2 
Robert Balcewelh 
Chancellor in the reign of Henry II., presented to the rectory of 
Bakewell, in the county of Derby, in the year 1158. Three of 
liis descendants consecutively were Rectors of Bakewell ; and the 
last, on his ejectment in the reign of King John, retained the 
territorial name, and thus became the founder of the family. A 
direct descendant, Sir John de Bakewell, Seneschal of Poitou, a 
lineal ancestor of Robert Bakewell, was Baron of the Exchequer 
in the years 1322-23, and had two brothers, Sir Thomas, who 
represented the county of Kent in Parliament in 1321, and 
Roger de Bakewell, member for Derby. Four generations 
down the line from Sir John we find Henry, Ambassador to 
Rhodes in 1415 ; and three generations later, Thomas, having 
the degree of LL.D., appointed Ambassador to Brittany. It is 
needless to add the various Church benefices held by members 
of the family at different periods. Robert Bakewell, Rector of 
Hartingbury, was the first of five consecutive descendants 
bearing the same baptismal name, the last of whom is the 
subject of this memoir ; and although the Dishley branch ended 
with him, the family, in its hereditary social status, is still 
extant. Robert, one of the sons of the Rector of Hartingbury, 
resided at Normanton, in Leicestershire. He had four sons, 
who all left issue. One of those sons, Robert, was the first 
Bakewell of Dishley ; from wbat date we are not told pre- 
cisely ; but as he was born in 1 G 43, and died in 1716, we 
may assume that an old chronicler, who indefinitely places the 
beginning of the connection with Dishley somewhere about 
the beginning of the last century, was probably not far from 
the truth. 
Bakewell’s first biographer, already quoted, says that 
Bakewell’s father, the second Robert Bakewell of Dishley, died 
about the year 1760 ; and several subsequent writers, no doubt 
taking him, with or without acknowledgment, as their authority, 
have given that statement, by repetition, the semblance of con- 
firmation. It has apparent support, also, from the fact that 
about that time the Bakewell began to come to the front as 
an experimental agriculturist and as a breeder of live-stock 
improved by himself. But his father, from whom, as we shall 
see, he derived much of his pioneering instinct, and of the 
enterprise which marked his character, was born in the year 
1685, and died, assuredly, as his monumental inscription proves, 
on May 23, 1773, aged 88 years. However hale a man he may 
have been, he would scarcely take an active part in the business 
of the farm to that advanced age, but more probably at the age 
of 75 years, or thereabout, transferred the entire control to his 
able son, then in his 35th year, and qualified, by several years 
