Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/176

 HORNBY OF POULTON.

The Hornbys, of Poulton, were descended from Hugh Hornby, of Singleton, who died about 1638, after having so far impoverished himself during the civil wars as to be obliged to dispose of his estate at Bankfield, inherited from his sister, and purchased from him by the Harrisons. Geoffrey Hornby, the son of this gentleman, practised very successfully as a solicitor in Preston, and probably was the first to acquire property in Poulton. Edmund Hornby, his eldest son, of Poulton, where he also practised as a solicitor, and Scale Hall, married Dorothy, the daughter of Geoffrey Rishton, of Antley, in Lancashire, Member of Parliament for Preston, and had issue—Geoffrey, George, and Anne. George, the second son, went into holy orders, became rector of Whittingham, and subsequently died without surviving offspring. Anne Hornby married Edmund Cole, of Beaumont Cote, near Lancaster; and Geoffrey Hornby, who inherited the Poulton property, as well as Scale Hall, espoused Susannah, the daughter and heiress of Edward Sherdley, of Kirkham, gentleman, by whom he had issue—Edmund and Geoffrey, the latter dying unmarried in 1801. Geoffrey Hornby, who died in 1732, was buried in Poulton church, being succeeded by his son Edmund, who came into the possessions at Poulton and Scale. Edmund Hornby, born in 1728, married Margaret, the daughter of John Winckley, of Brockholes, and had issue one son, Geoffrey, and three daughters. At his decease, in 1766, the estates descended to his only son and heir, Geoffrey, born at Layton Hall in 1750, who, after being High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1774, and for some time colonel of a Lancashire regiment of militia, entered the church and became rector of Winwick. The Rev. Geoffrey Hornby espoused the Hon. Lucy Smith Stanley, daughter of Lord Strange, and sister of the twelfth earl of Derby, and had issue; but the departure of this representative of the family from the homes of his fathers severed the close connection between the town of Poulton and the name of Hornby, after an existence of about a century.

HORNBY OF RIBBY HALL.

Richard Hornby, of Newton, who was born in 1613, married Elizabeth, the daughter of Christopher Walmsley, of Elston, and