Borlase family

thumb|upright=1.25|Pendeen House, acquired by John Borlase in 1637 and one of the principal seats of the western branch of the family.

The Borlase family is an Cornish family whose principal branches were historically associated with St Wenn, St Newlyn East, Sithney, Pendeen and Madron in Cornwall, and with Little Marlow and Medmenham in Buckinghamshire. By the sixteenth century the family had divided into several branches. The senior Cornish line became established at Treludderow in St Newlyn East; a branch descended from Edward Borlase acquired Little Marlow and Bockmer in Buckinghamshire; another descended from Edmund Borlase became associated with Ireland and Chester; and a younger Cornish branch passed through Trannack in Sithney to Pendeen in west Cornwall.

The Pendeen branch produced the antiquary, naturalist and geologist William Borlase (1696–1772), the Cambridge academic George Borlase (1743–1809), the physician John Bingham Borlase (1753–1813), Admiral John Borlase (1811–1895) and the antiquary and politician William Copeland Borlase (1848–1899). The Buckinghamshire branch produced several members of parliament and the Borlase baronets of Bockmer, and through a female line was ancestral to Admiral John Borlase Warren (1753–1822).

The family's traditional genealogy carried its ancestry further back to the French Taillefer family and the counts of Angoulême. That descent was repeated by nineteenth-century writers including Charles Sandoe Gilbert, but William Copeland Borlase later expressly stated that he did not vouch for the historical accuracy of the French portion of the pedigree. His reconstruction regarded the descent as capable of documentary proof only from a William Frank Taillefer associated with Borlas Frank Taillefer in St Wenn in the later thirteenth century.

Origins and genealogical tradition

The nineteenth-century accounts of the family by Charles Sandoe Gilbert and William Copeland Borlase related a tradition that the Cornish Borlases descended from the Taillefers of Périgord and Angoulême. William Copeland Borlase initially discussed this material at length, drawing upon French genealogical works and attempting to connect the family's distinctive heraldry with the name Taillefer, literally "cut iron". In the corrigenda to the same volume, however, he emphasised that the French narrative had been summarised from older authorities and that he did not guarantee its historical accuracy. P. A. S. Pool likewise presented the Taillefer descent as a claim made by the family rather than as the secure starting point of the pedigree.

For that reason the supposed continental descent is not included as a proved part of the genealogy below. William Copeland Borlase instead identified a William Frank Taillefer of Borlas Frank Taillefer, in the parish of St Wenn, as the point from which he considered the pedigree to be supported by documentary evidence.

Documented medieval descent

The generation numbers in the following tables are editorial, beginning with William Frank Taillefer; they are not numbering used by the original sources.

Heraldry

thumb|upright=1.05|Arms of Admiral John Borlase Warren, quartering Warren with the inherited Borlase arms. The Borlase quarter contains the family's characteristic arms and hands breaking a horseshoe.

The distinctive arms of the Borlase family were recorded by William Copeland Borlase in the form in which he found them in a manuscript of the early reign of Henry VIII. The shield was ermine, with a black bend bearing two clothed arms and hands issuing from clouds and breaking a golden horseshoe. Borlase noted variant details in surviving versions of the coat but treated the hands breaking iron as its defining feature.

William Copeland Borlase attempted to interpret the arms as a rebus on the supposed ancestral name Taillefer, connecting the image of breaking or cutting iron with the meaning he attributed to that name. Because his proposed continental pedigree is itself uncertain, this interpretation should be treated as part of his heraldic and genealogical theory rather than independent proof of French descent.

A manuscript pedigree described by William Copeland Borlase recorded an eight-quarter achievement associated with the Treludderow family: Borlase; Moyle; Trevenard; Kingdon; Boscawen; a red shield with a silver bull, whose attribution was itself disputed; Beare; and Borlase. Borlase reported that the manuscript tradition ascribed the achievement to an otherwise traditional Sir Walter Borlase of the time of Edward IV, but he explicitly described that attribution as no more than tradition.

Charles Sandoe Gilbert's 1820 heraldic account similarly illustrated the Borlase arms and stated that the family claimed quarterings of Moyle, Trevennard, Kingdom, Boscawen and a coat of a silver bull on red. Gilbert is useful for the heraldic tradition, although his accompanying genealogy requires greater caution because of his conflation of the Irish Sir John Borlase with the Buckinghamshire baronet.

Genealogical sources and reliability

The family genealogy has been reconstructed from sources of differing dates and reliability. The earliest detailed printed account used here is that of Charles Sandoe Gilbert in the second volume of his Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall (1820). Gilbert preserved useful heraldic and genealogical information but made demonstrable errors, most notably combining the Irish Lord Justice Sir John Borlase with Sir John Borlase of the Buckinghamshire branch.

The most extensive nineteenth-century study was prepared by William Copeland Borlase and published in four instalments of The Genealogist between 1885 and 1889. Borlase drew on deeds, wills, parish registers, heraldic visitations, College of Arms material and family manuscripts. He also corrected several features of earlier pedigrees, including the placement of Edward Borlase as Walter of Treludderow's brother rather than son. His willingness to qualify his own reconstruction is important: the corrigenda to the 1885 volume specifically withdraws any guarantee of the historical accuracy of the supposed French Taillefer ancestry.

P. A. S. Pool's 1986 biography of William Borlase provides a later synthesis of the Cornish branches and includes three genealogical tables. Pool cautions that the tables do not necessarily include every child or collateral descendant, with the exception of the children and grandchildren of William Borlase shown in his third table. Consequently, absence from the tables should not in itself be taken as proof that a person left no other issue.

For the Irish branch, the modern Dictionary of Irish Biography has been preferred for the dates and status of Sir John and Edmund Borlase where it differs from older family genealogy. For John Borlase of Pendeen, the biographical dates given by the History of Parliament have likewise been preferred to the slightly different dates printed in Pool's pedigree.

Family tree

The following charts bring together the documented medieval stem with the principal later branches at Treludderow, in Ireland and Chester, at Pendeen and Castle Horneck, and in Buckinghamshire. The medieval stem follows William Copeland Borlase's documentary reconstruction rather than the traditional, unproved continental Taillefer pedigree. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century divisions follow Borlase's later instalments and Pool's synthesis. Pool's three genealogical tables are used for the Pendeen, Castle Horneck and Ludgvan descendants; Pool cautioned that his tables do not necessarily show every child or collateral descendant, except for the children and grandchildren of William Borlase in his third table.

For the Irish branch, modern biographical dates are used where they differ from the older family genealogy. The Dictionary of Irish Biography describes Sir John as probably Edmund's son; the chart follows the family pedigree, but that parentage should be read with this qualification. The dates of John Borlase of Pendeen are those used by the History of Parliament.

Documented stem

The division between Walter and Edward is important: Pool explicitly corrected the older family tradition which had made Edward a son of Walter; Edward was Walter's younger brother.

Treludderow, Irish and Pendeen branches

Walter of Treludderow had several children. The three lines expanded below are the senior Treludderow line through John, the Irish/Chester line through Edmund, and the western Cornish line through Walter of Trannack. William Copeland Borlase also names James (who succeeded at Treludderow and died in 1569), William, Francis, Elizabeth and Margaret among Walter's issue.

The senior Treludderow estate passed through two successive Nicholases to Humphrey Borlase, who died without issue in 1709. The Trannack–Pendeen line became the principal surviving Cornish branch and remained in the Land's End peninsula for more than three centuries.

Pool records seven other children of John Borlase (1643–1693) and Mary Keigwin besides John of Pendeen: Richard (1668–1711), Mary (1669–1759), Margery (born 1673), William (1674–1695), Nicholas (born 1678), Catherine (born 1682) and George (born 1684). Mary Borlase's second marriage to Henry Pendarves produced Margaret Pendarves (1701–1743), who married her first cousin Walter Borlase (1694–1776), thereby reconnecting two lines descending from John and Mary Borlase.

Buckinghamshire branch and the Warren descent

The Buckinghamshire branch descended from Edward Borlase, younger brother of Walter of Treludderow. Edward's son John established the family at Little Marlow and Medmenham; later generations produced MPs, two successive Sir William Borlases and the Borlase baronets of Bockmer.

Sir John, 1st Baronet, also had a daughter Anne Borlase, who married Arthur Warren. Their descendants inherited Borlase property after the death without issue of the 2nd Baronet, and the Borlase name was retained as a forename in the Warren family.

Pendeen branch in the eighteenth century

John Borlase of Pendeen (1667–1754) and Lydia Harris had a large family. Pool's table shows Lydia, Walter, William, George, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, John and Christopher. The three sons whose descendants are most important to the later genealogy are shown below.

The Penneck family created two further links between the collateral descendants. John and Lydia Borlase's daughter Lydia (born 1692) married Charles Penneck; their son John Penneck and his wife Ann Wroughton were parents of Catherine Penneck, who married William Borlase (1741–1812), and Anne Penneck, who married John Bingham Borlase (1753–1813).

Castle Horneck line

Walter Borlase and Margaret Pendarves had fourteen children recorded in Pool's table. The lines expanded here are Catherine, through whom descendants of the Tremenheere family later held Pendeen; William, whose daughter Anne connected the Castle Horneck line back into the descendants of William Borlase of Ludgvan; and the Cambridge academic George Borlase.

Catherine's son Walter Tremenheere was father of Hugh Seymour Tremenheere (1804–1893); Pool noted that descendants of this Tremenheere line later owned Pendeen after the failure of the male estate line. Anne Borlase's daughter Lydia Peters (born 1828) married John Borlase (1829–1889), a descendant of William Borlase of Ludgvan, in 1855.

Penzance medical line

George Borlase (1697–1769), younger brother of Walter and William, left numerous descendants. His grandson John Bingham Borlase became a Penzance physician and in 1798 released the young Humphry Davy from his apprenticeship so that Davy could take a post in Bristol.

Ludgvan line and later Castle Horneck heirs

William Borlase and Anne Smith had six sons recorded by Pool: William (1726–1756), John (1727–1801), Walter (1728–1730), Christopher (1729–1750), George (1731–1775) and a second Walter, born and died in 1732. Only John left the line of descendants shown below. John and Anne Rowe's children were John (1758–1763), Mary (born 1760), William (born 1761, disappeared in 1786), Lydia (born 1764), Ann (1766–1829), John (1768–1813), and the twins Elizabeth and Caroline (born 1769, Caroline dying in infancy).

Samuel Borlase married first Caroline Wymond and secondly Mary Anne Copeland. His elder son John continued the Castle Horneck estate line, while his son by the second marriage was the antiquary and politician William Copeland Borlase.

Pool described Lydia Harris and Caroline Anne as the last Borlases of Castle Horneck. With them the descent from William Borlase of Ludgvan failed in that estate line, while Pendeen itself remained with descendants of Walter Borlase's daughter Catherine through the Tremenheere family.

See also

• Borlase
• Borlase baronets
• Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
• Pendeen House
• Castle Horneck

Sources