1825 EARLY LIFE 3 



purchased Wyre Hall at Edmonton, where his 

 descendants lived for four generations, his grandson 

 being knighted by Charles II. in 1663. 



But my father had no particular interest in tracing 

 his early ancestry. " My own genealogical inquiries," 

 he said, "have taken me so far back that I confess 

 the later stages do not interest me." Towards the 

 end of his life, however, my mother persuaded him 

 to see what could be found out about Huxley Hall 

 and the origin of the name. This proved to be 

 from the manor of Huxley or Hodesleia, whereof one 

 Swanus de Hockenhull was enfeoffed by the abbot 

 and convent of St. Werburgh in the time of Eichard 

 I. Of the grandsons of this Swanus, the eldest kept 

 the manor and name of Hockenhull (which is still 

 extant in the Midlands) ; the younger ones took 

 their name from the other fief. 



But the historian of Cheshire records the fact that 

 owing to the respectability of the name, it was unlaw- 

 fully assumed by divers " losels and lewd fellows of 

 the baser sort," and my father, with a fine show of 

 earnestness, used to declare that he was certain the 

 legitimate owners of the name were far too sober and 

 respectable to have produced such a reprobate as him- 

 self, and one of these "losels " must be his progenitor. 



Thomas Henry Huxley was born at Baling on 

 May 4, 1825, "about eight o'clock in the morning." 1 

 " I am not aware," he tells us playfully in his Auto- 



1 So in the Autobiography, but 9.30 according to the family 

 Bible. 



