Six north country diaries - The MAN & Other Families

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1748
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THE
DIARY.
1748. Friday, Feb. 24. Tlie lady of George Bowes, esq., one of
the knights of the shire for the county of Durham, was brought to
bed of a daughter at his house in London. She was the only daughter
of Thomas Gilbert, a merchant in London, and this was her first
child after a marriage of six or seven years. [Married in 1767 to
Lord Strathmore, afterwards to Andrew Robinson.]^
1748. March 23. The wife of Robert Spearman of Oldacres,
near Sedgefield, esq., who died the last week at his house in Old
Elvet, having lingered of a palsy, was this day buried with great
funeral pomp in Bow church in Durham.^
And the same day old Henry Pratt, ^ the bell-ringer, was buried
at St. Mary's, South Bailey, aged near 90. He had formerly been
coachman to Dean Comber.
1748. May 9. Sir Ralph Milbank of Halnaby in Yorkshire,
baronet, died at London in the 60th year of his age, and was somie
short time after buried Avith much funeral pomp in the family vault
of Croft church. He left six sons by Ann, his wife, daughter of
and one
Edward Delaval of Dissington in Northumberland, esq. ;
daughter, Biidget, by his first wife, Elizabeth, sister to Robert,
earl of Holderness, whose daughter was first married to Sir Butler
Wentworth, baronet, and secondly to John Murray, esq., of the Isle
of Man.6
1748. My aunt, Elizabeth Hunter, died in the bishop of Oxford's
house in the College, Durham, in the 80th year of her age, on the
10th of May. She was a good woman. Buried at the west end of
tlie
Abbey-3'ard.'^
^
An account of Lady Strathmore's unhappy Ufe with her second husband,
Andrew Stoney Robinson, may be found in Hewitt, Fi'/slV.s to Remarkahh Places,
2nd ser. pp. 198-230.
* She was Mr. Robert Spearman's first wife, her maiden name was Mary
Lewen and she died on the ISth March, 1748/9, aged 42, and was buried at St.
Mary le Bow, Durham. Cf. Surtees, Durham, vol. i. p. 96.
*
23 March. 1748, Henry Pratt, aged 88, buried. Berjisters oj St. Mary in
Durham.
the South Huilei/,
" The Milbank s are first found in local history settled at Tynemouth and at
North Shields. Cf. new History of Northumberland, vol. viii. pp. 326, 327.
'
1748. May II. Mrs. Elizabetli Hunter, buried. Durham Cathedral
Begixters. Miss Hiinter was the second daughter of Thomas Hunter of
Medomsley by his first wife Elizabeth daughter of John Gyll of Haughton-le-
Skerne, and she was half-sister to Dr. Christopher Hunter, the antiquary. The
following inscription on a tombstone, a conspicuous object at tlie west end of
the cathedral gravevard, has recently been recut : 'Here lieth the body of
]
Mrs. Elizabeth Hunter born Medumsley, who dyed May 10 the
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SOth year of her age.' Her will, dated 9th June, 1746, was proved 1748.