(anno 1585) with the family arms, will be found among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum.[1]
The subject of the following memoir is the only son of Mr. Joseph Chappell Woollnough, formerly dispenser of the royal naval hospitals at Deal, Madras, North Yarmouth, and the Cape of Good Hope, but now in private practice at South Town, North Yarmouth, by Ruth Cator, daughter of Mr. William Clarke, of Stubbs, in the county of Norfolk. His grandfather, a Suffolk yeoman, possessed property in Stadbrooke, which he added to by his marriage with Miss Cybele Chappell, of the same town. In 1774; he occupied Mettingham Castle, near Bungay, renting, in addition to his own estate, the manor and farm belonging to it. These he very much improved; he also laid out and beautified with much taste and at great expense, the grounds within the walls of the ancient castle and college, considerable portions of which, with the principal gateway, still remain, the towers forming a conspicuous object from many parts of the surrounding country. Like most country gentlemen of his time, he appears to have been a free liver and a great sportsman; an oracle among the neighbouring gentry and farmers, in all questions relative to horses and dogs; liberal and hospitable, but thoughtless and extravagant. In the latter years of his life, he entered into some mercantile speculations for which he was altogether unqualified, and at length died at Dunkirk, about the year 1789.
Mr. Joseph Chappell Woollnough, junior, was brought up at Stubbs, under the care of his maternal relations. He entered the royal navy in 1800, as midshipman on board the Monarch 74, bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir Archibald Dickson, then commanding the North Sea fleet; and in the course of a few months was removed, for the benefit of more active service, into the Waaksamheidt 28, Captain Daniel
- ↑ In the reign of James I. one of the name of Woolnoagh, or Woollnough, held lands under the crown at Wymondham, as appears from a very curious petition, preserved in the library of the British Museum. Harleian MSS. 791.
