Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 9 - Section XI

by David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

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XI. Waldo.

Genealogists have succeeded in individualising the far-famed Peter Waldo, and have put on record that he died in Bohemia in 1179 — that he was unmarried — but that he had a married brother, Thomas Waldo,^[1] whose children retired from their native town, Lyons, and settled in the Netherlands, where they were represented in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth. One of their name fled from Duke Alva’s persecutions in 1568, and founded families in England. Among them the tradition is that his name was Peter; at all events he was a Waldo, was twice married, and had eight children, of whom Lawrence and Robert left descendants. Robert Waldo founded a family at Deptford. The noteworthy persons of the Waldo stock descended from Lawrence Waldo, citizen and grocer, of the parish of Allhallows, Bread Street, London. The baptisms of his twelve children between the years 1583 and 1599 are recorded in the register of that parish church, where also we read: “Mr. Lawerence Waldoe of this parish, grocer, departed his life in this world the 26th day of July 1602, and was buried in the church chancel the 2d of August then following.” The above spelling of his name is unique; it is evident from other entries that the true spelling was Waldo.

His twelfth child was Daniel, baptized 19th June 1599, citizen and cloth-worker, who died in 1661. From this Daniel Waldo and Anne Claxton, his wife, the persons of whom I have to speak descended.

Mrs. Waldo’s father, Mr. Claxton, was a proprietor in Harrow-on-the-Hill, and thus the Waldo family took root in that classical region. Mr. and Mrs. Waldo’s eldest son was named Daniel, after his father, and we shall have occasion to mention his offspring. But as the second son attained the honour of knighthood, it will make this brief memoir more clear if we begin with him.

Sir Edward Waldo was born in the year 1632 and died in 1708 (new style); he had a splendid town mansion, which, on occasions of public pomp and civic pageantry, was the resort of members of the Royal family, and where he received the honour of knighthood from Charles II. on 29th October 1677. Sir Edward was married three times, and is represented in the female line through the descendants of his first wife (Elizabeth Potter, an heiress) by Calmady Pollexfen Hamlyn, Esq., and Vincent Pollexfen Calmady, Esq. By his third wife he had one daughter, Grace, whose first husband was Sir Nicholas Wolstenholme, Bart, and who was married secondly to the eighth Lord Hunsdon (she died on 9th May 1729).

In Harrow Church a marble monument stands, with this inscription:—

Here lyeth y^e body of
S^R EDWARD WALDO, knight,
a kind and faithful husband, a tender and provident father,
a constant and hearty friend, a regular and sincere Christian,
eminently distinguished by an uninterrupt’d course of
charity and humility,
and not less so
by an inviolable fidelity in keeping sacred his word.
Universally esteem’d when alive
and lamented when dead.
To his pious Memory
Elizabeth, daughter of S^r. R^d. Shuckburgh,
of Shuckburgh in Warwickshire,
his third wife,
out of a dutiful affection erected this Marble Table.
He died the 4th of Feb. mdccvii — Aged lxxv.

Sir Edward’s elder brother was Daniel Waldo, of Gray’s Inn and of Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex, Esq. Daniel’s son, Rev. Peter Waldo, D.D. (born 1672, died 1746), rector of Aston Clinton, Bucks, married, in Westminster Abbey in 1713, Emma, daughter of Theophilus Leigh, Esq., by Mary, daughter of the eighth Lord Chandos. Rev. Dr. Waldo was lineally represented in Harrow until 1790. Mr. Daniel Waldo had a large family; his eighth child, Elizabeth, Lady Wiseman, is represented by Sir William Wiseman, of Canfield, Essex, ninth baronet; her husband was Sir Edward Wiseman, Knight, younger brother of the second baronet; but her great-grandson became the sixth baronet on the failure of the senior line. Peter Waldo, who signed the merchants’ loyal manifesto in 1744, was a son of Samuel (died 1698), a younger brother of Sir Edward; this Peter Waldo (born 1689, died 1762) was an author in defence of the Athanasian Creed, and was the father of another Peter Waldo (born 1723, died 1804), author of a Commentary on the Liturgy of the Church of England; this branch resided at Mitcham, in Surrey, and possessed some ancient oak carving, in which is cut out the name, Peter Waldo, 1575” [or 3?]. It is remarkable that “Waldo on the Liturgy” is introduced with an Epistle, dated 9th March 1772, dedicating the book to Charles Jenkinson, Esq., one of the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty’s Treasury, the eminent statesman in whose descendants the Waldo wealth seems to have accumulated. (This statesman, who eventually inherited the baronetcy of Hawkesbury, was in 1786 created Lord Hawkesbury, and in 1796 Earl of Liverpool.)

Another brother of Sir Edward was Mr. Timothy Waldo. The Historical Register introduces him and his branch of the family, beginning with his grandson, whose marriage is announced thus: “April 4, 1730. Timothy Waldo, Esq., one of the Solicitors of the Court of Chancery, and one of the Common Council for Broad Street Ward, son of Timothy Waldo, of St. Martin’s-in-the Fields, Gent, and grandson of Timothy Waldo, wholesale linen draper in Broad Street, was married to Miss Wakefield, only child of Mrs. Wakefield, of Cambridge Street, Soho. She was given in marriage by Mr. Isaac Waldo, of Stretham, and the ceremony was performed by Dr. Waldo, of Harrow-on-the-Hill.” Of course the Timothy last mentioned was Sir Edward’s brother. The Timothy first mentioned was Timothy the third; he was knighted on 12th April 1769, and became Sir Timothy Waldo, of Clapham (Surrey) and of Hever Castle (Kent); he died in 1786. His heiress was his daughter Jane, born in 1738, who was married in 1762^[2] to George Medley, Esq., M.P., but had no children; her husband died in 1797; she survived him for thirty-two years, and died on 14th December 1829, in her ninety-second year; her property was sworn under £180,000. We must now return to the first Earl of Liverpool; he died in 1808, and his titles were borne successively by his two sons, namely, by his first wife’s son, Sir Robert Bankes Jenkinson, Bart, second Earl of Liverpool (who died in 1828), and by the son of his second wife, Sir Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, Bart, third Earl of Liverpool (who died in 1851, aged sixty-seven). This third and last Earl of Liverpool had three daughters, and among them and their heirs the bulk of the Waldo money is settled, as I am informed. Their mother was Julia Evelyn Medley, daughter and heiress of Sir George Shuckburgh Evelyn, Bart. The eldest daughter, Lady Catherina, was married in 1837 to Colonel Francis Vernon Harcourt, ninth son of the Archbishop of York, and died in 1877; the second daughter, Lady Selina, was married, first, in 1833, to Viscount Milton, and is the mother of the Hon. Mrs. Portman; as Dowager Viscountess Milton she remarried in 1845 with George Savile Foljambe, Esq.; the third daughter, Lady Louisa, was married in 1839 to John Cotes, Esq., of Woodcote, and is the mother of Charles Cecil Cotes, Esq.

Although there are American Waldos with English descendants, the name of Waldo in connection with the Protestant refugee is preserved by the Sibthorp family only. Isaac Waldo, of London, brother of the first Peter, of Mitcham, had a daughter Sarah, wife of Humphrey Sibthorp, M.A., M.D., Fellow of Magdalene College, Oxford, and Sherardian Professor of Botany, to whom she was married on 20th September 1740, and who was succeeded in 1769 by his son Humphrey, who, like his sons, received military rank as an officer in the Royal South Lincolnshire Militia. Colonel Humphrey Sibthorp (born 1744, died 1815), M.P. for Boston, and afterwards for Lincoln, assumed in 1804 the surname and arms of Waldo in grateful remembrance of his kinsman, the second Peter Waldo, of Mitcham. His sons were Coningsby Waldo Waldo Sibthorp, Esq. (died 1822), M.P. for Lincoln, and Colonel Charles De Laet Waldo-Sibthorp (died 14th December 1855), “a favourite of the House of Commons for his humour and eccentricities,” who was M.P. for Lincoln for nearly thirty years; the latter was succeeded by his son, Major Gervaise Tottenham Waldo Sibthorp, who died in 1861, aged forty-six. A brother of Colonel Charles came into the possession of the Waldo mansion at Mitcham, the Rev. Humphrey Waldo Sibthorp.

*⁎* Although I have stated, on good authority, that it was in memory of the second Peter Waldo, of Mitcham, that Colonel Sibthorp assumed the name of Waldo, yet he must have intended respectful reference to his true ancestor in the female line, Isaac Waldo of London (the same whom the Historical Register, in 1730, styled Mr. Isaac Waldo, of Streatham). The armorial bearings of this good citizen, as well as the arms of his father-in-law, are engraved upon two ledger stones in the chancel of the church of Allhallows. Isaac Waldo married Sarah Chase, daughter of Mr. Richard Chase, citizen and grocer of London, by Sarah, his wife; and (as already stated) Isaac’s daughter, Sarah Waldo, was married to Professor Sibthorp in 1740. Her own baptism had been registered in her parents’ parish church of Allhallows thus:— “1711, March 6, Sarah, da. of Isaac and Sarah Waldo;” and the baptism of her eldest child may be seen in the same register: “1741, July 23, Sarah, daughter of Humphrey and Sarah Sibthorp, of the city of Lincoln.” Isaac Waldo seems to have had ten children, of whom Mrs. Sibthorp was the only survivor; certainly, eight children predeceased him, viz., two Daniels, Ann, Peter, two Elizabeths, Edward, and Isaac. Most of these died in childhood, but young Isaac died in his seventeenth year in 1731. The second Daniel was buried in Allhallows Church on 1st May 1740, having died in his twenty-fourth year; on him there is this affecting epitaph:—

Here also lieth y^e Body of Mr. Daniel Waldo,
son of y^e said Mr. Isaac and Mrs. Sarah Waldo,
who died in y^e 24th year of his age, a young
Man of great Hope and Student in Phisic
of University College, in Oxford
Heu!
Vitse vetans
spem inchoare longam.

There is a chalice in the church, on which is this inscription:—

This was given by Mr. Isaac
Waldo, of Allhallows,
Bread Street, in the year
1727, for the use of Sick
Persons of that Parish, and
also that of St. John’s
the Evangelist.

1. I am very much indebted to the privately printed pamphlets of Morris Charles Jones, Esq., and Coningsby Sibthorp, Esq.
2. I find the marriage in a newspaper of the day:— “1762, Nov. 5. George Medley, Esq., of Buxted Place, in Sussex, to the only daughter of Timothy Waldo, Esq., of Clapham.”