204 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 122. 



As a curious instance of the space of time included 

 in the lives of a father and son (although there 

 is nothing wonderful in the number of years 

 attained by either separately), I have thought it 

 worth recording in " N. & Q." I may add that 

 the age of the man now living at Headley is 

 eighty-three, and he was born when his father was 

 seventy-two years old. L. G. 



TWENTY -SEVEN CHILDREN, AND MORE, OT ONE 

 MOTHER. 



(Vol. v., p. 126.) 



Happening to have made notes from time to 

 time of several such instances, I beg to present 

 them to the readers of " N. & Q." : — 



Sixty-two Children : — 



«« A weaver in Scotland had by one woman 62 chil- 

 dren, all living till they were baptized, of vt'^^ ther wer 

 but fower daughters onely who lived till they were 

 women, and 46 sonns, all attaining to man's estate. 

 During the time of this fruitfullnes in the woman, the 

 husband, at her importunity, absented himself from her 

 for the space of 5 years together, serving as a soldier 

 under the command of Captaine Selby in the Low 

 Countries. After his return home his wife was againe 

 delivered of three children at a birth, and so in due 

 time continued in such births till, through bearing, she 

 became impotent. The certainty of this relation I had 

 from John Delavall of Northumb', Esq.j^who, ann.1630, 

 rid about 30 miles beyond Edenburrough to see this 

 fruitfuU couple, who were both then living. Ther 

 statures and features he described to me then more 

 fully. Ther was not any of the children then abiding 

 with ther parents. Sir John Bowes & 3 other men of 

 qualitie having taken at severall times ten of ther chil- 

 dren apeece from them, and brought them up. The 

 rest wer disposed of by the other English & Scottish 

 gents, amongst w"^** 3 or 4 out of them are now alive & 

 abiding at Newcastle, 1630." — Collectanea Topog, ei 

 Geneal. vol. iv. p. 53. from MS. Harl. 9S0. f. 74. 



Thirty-nine Children : — 



" In the year 1698, when Thomas Greenhiil, surgeon 

 to Henry Duke of Norfolk (son of William Greenhiil 

 of Greenhiil in Middx. by Elizabeth, daughter of John 

 Jones of London) petitioned the Earl Marshal as fol- 

 lows : • That in consideration of your petitioner being 

 the 7th son & 39th child of one father & mother, your 

 Grace would be pleased to signalize it by some parti- 

 cular remark or augmentation in his coat of Arms, to 

 transmit to posterity so uncommon a thing.' The con- 

 firmation of the arms cont-iins no reference to the fact." 

 — Collectanea Topogr. et Genealogica, vol. iv. p. 53. 



• Thirty -^ve Children: — 



" A woman in Vere Street of the 35th child by one 

 husband." — Gentleman's Magazine, 1736, p. 683. 



Thirty Children. — In the Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine for Feb. 1743, is recorded the death of Mrs. 

 Agnes Milbourne, wlio was aged 106, and had 

 thirty children. 



Twenty-nine Children. — In that for 1738 : — . 

 " Nov. 15. Mr. Tiiomas Rogers, a 'Change- Broker, 

 who had by his wife 29 children, born and christen'd." 



Twenty-seven Children. — Mr. Richetts, father 

 of tlie present Earl St. Vincent, was the twenty- 

 third of twenty-seven children by the same mother. 



J. G. N. 



In the London Medical Journal, vol. x. for 

 the year 1789, art. vi., "A remarkable case of 

 numerous births, with observations by Maxwell 

 Garthraore, M.D., F.R.S. & S.A. : in a Letter to 

 Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.,P.R.S.," Di-. G. mentions 

 an account given formerly in the Journal des 

 Sgavans, by M. Seignette, physician at llochelle, 

 of a woman of Saintonge who was at one birth 

 delivered of nine well-formed children so far ad- 

 vanced that their sexes could be discovered. 



In the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lii. p. 376., 

 is a curious legend of a woman giving birth to 

 365 children at once : all the males were baptized 

 and named John, and all the females Elizabeth. 

 The mother and 365 children died the same day. 



In the Morning Advertiser for Dec. 1, 1851, is 

 an account of a woman at Ballygunge, near Cal- 

 cutta, being delivered of twenty-one children at 

 once, all boys. 



Nov. 14th, 1736. A woman in Vere Street, of 

 her thirty-fifth child, by one husband. {Gentleman's 

 Magazine, vol. vi. p. 683.) 



July 31st, 1781. At Kirton-le-Moor, in Cum- 

 berland, a man and his wife, and thirty children, 

 the youngest of whom was between two and three 

 years old, lately walked to church to the christen- 

 ing of the thirty-first child. (^Gentleman's Magazine^ 

 vol. li. p. 388.) 



Died at Grantham, Mrs. Lelly, a widow lady of 

 that town. She was twice mother of twenty-tw» 

 children. (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lii. p. 309:) 



Eighty-seven children by two wives : sixty- 

 nine by first, eighteen by second. (Gentleman's 

 Magazine, vol. liii. p. 753.) 



Seventy- two children by two wives, and a 

 mother of thirty-two children. (Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine, vol. lix. pp. 733-4.) To which is appended 

 the following note by the editor : 



" The following epitaph, commemorating an instance 

 of remarkable fecundity, is inserted by Mr. Pennant in 

 his Journey to Snowdon : * Here lyeth the body of 

 Nicholas Hookes, of Conway, Gent., who was the forty- 

 first child of his father, William Hookes, Esq., by 

 Alice his wife, and the father of twenty-seven children, 

 who died the 20th day of March, 1637.' " 



Pantagruel. 



PEDIGREE OF RICHARD EARL OF CHEPSTOW, 



(Vol. v., p. 126.) 



It seems there can be no doubt that Richard 

 de Clare, second Earl of Pembroke, surnamed 



