JOURNAL 
OF THE 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
OF ENGLAND. 
ROBERT BAKEWELL. 
Robert Bakewell, son of Robert and Rebecca Bakewell, was 
born, early in the year 172G, at The Grange, Dishley, two 
miles north of Loughborough, in the county of Leicester, where 
also, on October 1, 1795, he died, “ after a tedious illness, which 
he bore with the philosophical fortitude that ever distinguished 
his character.” The words here quoted, from the earliest 
biographical memoir, written immediately after his death and 
published before the close of the same year, 1 convey a guiding 
hint of his idiosyncrasy. 
One of the memoirs of Bakewell, written within ten years 
after his death, describes him as a yeoman of considerable 
properly; another, also of an early period, as the son of a 
farmer. The truth appears to be that his nearer ancestors, 
whether as landowners or as tenants, had been engaged in 
agricultural pursuits, and that he was the descendant of a very 
old and highly respectable family. The exact social position of 
his forefathers may not, perhaps, be of general public interest, 
but the offices held by some of them at different periods of the 
600 years, extending over nineteen generations, through which 
his pedigree can be traced, suggest the inheritance of more than 
average brain-power, thus illustrating one of those laws of which 
Bakewell himself was an intelligent student. 
The most remote ancestor named in the records of the 
family was Leverrettus, Thane of the. King, and King’s 
1 Gentleman's Magazine, Yol. LXY., Tart II., 1795. 
VOL. V. T. S.~ -17 
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