Preface

by Henry Edmondstone Medlicott (1841-1916)
of Sandfield, Potterne, Wilts

“When found make a note of” is, I believe, the motto on the title page of “Notes and Queries” .(Not now – 1937).

Whenever I have met with the name of Medlicott for many long years past I have made a note of it.

This has led to correspondence and a collection of notes, memos, cuttings and slips which I find it difficult now to reduce to order. However. I have done the best I can and have made up a long story of our race which I call my “Notes’.

Summarized, this goes to show that about 1180 there was a Llewellyn living at Medlicott and described as Llewellyn de Modlicott.

Medlicott was, and still is, a township in the Parish of Wentnor, Shropshire, at no great distance from the Borderland of Wales. The old Homestead, now called “Medlicott Hall Farm” on the Ordnance Survey, lies on the Western slope of the Longmynd Hill and Forest, near Church Stretton some 20 miles south of Shrewsbury. The district in its early days is described in Sir Walter Scott’s ;’The Betrothed” Vol.I, in “Tales of the Crusaders”, and in modern times in Bradley’s “March and Borderland of Wales.”

For six or seven generations the de Medlicotts were living in the “cradle of the race” and farming the lands around. Much of this, however, was filched from them from time to time by the Abbot of Haughmond, one of the richest of the Shropshire Abbeys, near Shrewsbury. Much of the story of these transactions is described in Eyton’s History of Shropshire.”

After a few generations, we come to Thomas Medlicott of Medlicott “Esquire” (in those days a distinction of significance). Then for the first time we begin to get to names of wives and younger members of the family. These soon spread themselves and the name is found in Registers and other documents in several parishes in Shropshire and in Shrewsbury. After a time they went further afield and the name is met with in Herefordshire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire and elsewhere. The family however remained through the centuries, and still remains, in possession and occupation of property, and in various spheres of life, in the Parish of Wentnor, and other places in Shropshire.

About 1620 some of them settled in London and are found as citizens and members of the Dyers, Fishmongers and Haberdashers Guilds and in the Registers of some of the City Churches. Some of them were educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and went on to both Oxford and Cambridge. What trade, profession or occupation they followed in London I have not discovered. The name appears in fiction, and Besant in “All Sorts and Conditions of Men” describes an Alderman Medlycott.

About 1650 we come to Thomas Medlicott, who became a Commissioner of Revenues in Ireland. Thither it would appear he was accompanied or followed by members of his family who acquired property and founded families in the counties Kildare, Mayo and Waterford.

Another Thomas Medlicott of the middle Temple became Recorder of Abingdon, Berks, and his name frequently appears in the civic records of the ancient borough, which he represented in Parliament for a time, in 1688, and then became M.P, for Westminster, and afterwards for MilbournePort in Dorsetshire. Close to this old borough, his son, James, built Ven and founded the family since, and still, settled there (See Note on the Collateral Branches of the Family). This came to an heiress, Elizabeth, who in 1726 married John Hutchings of Sherborne. Their son Thomas was M.P. for Milbourne Port, and in 1765 assumed the name and arms of Medlicott conformably with the Will of his maternal uncle. From him the descent of ‘William Coles Medlycott who was created a Baronet in 1808, and his descendants, is traced in Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage.

James had younger brothers, viz:
Charles, of Cottingham, Northants, who married Ann Buckley. Two daughters survived him, one of whom, Ann Barbara, married George Hill, Sergeant at Law. She took the name and arms of Medlicott. There are details of this branch in my “Notes”. Another brother, named Edmund, was living in 1722. Another, George, became owner of Tully, Co. Kildare, and subsequently, in 1712, of properties at Youngstown and Dunmurry, which are still owned by his descendants. Another, Thomas of Blinfield, Berks, acquired property in Co, Mayo, and Waterford, Ireland. Some details of the families of the two latter appear in Burke’s ‘landed Gentry of Ireland”.

I have communicated with correspondents of our name in several parts of England, in the United States, in Australia, and in South Africa. I believe we all come from the same stock. I have not succeeded in showing the connection in all cases. Were I younger I should by no means despair of doing so.

I have given such particulars in my “Notes” as I have been able to verify or obtain some reliable authority for. I propose to have them typed, and to furnish a copy to anybody of the name who cares to have one.