Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/322

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. x. OCT. 17, 1914.

SIR JOHN LADE (11 S. x. 269). The death of Lsetitia, Lady Lade, is announced in The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xcv. pt. i. p. 477 :

" Surrey, May 5 [1825]. At the Hithe, Egham, the lady of Sir John Lade, fourth baronet of Warbleton, Sussex. Before her marriage she was Mrs. Smith : by Sir John she had no issue."

The obituary notice of Sir John Lade will be found in the same magazine, vol. ix. (New Series), p. 656. He died at Egham on 10 Feb., 1838, in his eightieth year. The account in The Gent. Mag. tells us :

"Sir John Lade was in ward to his uncle Mr. Thrale, of Sfcreatham, and in consequence was frequently when a boy brought under the notice of the great Dr. Johnson. The wildness of his charac- ter had already, in fact, manifested itself, and it forms the occasion of many of Johnson's reflec- tions on education, marriage, and morals, recounted by his biographers. On one of these Mr. Crcker has appendea this note : ' This young heir was the well-known Sir John Lade, and Dr. Johnson's sagacity had, no doubt, detected in him a dis- position to that profusion for which he was after- wards so remarkable. He entered eagerly into all the follies of the day : was a remarkable whip, and

married awoman of the town.' By Mrs. Smith,

the person whom he married, and who died in 1825, Sir John Lade had no issue, and the baronetcy has become vacant."

Vide also Burke's 'Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies,' p. 296.

I have not discovered the register of Sir John Lade's marriage, but the para- graphs in contemporary newspapers seem to show that it took place in 1787. On 15 Nov. of this year The World refers to Sir John Lade and " his bride," and on 23 Nov. makes the following statement : " Sir John Lade, having married Mrs. Smith, has very naturally disposed of hi? grey horses." On the other hand, a para- graph in The Morning Herald of 5 June 1781, hints that the marriage had already taken place.

Previously, according to the journalists Mrs. Smith had been on intimate term? with the Duke of York, brother of the Prince of Wales. Her portrait, painted by Sir Joshua Keynolds in 1785, is mentionec in Leslie and Taylor's ' Life of Reynolds, ii. 472, and in Sir Walter Armstrong'. 'Reynolds' (popular edition), p. 172. There is a long account of her in ' The Female Jockey Club,' by Charles Pigott, and an other in Robert Huish's 'Memoirs of Georg the Fourth,' i. 141. In ' Rodney Stone Sir Arthur Conan Doyle makes one of the characters refer to her as " little Letty,' but G. W. M. Reynolds, who introduced lie into his despicable romance ' The Mysterie

f the Court of London,' represented h- n Amazon. Tradition credits her with laving been the mistress of John Rann.the amous highwayman ; and in a contem- orary pamphlet entitled ' A Genuine Account of the Life of John Rann, Sixteen-String Jack ' (1774), his ch'jre > Vliss Smith, is said to have been " rather above the middle size " (p. 29).

In the description of Sir John Lade, under he sobriquet of " The Libertine Lad,"' in n he Town and Country Magazine for October. .778 (vol. x. p. 514), she is not mentioned, nd the newspapers do not begin to speak >f her until the year 1780 or 1781, when she is referred to as Mrs. " Osnaburgh " Smith or the " Episcopal White " Smith, n consequence of her connexion with the )uke of York, who was Bishop of Osna- jriick in Prussia. Her niece Charlotte oulding married Richaid, Earl of Bany- more, in June, 1792.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

Sir John Lade, nicknamed " Jehu," was 3orn in 1759. He was one of the Prince of Wales's set, and famous for his skill as a " whip." His wife was popularly supposed to have been the mistress of Jack Rann the highwayman, better known as " Sixteen - String Jack," a position for which she would seem to have been eminently fitted, both by her manners and her morals. Like most of his set, Sir John ran through his fortune, but survived until 1838. His wife died in 1825. See ' The Beaux of the Regency/ by Lewis Melville (London, Hutchinson & Co., 1908). T. F. D.

I am sorry that I cannot give the dates of death of Sir John and Lady Lade of un- savoury fame. But the following particu- lars, if not known to your correspondent, may have some interest for him. Hors- field, in his ' History of Sussex,' in deseiib- ing the church of Warbleton, writes :

" In the north aisle is a very sumptuous monu- ment of variegated marbles, and a bust in the- centre, admirably executed. Beneath is a long inscription to the memory of Sir John Lade, of St. Saviour's, Southwark, 5th son of Thomas Lade, of Warbleton, lieutenant of the City of London,' &c.

He died xinmarried in 1740, aged 78, and left the bulk of his estate to the _ son of his eldest brother, John Inskipp, who assumed the name of Lade, and was created a baronet in 1758. Was this latter father of the notorious baronet described in ' Rodnev Stone,' " who was born in 1759 " E. L. H. TEW.