Introduction

by Col. Henry Edward Medlicott

The papers which are collected in this little book are all concerned with our Family “Medlicott of Medlicott”. Quite apart from the interest attaching to these particulars of a family which was rooted in Old England eight hundred years ago, and now has its branches in Ireland Australia and the United States, the work has also for me a personal interest.

This production is very largely the result of my fathers’s efforts. Henry Edmondstone Medlicott was a man who possessed a deep love of his family, its history and tradition. He tells us that from his early youth he had made notes of matters pertaining to the family history. In later life these notes became the material from which a family history could be written, and the amount of information which he collected is all the more remarkable when one considers that even as late as thirty years ago the life of an English country gentlemen was much more settled then at present. The exertions required to gather facts from out of the way registers and other sources ware correspondingly greater.

My father’s design was to produce, in the same form as this volume, the results of his investigations. His death in 1916 prevented any publication or issuing of his collection of papers, but he had prepared a foreword.
After some thought I have reproduced my father’s original preface. I think that it will interest members of our family, but no one can read it without observing that much of the matter is identical with that occurring in Section II. Evidently my father when writing his foreword intended to give a summary of the family history and quite overlooked the fact that he had already given some of the details in another section. At any rate, the preface which he wrote, follows this preface immediately, and practically without alteration.
I think that one of the most interesting facts about our family history – this may not be very significant at first to those members of the family who have been born overseas – is that we are entitled to a place among those families whose surnames are derived from the lands which they originally held, and which can still be identified.

I feel sure that other branches of the family will understand why the history of my own branch and the record of my own immediate relatives is fuller than the others. This cannot be helped as no further information for them was available. It is hoped that those who receive this book will enlarge the history of their own branches, using it as a framework on which to build.
For the description of Lt. H.W. Medlicott’s War records no explanation is due. It is hoped that such information as I have been able to collect and publish may be a stimulant to all Medlicotts to follow the example of a very gallant gentleman, who served his Country with a renown, outstanding even in the days of most valiant deeds.