2 BIOGRAPHY. 



descent from Sir Thomas More. A clock which had be- 

 longed to that great ancestor is still in existence, and 

 occupied a place of honour on the upper landing of the 

 central staircase of Walton Hall. It is but a little 

 clock, and has only a single hand, but it keeps time as 

 well as ever, and the sound of its bell is so clear, that it 

 can be heard at a considerable distance from the house. 

 He mentions in his own quaint way, that if his ancestors 

 had been as careful of their family records as Arabs are 

 of the pedigrees of their horses, he might have been able 

 to trace his descent up to Adam and Eve. 



The following account of the Waterton family is taken 

 from the Illustrated London News of June 17, 1865, and 

 has been revised by a member of the house. 



" The good and amiable old Lord of Walton, Charles 

 Waterton, better known for miles around his ancestral 

 domain as " the squire," was the representative of one 

 of our most ancient untitled aristocratic families, and, what 

 is more deserving of record in these days, in the male 

 line. 



" His ancestor, Eeiner, the son of Norman of Normandy, 

 who became Lord of Waterton in 1159, was of Saxon 

 origin. The Watertons of Waterton became extinct in 

 the male line in the fifteenth century, when their vast 

 possessions passed away, through Cecilia, wife of Lord 

 Welles and . heiress of her brother, Sir Eobert Waterton, 

 to her four daughters and co-heiresses, who married, 

 respectively, Eobert, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, Sir 

 Thomas Dymoke, Thomas Laurence, Esq., and Sir 

 Thomas Delaware. 



" Sir John Waterton was high sheriff of Lincoln in 1401, 

 and master of the horse to Henry V. at Agincourt. Sir 

 Eobert, his brother, Whose wife was a lady of the garter, 

 was governor of Pontefract Castle while Eichard II. was 



