6 LORD LILFORD 



various owners, became in 1488 the property of 

 the Elmes family, who for over two hundred 

 years were connected with the place and neigh- 

 bourhood. It is to an Elmes, or possibly to two 

 members of the family — father and son — that we 

 owe the erection of the house now standing at 

 Lilford. 



At Lilford Hall, therefore, the Powys family 

 took fresh root, but no record is left, at the Hall 

 or elsewhere, of the lives of its individual mem- 

 bers. The Judge's Christian name of Thomas 

 was passed down rigorously from father to son, 

 and eight eldest sons of that name have occupied 

 in turn the nursery at Lilford. 



Thomas Powys, born in 1743, a great-grand- 

 son of the Judge, became member for Northamp- 

 ton in 1774, and was one of the batch of peers 

 created during the Ministry of William Pitt in 

 1797. The new Baron, who assumed the title 

 of Lilford, married in 1772 Miss Mary Mann, 

 a niece of Horace Walpole's correspondent, Sir 

 Horace Mann. 



Their family consisted of twelve children, 

 equally divided into sons and daughters. Only 

 one of the sons calls for special remark. Henry 



