The Will of Andrew FitzHenry (Rock, Worcester)

I downloaded the Will of Andrew FitzHenry from the National Archives website. It's a scan of the original copy that the clerk made when the will was proved by the executors and as such the handwriting is very different to modern written English. It took me quite some time to transcribe it but here's the gist because it turned up some really interesting new stuff. (For the story so far here's the original post)

The Will was written in February 1830 and proved on 2nd June 1830.

Andrew had moved away from Rock in Worcester and is described as "being formerly of Clare in the County of Mayo, afterwards of Bordeaux in France and late of the City of Dublin."

He had seven surviving children
Andrew Richard - his eldest son named as his heir
Charles - who inherited his medical books
Thomas
Anne Elizabeth who was now Mrs Carey. She has a daughter Georgina Carey. No mention made of the husband.
Catherine who was now Mrs Cassidy
Maria Rosetta
Sarah

He asks his executors to make sure that the money going to his daughters is for their use only and for the benefit of their children, and to keep the money away from their husbands and the husbands' creditors!

He has a sister, Matilda. She is found in Pallot's Marriage Index as marrying Matthew Walsh at St Anne's Soho in 1802. Matilda was left fifty pounds annd her daughter Mrs Matilda Gardiner was left twenty five pounds.

There is also the Finn Family. Charles Finn is Andrew's nephew and he has three daughters Catherine, Maria and Eliza who share ninety pounds. There is a seperate bequest of ten pounds a year for his neice Elizabeth Finn. I assume this is via another of Andrew's sisters, as there were no Finn families on his wife's side that I've found.

Andrew's brother Thomas is already deceased and Andrew has to make sure that some of his bequests are continued.

The Roman Catholic parish of Colooney in the County of Sligo has annual payments for the relief of the poor. (On modern maps it's spelt Collooney)

Andrew askes that if he dies in Ireland, that he is buried in the same grave as his "dearly beloved wife Anne at Ballinsmally in the County of Mayo." As he died in Dublin, it is quite likely that he got his wish. (The modern spelling is Ballinsmaula, and it is very close to the town of Claremorris which used to be named Clare. This is where Andrew was said to be originally from.)

He appointed Major Thomas Bradgate Bamford (a soldier in the British Army, highly decorated and mentioned in dispatches) and John Hampden Gladestanes (his long term friend, financial advisor and wine merchant of Regent Street in London) as executors.

So if anyone is in the Ballinsmally area and has a chance to look round the parish churchyard, could they drop me a line if they find Anne and Andrew residing there?


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Andrew Richard FitzHenry, and Horn or Hoon Hay

Having had no success finding the whereabouts of Horn Hay through the usual Google routes, I turned to the on-line catalogue of the National Archives. The property is listed as "Horn or Hoon Hay" in Derbyshire and searching for Hoon Hay on Google maps puts it indeed as a few miles East-South-East of Derby city.
The plot thickens though, as the deeds listed in the National Archive database gives the owner as Thomas Bradley Paget, the brother-in-law of Andrew FitzHenry senior (see the entries on the Fitzhenrys of Rock). Hoon Hay had originally belonged to the Rev. Richard Watkins, so it was not a FitzHenry property, but had passed to the Pagets by marriage.
After the long and bitter Chancery court case, had the families become reconciled? Was Andrew FH a resident in, or a tenant of, his uncle's property?

A tad more about Andrew Fitzhenry ..was he a doctor?

After doing yesterday's post , I was reading through some notes that I made at the most excellent Wellcome Library near Euston Station in London in 2005. At that time I was making notes on all the medically qualified Fitzhenrys as they appeared on either the list of Members of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) of the Medical Directory.
An Andrew Fitzhenry is there flittting in and out of the yearly register of the RCS from 1805 (the earliest volume) until 1825. All I know is that he lived more than 7 miles outside London - the Medical Directory was very parochial, either you were fashionably in London or you weren't.

Until the late 1800s, there are only another 2 Fitzhenrys listed. Edward FH had dual qualifications - an MD from Glasgow in 1851 and a Licence in Midwifery from Dublin also in 1851. He practiced both in Liverpool and in County Wexford Ireland.

George FH obtained the Membership of the RCS in 1844 (10 years before the introduction of anaesthesia), was in Blackheath London in 1845 and then had a practice in Brynmaur near Abergavenny in Brecon Wales.

However they are all Fitzhenrys without the hyphen and unlikely to be related to my branch of Fitz-Henrys