length of entering a pedigree here in support of their claim. In order to establish a right to arms for this Robert Cary, your earliest Cary ancestor on official record here, you would have to prove his descent in a direct and unbroken male line from an ancestor already registered as so entitled. On the first page of your typescript account of the family entitled ‘Cary: Pedigree and Descent of Robert Cary (1731-1777)’ is a partial illustration of quarterly arms for Askew, with in pretence the arms Argent on a bend Sable three roses Argent for Cary, no doubt representing the marriage of Thomas Askew and Lucy Elizabeth Cary, or the marriage of his brother Adam Askew and Amy Ann Cary. You say that these armorial bearings appear on a painting which is a family heirloom in your possession, which you believe was commissioned by Adam Askew. If the painting was issued by an Officer of Arms, it would constitute evidence that your Cary forebears were entitled to the arms Argent on a bend Sable three roses Argent. However, if it is not a painting of arms certified by an Officer of Arms, it would provide no proof of such an entitlement. As arms are not recorded for your known Cary line, I widened my investigation, bearing in mind the genealogical work which you have carried out. You tell me that Robert Cary (1731-1777) was the son of Robert Cary of Watling Street and of Hampstead (1675-1751), who was the son of James Cary of Watling Street (died 1694). I have not checked the results of your research, but they appear to be entirely correct. On the assumption that your conclusions are right, I have pursued the Cary line in published works immediately to hand in the library of the College of Arms, and on the internet. I must emphasize that I have carried out no work in original sources at this stage. As the Carys were said to have been living in Watling Street, London, in the 17th century, I first made use of publications relating to London. The Aldermen of the City of London by A.B. Beaven (two volumes, 1908 and 1913) gives no alderman of the name in any spelling. T.C. Dale’s The Inhabitants of London in 1638 edited from MS 272 in Lambeth Palace Library (issued by the Society of Genealogists in 1931) lists no-one named Cary living in Watling Street, but there are six entries for the name:
I then examined a typescript entitled ‘The Members of the City Companies 1641 as set forth in the return for the Poll Tax’, transcribed by T.C. Dale from TNA mss E179/251/22 and E179/272/36 and 49 (issued by the Society of Genealogists in 1935). It has only one reference to the name – William Cary, a member of the Company of Haberdashers, in Milk Street ‘at Mr Cornish’. London Inhabitants within the Walls 1695, introduction by D.V. Glass (London Record Society, 1966) gives two households for the name in the parish of St Augustine, Watling Street – James Cary, bachelor, with personal estate worth £600 or more; and Robert Cary with wife Ann and issue. From the particulars you sent me, it is clear that this James was the second son of James Cary the merchant (died 1694), who died unmarried in 1726. I am not certain that this Robert Cary can be identified with your own ancestor Robert Cary (1675-1751), who would probably have been too young to be the man enumerated in 1695. I mentioned above the marriage between Thomas Cary and Esther Hudson, which appears in a pedigree of Hudson recorded at the heralds’ London visitation begun in 1687. The visitation papers which document the official record include an entry which bears on your own ancestry. Before making the visitation, the heralds obtained the names of men of standing in London whom they wished to summon to the visitation, bringing what information they possessed about their families and the arms they had been using. By good fortune the summons lists have survived in a document now held by the College of Arms, including a list for the ward of Bread Street (College of Arms ms Phillipps ms 13084, volume 10, f. 219). The visitation record has been published as The Visitation of London begun in 1687, edited by T.C. Wales and C.P. Hartley (Harleian Society, new series volumes 16 and 17, issued in 2004), and I attach a copy of the list for the upper precinct in the parish of St Augustine, Watling Street, in the ward of Bread Street, of the householders who were to be summoned to appear before the heralds by nine o’clock in the morning on Friday 15 July 1687. As you will see, the first name is ‘Mr James Cary’, who had been summoned by means of a ‘ticket’ (page 632). He must, of course, be your ancestor James Cary, whose summons to appear before the heralds shows him to have been a man of substance who might have been expected to use a coat of arms. Unfortunately the 1687 London visitation was never completed; about half the City wards were not in fact visited, one being the ward of Bread Street – most frustratingly for us, because the registration of James’s pedigree, and any arms he used, would have solved the question. In the knowledge that James Cary (died 1694) was a merchant and Salter of the parish of St Augustine, Watling Street, I made a search in the published indexes of wills proved between 1650 and 1700 in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, the Archdeaconry Court of London and the Commissary Court of London, for testators named Cary or Carey living in London; among those found, there were no individuals living in the parish of St Augustine, Watling Street, and none described as a Salter. Nevertheless, if you choose to carry out further genealogical research, you may wish to read a number of these wills. At this stage I decided to examine two published works relating to Devon, on the assumption that your papers are correct in suggesting a link between James Cary and the Devon family of the name. I have not myself substantiated the connection, but I thought it worth while to mention these volumes. Pedigrees of three branches of the well-known family of Cary are printed in The Visitations of the County of Devon edited by J.L. Vivian (Exeter 1895), with much additional details gathered by Vivian from other sources, chiefly parish registers and wills. As you know, there is a James Cary in the Clovelly branch, baptised on 8 May 1622 at Alwington, son of James and Elizabeth; he would have been of the same generation as James Cary of Watling Street (died 1694). Your typescript refers to Fairfax Harrison’s The Devon Carys (two volumes, New York, 1920). As you know, the branch of the family at Cockington is described at length in volume I, with references to Sir Henry Cary (1613-65), sometime High Sheriff of Devon, and his first wife Amy Bagge. Their daughter Grace was baptised on 17 January 1640 at Cockington, and her marriage is mentioned. This Sir Henry had a brother James, born in 1627, who was living in Sir Henry’s household (with many other members of the family) in 1646. Harrison suggested that this James Cary could have been the London merchant who died in 1694, but felt that the merchant was more likely to have been the James Cary baptised at Alwington in 1622. However, that James Cary is not shown as having a brother named Henry. BUSBY In your typescript entitled ‘Cary: Pedigree and Descent of Robert Cary (1731-1777)’ you point out that in his will made in 1694 James Cary left the sum of twenty pounds to his ‘loving neece Mary Buzby’. You suggest that she may have been a daughter of Robert Busby of St Bride’s, Fleet Street, by his wife Grace, daughter of Sir Henry Cary (1613-65). Their marriage is known from the allegation dated 10 February 1662/3 for the licence issued by the Vicar General of the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, I have seen no evidence that they had a daughter named Mary. I made a limited search on your behalf in London parish registers available on the ancestry.co.uk website, which revealed the baptisms of five children of Robert and Grace Busby:
I should be wary of accepting the suggestion that Mary ‘Buzby’, niece of James Cary (died 1694), was the daughter of this Robert Busby, unless firm evidence of her paternity can be found in the form of a record of her baptism, her own marriage licence or her identification in a will. CONCLUSION In conclusion, I have to say that your known Cary ancestors are not officially recorded as entitled to arms. Judging from the painting of quarterly arms in your possession, your Askew forebears believed that their Cary ancestors had a right to the arms Argent on a bend Sable three roses Argent, although I have seen no proof that these particular Carys made use of those arms. As I am sure you know, successful merchants often adopted arms which properly belonged to prominent families of the same surname. If you wanted to take the matter further, I feel that you should first look for use of arms by your known Cary ancestors. For example, I wonder whether Robert Cary (1731-1777) or his father and grandfather possessed an armorial seal, which they might have affixed to their wills? Were they commemorated by a monument bearing arms? Did they have heraldic funerals at which their arms would have been displayed on flags and escutcheons? If you would like to trace your Cary forebears further back, whether from genealogical interest or for the purpose of establishing their right to arms, you would first have to establish the origins and parentage of James Cary of Watling Street (died 1694). I have not considered the content of his will in detail, and do not know what clues it might offer. I do not know what resources may be provided by the records of the Salters’ Company; their website indicates that they have extensive archives http://www.salters.co.uk/TheCompany/Archives/tabid/68/Default.aspx Yours ever Tim |
