Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/203

 all, except his eldest surviving son Pierre, the ancestor of the English family, aliàs Sir Peter.

Pierre Delmé, junior, was baptized in the city of London French Church, Threadneedle Street, on 17th February 1667. The witnesses were his uncle, John Delmé, and Anne, wife of Joseph De la Motte, for whom the infant’s grandmother stood proxy. The next mention I find of him is in the will of that uncle, dated 1707. Mr. Peter Delmé was then forty years of age. Possessing an ample fortune, and not requiring any substantial legacy, he was ignored as a nephew, and was appointed one of his uncle’s executors as a “good friend” of the testator. In or about the year 1709 he married Anne, daughter of Cornelius Macham, of Southampton, and his eldest son and heir was born in 1710. Mr. Delmé proved his uncle’s will on 13th February 1712 (new style). He was bereaved of his young wife (aged twenty-six) on 1st January 1714 (n.s.). At this date he was a common council-man, and probably an alderman of the city of London. On March 13 he received a grant of arms from Queen Anne, namely, “Or an anchor erected Sab. between two lions passt. gardant in fess Gules. Crest: A lion passant Gules before an anchor Sab., wreath, and Sab.” George I. came to the throne on the following August 1; and on 23rd September 17 14, along with the Lord Mayor of London, Mr. Delmé, as alderman of Langbourn Ward, waited upon his Majesty, and received the honour of knighthood at St. James’s Palace. After a period of widowhood he married a second wife, Mary, daughter of William Fawkener, of London.

His civic career can be traced in the Historical Register. On 15th April 1717, Sir Peter Delmé, knight and alderman, was elected a Director of the Bank of England, and occupied his seat for ten years by annual re-election. On 24th June he was elected a Sheriff of London and Middlesex. In May 17 18 he became Lieutenant-General of the Artillery Company of London. In 1722 the Lord Mayoralty began to open to his view. “28th September. This day came on the election of a Lord Mayor of the city of London for the year ensuing. Sir Gerard Conyers and Sir Peter Delmé, the two aldermen next the chair, were declared to have a majority of hands in the Common Hall. But a poll was demanded and granted for Sir George Mertins and Sir Francis Forbes, which began on the 1st of October, and ended on the 3rd. The next day the Sheriffs declared that having cast up the poll, the majority of votes had fallen on Sir Gerard Conyers and Sir Peter Delmé, who were accordingly returned to the Court of Aldermen, who made choice of the former.” Domestic bereavement visited Delmé at two remarkable epochs of his life. His first wife was not destined to be Lady Delmé; his second wife was not to be a Lady-Mayoress. Lady Delmé died on 5th May 1723. On September 28 of that year the Court of Aldermen declared him Lord Mayor of London for the year ensuing, and he fulfilled his year of office. He died suddenly on 4th September 1728, in the sixty-second year of his age.

Sir Peter’s daughter, Anne, was married, in April 1735, to Sir Henry Liddell, Bart., M.P. for Morpeth, afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Ravensworth; her only child, Anne, was married in 1756 to Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton, and is ancestress of the succeeding line of dukes. The Duchess of Grafton’s second son was General Lord Charles Fitzroy, father of Vice-Admiral the Hon. Robert Fitzroy, M.P., the chief of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade.

Peter Delmé, eldest son and heir of Sir Peter Delmé, was born on 28th February 1710, and baptized in London at St. Gabriel’s, Fenchurch Street. He was styled “of Grosvenor Square,” and was M.P. for Luggershall, in Wiltshire, from 1734 to 1741, and for Southampton from 1741 to 1754. He married, first, in 1737, Anna Maria, daughter of Sir John Shaw, Bart., of Eltham (she died in 1740); and secondly, in 1741, Miss Christian Pain, also of Eltham, who was the mother of his children, two sons and two daughters. The elder son, John, of Erie Stoke, Wilts, died in 1768. Mr Delmé died 10th April 1770. His surviving son was Peter Delmé, Esq., M.P. for Morpeth, who was the squire of Titchfield Place (Hants), of Erie Stoke (Wilts), and of Canon Hill, Braywick (Berks). He was born on 19th December 1748, and married, on 16th February 1769, Lady Elizabeth Howard, “the beauty of the court of Queen Charlotte,” fifth daughter of the Earl of Carlisle. (This lady survived him, and re-married with Captain Charles Garnier, R.N.) This Mr. Delmé sold Erie Stoke, and bought Cams Hall; he died in 1789, in his forty -first year; he was the founder of two families.

His eldest son was John Delmé, Esq., of Cams Hall, near Fareham (Hants), born 25th July 1772; he married Frances, eldest daughter of George Garnier, Esq., of Wickham. His eldest son, John, died aged about twenty-one. His successor was the second son, Henry Peter Delmé, of Cams Hall, born 1793. He was an officer in