Henry Stanyford Blanckley (29 September 1752) also known as HSB, was an officer of the 31st Regiment of Foot, captain of the 97th Regiment of Foot (1780), gamekeeper in Little Hallingbury, Essex, and British Consul for Menorca and Algiers. A variety of family stories attribute him as a descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Early life
HSB was born in Gibraltar on 29 September 1752 to Elizabeth and Henry Blanckley. His sister Ann Elizabeth Blanckley later married Alexander Shaw (British Army officer). Their father, Henry Blanckley, held the offices of Storekeeper, Clerk of the Cheque and Clerk of the Survey for Gibraltar Dockyard granting the family residence in the Ordnance House or "Bomb House", now home to the Gibraltar National Museum. According to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas James in his 1771 The History of the Herculean Straits the Blanckley's Gibraltar home was:
"The Bomb-House - The storekeeper and ordnance clerks dwellings, commonly called the bomb-house, was once a fine Moorish building : I take it to have been the residence of their governors, because I have seen the same kind of structures in Spain, and never but one in that style in each town: and that which is peculiar, is the top of the house, which is a flat oblong terrace; round it is a wall of three feet high, and on the wall are stone pillars that support a roof: there houses are much higher than any other building in the town, and command the whole: this upper apartment is at prevent a dwelling room, the spaces between the pillars being filled, and now has windows, and a door place. The cellars remain in their old state, one of which I take to have been the family mosque; the inside is an oblong square, and round the centre are pillars that support a handsome cupola.
Round the architrave is an inscription, but so defaced that I could not make anything of it. This house, when we took the place, was quite entire, and very large; and the complete remains of the Moors, as a dwelling, in the town ; but the changes it has since undergone, have almost diverted it of its ancient beauties; ancient I call it, because it might have been built soon after the coming of those people in seven hundred and eleven . . . ."
HSB's father, Henry Blanckley, died in 1773.
31st Regiment of Foot
In 1777, HSB, an ensign of the 31st Regiment of Foot, sought promotion by requesting permission to purchase the lieutenancy of Alexander Hamilton, who had quit the regiment. The 31st Foot were stationed in North America for the American Revolutionary War and had garrisoned Quebec the previous year:
"The 31st sailed west again in 1776 to garrison Quebec during the War of American Independence. The flank companies served under General Burgoyne and were forced to surrender at Saratoga. They served in Canada for eleven years before returning home."
Marriage to Mary Rogers
HSB's father, Henry Blanckley's will was proved on 10 March 1777, four years after his death. He bequeathed everything to his wife Elizabeth, who married Charles MacKintosh in St Pancras Old Church, London on 26 September 1778. Saunder's News Letter records HSB's own marriage six-months later, in March 1779, at Coolyduff, Inniscarra, Cork, Ireland.
"At Coolyduff, Henry Stanyford Blanckley, Esq; lieutenant in the 31st regiment of foot, to Miss Rogers, daughter of the late Capt. Rogers."
His bride was Mary Rogers, daughter of Captain Henry Rogers, who had been buried at Magourney, near Coolyduff, in 1773 Different lines of their descendants believed HSB and Mary Rogers to have been cousins.
97th Regiment of Foot
HSB was a captain of the 97th Regiment of Foot (1780) and made Brigade-major on 6 April 1882 during the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
First children and gamekeeping in Little Hallingbury
HSB's first child was baptised Ann Blanckley in St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, London on 5 March 1784. His first son, named Henry Stanyford Blanckley after him, was born on 5 August 1785, and baptised in Hatfield Peverel, Essex on 3 April 1785. His next three children, Maria (born 8 January 1787) and twins Charles and Caroline (born 3 September 1788) were baptised in the village of Little Hallingbury, Essex.
HSB is listed as a gamekeeper residing in Little Hallingbury in February 1786 and October 1787. According to historian George Redmonds, 18th century gamekeepers were often gentlemen:
