MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS 5 



ter of my grandfather Greenell married Mr. John Roberts, 

 whose son lived many years at Epsom, and this family is also 

 extinct by the death of an only son in early manhood, and of 

 an only daughter at an advanced age in 1890. 



Through the kindness of Mr. J. B. Wohlmann, late head- 

 master of the Grammar School, I learned that in the parish 

 registers of births, deaths, and marriages in Hertford, and also 

 in Chauncey's " History and Antiquities of Hertfordshire " and 

 in Clutterbuck's " History of Herts," there are considerable 

 numbers of Greenells (the name being variously spelt, as Grin- 

 ell, Greenhill, etc.), going back continuously to 1579. I 

 possess an old seal with a coat-of-arms which belonged to my 

 grandfather, and was believed to be those of the Greenell fam- 

 ily — a cross on a shield with seven balls on the cross, and a 

 leopard's head for a crest. The balls indicate the name, 

 " Greenaille " being French for shot ; and the family were not 

 improbably French refugees after the massacre of St. Bar- 

 tholomew in 1572. 



My mother had several large oil-paintings of the Greenell 

 ancestors which came to her from her sister, Mrs. Wilson, 

 when the Wilsons went to South Australia. Being incon- 

 veniently large for our small houses and our frequent re- 

 movals, they were given to the Miss Roberts above mentioned, 

 who had a large house at Epsom, and on her death they passed 

 with the house to some relatives of her mother, who had no 

 kinship whatever with the Greenells. One of these portraits 

 was that of the great-uncle William Greenell, of Marylebone, 

 who was an architect, and is represented with the design of 

 some public building which, we were told, he had the honour 

 of himself showing to the king, George the Second or Third. 

 He is shown as a young man, and I was said to resemble him, 

 not only in features, but in a slight peculiarity in one eyebrow, 

 which was indicated on the portrait. I wished to obtain a 

 photograph of this portrait a few years ago, but the present 

 owner refused to allow it to be copied, having, I fancy, some 

 exaggerated idea of its value as a work of art. 



Other friends or relatives of the Greenell family were 



