OLD ENGLISH FAMILIES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 31 January 1936, Page 2

OLD ENGLISH FAMILIES

MANY HAVE DISAPPEARED HOMES USED AS INSTITUTIONS LONDON, 4th January. Early this year will be published the results of the most remarkable list of old English families compiled' since'the war. The list has taken about five years to prepare. • The object has been to obtain an accurate record of the landed gentry who have survived the setbacks that have caused estates to be broken up in many parts of the country. In the last .16 or 20 years, it is. stated, nearly onequarter of. the untitled landed gentry of the nation have disappeared, and the great houses in which they lived are empty or have become institutions. The new volume of “Burke’s Landed Gentry” will be the first record of the landed gentry published for 16 years. Only six families of landed gentry survived within 20 miles of London, and only three in Middlesex. Middlesex was never a large enough county to have many landed gentry, but there were about 50 such, families there dial! a century ago. Nearly the whole of Middlesex now consists of sububrbs. Some of the landed gentry who used to be near London are to be found in distant counties, and many old families have changed their names. They have double, or treble, surnames, having ceased to use the original surnames' when they inherited property.