Thomas Crawley, assumed in 1726 the additional surname of Boevey on succeeding to the landed estate acquired by the representatives of his great-grandfather. Mr Crawley Boevey died in 1742, and his successor was a second Thomas Crawley Boevey, Esq. (born 1709, died 1769), whose son and namesake (born 1745) having married Ann Savage, eventually the nearest relative of Sir Charles Barrow, Bart., M.P., became, in 1789, through a special remainder in that patent of baronetcy, Sir Thomas Crawley Boevey, Bart. Sir Thomas Hyde Crawley Boevey, the present and fifth baronet, is great-grandson to the first Sir Thomas.
The surname of Boevey, which has thus survived through so many generations, is also a Protestant refugee name. The will of Andrew Boevey, of St. Dunstan’s in the East, London, merchant, proved in the Prerogative Court on 13th September 1625, is dated 3d July 1623. He mentions that he was born at Cortrich in Flanders [now Courtray in Belgium], but is now in the fifty-first year of his residence in London, being of the age of fifty-seven; he leaves legacies to the Dutch congregations at London and Norwich, and “to the poor of the reformed congregation at Harlem, £5” (he mentions the children of Lewis Boevey, but does not state how he is related to them). Mr. Boevey had been twice married, and had two sons, William (by the first marriage) and James (by the second marriage). William, who died 15th July 1661 leaving £30,000 in personalty and considerable real estate, had one son John,[1] and this son’s only child Richard Boevey took the name of Garth, and is ancestor of the Garths of Morden in Surrey. James Boevey (already named) was of Cheam, Surrey, and also of London, merchant; he died in February 1696 (new style). He and his half brother William were in 1649 joint-purchasers of the estate of Flaxley Abbey in Gloucestershire, which they dealt with in various ways. Eventually it became the property of their eldest sister (their other married sister being Mrs. Bonnell) Joanna (wife of Abraham Clarke), Lady of the Manor of Flaxley Abbey, whose son Abraham Clarke inherited the estate, and dying in 1684 left it to William, only son of the above-named James Boevey, by Isabel, daughter of William de Visscher. William Boevey of Flaxley Abbey married in August 1685 Katherine, daughter of John Riches of St. Laurence Pountney, London, merchant, and left her a young and childless widow on 26th August 1692; she is supposed to be the perverse widow who is such a fascinating figure in the Sir Roger De Coverley papers, and who has a monument in Westminster Abbey. She enjoyed the life-rent of Flaxley Abbey, according to her husband’s will; and, at her death on 11th January 1726, aged 57, Thomas Crawley, Mrs. Bonnell’s representative, became Thomas Crawley Boevey, Esq. of Flaxley Abbey; the lineal descendants of the latter, namely, the Crawley-Boevey Baronets, are now also “of Flaxley Abbey.”
The name of Bonnell obtained celebrity in the person of James Bonnell, Esq., whose memoir, compiled by Archdeacon William Hamilton (published in London in 1703, and frequently reprinted), is a valued piece of biography. “toThomas Bonnell (says the memoir), a gentleman of a good family near Ypres in Flanders, to avoid the Duke of Alva’s fury then cruelly persecuting the Protestants in the low countries, transported himself and his family into England, and settled at Norwich, where he was well received and much esteemed.”[2] His son Daniel Bonnell, merchant in London, left a son Samuel, who married Rebecca, daughter of Thomas Sayer, Esq., a residenter in the neighbourhood of Norwich, and who spent the prime of his life in Genoa and Leghorn. The Rev. John Strype, the famous ecclesiastical antiquary and annalist (born in 1643), was a nephew of Samuel Bonnell, Esq., and an associate of his distinguished son, James. James Bonnell was born at Genoa in 1653, and was brought by his parents to England in 1655. The father had been a prosperous merchant but met with serious losses, by which, as well as by private advances of money to the exiled royal family, he was seriously impoverished. Soon after the Restoration he was rewarded, as appears from the Irish Patent Rolls (14 Charles II. part 2), the index to which informs us that on 22d December 1662, Samuel Bonnell, Esq., and James Bonnell, gent, received the office of Accountant-General of Ireland. On the death of the former in 1664, the duties were discharged by deputy on behalf of James, whose education proceeded under the charge of his widowed mother and by the advice of Mr. Strype. Having taken his degree at Cambridge, he continued his preparation for public life by travelling as a tutor to a young Englishman. In 1684 he settled in Dublin, and “took his employment of Accomptant-General into his own hands.” His admirable mother died in England in 1690. The following sentiments he left in writing:—
- ↑ Besides this John Boevey (ancestor of Garth of Morden) William Boevey had two daughters, viz., (1) Mary, wife of Francis Courtenay of Powderham, and ancestress of the Viscounts Courtenay, and (2) Judith, wife of Sir Levinus Bennet of Babraham, Bart.
- ↑ The biographer, however, was mistaken when he added that Mr. Bonnell became Mayor of Norwich.
