Colonel Henry Holmes ^61,163

  General Notes:

MP for Yarmouth 1694 - 1714. Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of
Wight.

The following extract is taken from the Jerome/Heytesbury papers held
at the Isle of Wight Record office in Newport.

Wills and Settlements 1692 - 1913
Although the wills and settlements are very extensive, running to some
236 items, arranged, in strictly chronological order, into 28 bundles,
the number of documents that are of first rate importance is really
rather limited. The main estate was subject ot six major settlements
over 150 years and most of the documents here described are little
more than subsidiaries to these six important transactions. The major
settlements were: the will of Sir Robert Holmes, 1697, unfortunately
missing, the marriage settlement of Thomas Holmes and Anne Aspley,
1727, JER/HBY/104/8, the will of Thomas Holmes, 1764, see
JER/HBY/208/1, the settlement of Henry Worsley, 1808, JER/HBY/119/1,
the will of Leonard Thomas Worsley Holmes, 1825, JER/HBY/123/1, and
the marriage settlement of Elizabeth Worsley Holmes and William Henry
Ashe à Court, 1833, JER/HBY/124/5.
The sheer bulk of the class is mostly accounted for by the numerous
off-spring of Henry Holmes and his wife Mary, the natural daughter of
Sir Robert Holmes. The parish registers of Yarmouth and Thorley
record the baptisms of twenty children to this couple of whom eleven,
seven girls and four boys, survived to adulthood. In 1727 the entire
estate, as it then stood, was settled on the eldest son Thomas in tail
male, with remainders to each of his brothers, also in tail male, and
a final remainder jointly to his sisters. In the event, none of the
brothers produced surviving, legitimate issue at all and by 1760 there
was the imminent prospect of a break-up of the estate between seven
sister co-heiresses. Thomas Holmes evidently prevailed to release
their rights in the Isle of Wight property to himself, in return for
which they were indemnified against any claims of his second wife,
Catherine , to widows' thirds. The sisters did, however, keep the
valuable Limerick estate and the fee farm rents in Wales and much
money and ingenuity was expended over the next fifty years in buying
back or otherwise acquiring their shares.
Thomas settled his own purchases, notably the Freshwater estate, the
property he had recovered from his sisters and further purchases made
by his father after 1727 by will. This remarkable document,
unfortunately only represented here by a much later copy,
JER/HBY/208/1, contained very lengthy provisions to prevent a
repetition of the debacle of his own first marriage settlement. To
ensure that the estate passed unbroken into a male line he named seven
male relations, his two brothers, four nephews and one great nephew,
who were to have successive remainders each in tail male, the nephews
and great nephew on condition that they took the name Holmes. The
first three individuals, his two brothers and nephew Thomas Troughear,
all predeceased him without issue and the estate duly passed to the
fourth named successor, his nephew Leonard Troughear.
This Leonard Troughear, later second Lord Holmes, had two daughters
but no son so, on his death in 1804, the next provisions for
inheritance under the will of Thomas Holmes came into operation. By
this time, however, the next three successors, John Troughear, Thomas
Roberts and Thomas Worsley were all dead and the final provision for
"any other son of Robert Worsley of Pidford" was activated. It was in
this obscure fashion that the Pidford and Westover estates were united
in the person of Henry Worsley of Pidford.
Henry Worsley, who now became Worsley Holmes, seems to have had more
relaxed views about what should happen to the estate after his death.
He, as life tenant, and his son Leonard Thomas Worsley Holmes, as
tenant expectant in tail, entered into a common recovery in 1808
JER/HBY/119/1, for Leonard and his heirs. Leonard had two daughters
only and, by his will, JER/HBY/123/1, he settled his entire estate
exclusively on the elder, Elizabeth, but wrapped up in an elaborate
double trust from which much trouble was to arise, see JER/HBY/126/2.
The marriage settlement of Elizabeth and William Henry Ashe à Court,
JER/HBY/124/5, did little more than confirm this arrangement. A
disentailing assurance was entered into in 1857, JER/HBY/128/2, and a
new settlement made for the eldest son of Elizabeth and William Henry,
JER/HBY/128/5.
Pidford Farm was settled on Henry Worsley and his heirs in 1748, see
JER/HBY/105/9. To Pidford he added numerous purchases of his own.
Under his will all this property passed to his son, Leonard Thomas
Worsley Holmes, but some of it, including Watergate Farm, was sold in
1815 under an order in Chancery. See JER/HBY/186/5 and IWCRO
Ward/276.
There are a number of documents in the wills and settlements dealing
with the extremely complex affairs of the insolvent Newport bankers,
Henry and John Roberts, who were connected with the Holmes family
through Lucretia Sowle, one of Thomas Holmes's sisters and with the
Worsleys through Margaret Roberts, sister of Henry Worsley. There is
also an interesting and unusual group of deeds under which Leonard
Troughear made provision for his mistresses and their children, e.g.
JER/HBY/113/3 and JER/HBY/115/5.

Henry married Mary Holmes, daughter of Sir Robert Holmes and Grace Hooke. (Mary Holmes was born c 1678, died in March 1760 in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight and was buried on 7 March 1760 in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight.)