| Notes |
- --- "The Gentleman's Magazine" Vol. 63, 1788, page 698-702:
Matthew Gibbon (third son of the second wife) was baptised at Westcliffe, Feb. 23, 1642, and was brought up to Merchandise in London, by which he acquired a handsome fortune, and left issue, Edward Gibbon, esq., a South Sea Director, etc.
--- "The Gentleman's Magazine" Vol. 82, 1797, page1107:
XIII. Matthew Gibbon, thus entered in Westcliffe register: "Matthew, the son of Thomas Gibbon and Alice, baptized Feb. 23, 1642." He was a linen-draper, in Leadenhall-street. He had some concern, or property, in the estate at Westcliffe; for I find, amongst the papers of his nephew, Mr. John Coppin, who was a lawyer, the following notes: "Laid out for my uncle, Matthew Gibbon, to Jan. 6, 1675. -- Notice to Mr. Master -- Horse-hire to Westcliffe, when the seizure was made -- Messenger to Westcliffe, to deliver the letter to Mr. Master."
His widow, whom the Historian calls "an active and notable woman," re-married Richard Acton, goldsmith, whom she also survived, as Mrs. Bradford calls her widow. Her maiden name I have not discovered. Matthew Gibbon was dead on Sept. 14, 1709; for, by a deed of that date, between "Philip Gibbon, of London, gent. and Deborah Bradford, of the same, widow, only surviving issue of Thomas Gibbon, late of Westcliffe, in the county of Kent, by Alice, his wife, who was sister to Dame Jane Maynard," of the one part; and John Bridges, of Gray's Inn, esq. on the other part; after reciting, that, according to a settlement by Lady Maynard, an estate in Romney-Marsh was, upon the death of James Codd, without issue, descended to the said Philip, and Mrs. Bradford, as the only living children of Thomas Gibbon and Alice; the said Mr. P. Gibbon, and Mrs. Bradford, release all their right to Mr. Brydges, who had married their niece, Jane Gibbon. Mr. Matthew Gibbon had issue, by Hesther, his wife, one daughter, Hesther, married to Oliver Elliston, of St. Paul's church-yard, stationer . . . and two sons, of whom Thomas, the younger [sic], was afterwards dean of Carlisle; and Edward, the eldest . . . was a contractor for cloathing King William's army in Flanders, afterwards a commissioner of the customs, and a South Sea Director. . . . He died at Putney, Dec. 25, 1736, and his name is recorded in the Gent. Mag. Vol. VI p. 749, the name being, by mistake, printed Gibson.
--- "Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794" by D.M. Low, 1937, page 8-9:
Gibbon tells us that whereas his grandfather had received his education in the rough school of affairs he prepared his son for the considerable fortune which should come to him by sending him to Westminster, where he might become an elegant scholar and would certainly mingle with the highest ranks of society. It would be wrong, however, to infer for this that Edward Gibbon the first was a man of no education or too humble a position. For the greater part of his life Gibbon was remarkable ignorant and indifferent about his family history, and confesses that for all he knew his grandfather might have been a cottager's son or a foundling. The truth of the matter was very different.
Matthew Gibbon, the historian's great-grandfather, was the son of a landowner at Westcliffe in Kent, whose grandfather had bought the property in Queen Elizabeth's reign. The family was believed to have been well established in the Weald of Kent long before that, and it is therefore possible that Gibbon my after all be descended from the Gibbons of Rolvenden, though not by the line which he claims in his Autobiography.
Mattew was one of several children, and coming to London in the second half of the seventeenth century, is said to have made a fortune as a linen-draper in Leadenhall. At the age of twenty-five he married Hester Abrahall of All Hallows, Barking. Of his five children the two daughters made good marriages and one son, Thomas, went from St. Paul's School to St. John's, Cambridge, and became Dean of Carlisle. It is not improbable that Edward also went to St. Paul's.*
*Gardiner, "Register of St. Paul's School", gives an Edward Gibbon who was at the school under Dr. Gile, i.e. 1672-97, and was a Steward of the Feast in 1701. There was another son, Matthew, who was 'not right in his head'. Gibbon appears aware of only two sons and one daughter. He does not seem to know that his aunt Catherine married her first cousin, since Edward Elliston's mother was Matthew's daughter, Hester.
--- "Notes and Queries" 01 Sep 1951, page 391:
Gibbon Family: Portrait. -- On December 11th 1909, a number of portraits of the Gibbon family, the property of the then Lord Sheffield, were sold at Christie's. They were bought by various dealers and since then, all trace of most of them seems to have been lost.
I am preparing an edition of the letters of Edward Gibbon, and as some of the portraits would make very interesting illustrations to the book, I should be very grateful if any of your readers could give me any information as to the present whereabouts of the following: the numbers attached to each item are taken from Christie's catalogue of the sale on December 11th, 1909:
60. Edward Gibbon in a blue coat and buff vest. Bought Parsons.
61. Mrs. Edward Gibbon in a in a blue and white dress. Bought Sutton.
87. Edward Gibbon in brown dress with white cravat. By T. Hudson. Bought Agnew.
88. Mrs. Edward Gibbon holding a lamb. By T. Hudson. Bought Leggatt.
124. Matthew Gibbon in a yellow gown. By R. Wignall. Bought T. Permain.
signed, Miss J.E. Norton
--- "The Gentleman's Magazine" July 1789, Vol. 59, Part 2, page 585- :
June 22.
Mr. Urban,
As you did me the honour to insert, vol. LVIII. p. 698, the account I sent you of the families of Gibbon and Yorke, I now send you a few additions, which I then either forgot or did not know . . .
Alice (wife of Thomas Gibbon, esq.) the great-grandmother of the Historian, must have been dead in 1651; for then her husband was married again to Mary, daughter of Robert Osborne, of Hartlip, gent. and, having given up his mansion at Westcliffe to his eldest son, retired to her estate at Hartlip. The said Alice was one of the daughters of Cheney Selherst, of Tenterden, esq. Her sister Jane married, 1st Edward Austen, esq.* and afterwards Sir John Maynard, of Gubbersbury, knt. appointed one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal (not Lord Keeper), March 2, 1688. He survived her many years, for she died, March 28, 1688**; he, at Gunnersbury, Oct. 9, 1690.
Edward Gibbon, esq. first husband of the mother of the Chancellor, died about 1677, and was buried in the church of Greenwich, Kent. She could have been married to him but a short time, for his first wife did not die till 1674. However, she had a son by him of the name of Philip (who died a youth), half brother both to Mrs. Brydges and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. The latter, the issue of her second husband, was born 1690.
Matthew Gibbon, the Historian's grandfather, seems himself to have had some share in the estate at Westcliffe, which I can no otherwise account for, than by supposing his father died intestate, and that he took his part in the estates as co-heir by gavelkind.
. . . Matthew Gibbon had a handsome house at Putney, the same (I have been told) which afterwards belonged to Mr. Wood, who published the Ruins of Palmyra, and which his widow lately pulled down. The family have a vault in the church there.
I shall now throw together a series of dates, &c. collected from various volumes of your useful Magazine ---
. . . "Phylip Gibbon, M.P. for Rye, in Sussex, died Mar. 12, 1762. He sat in eleven parliaments." Gent. Mag. for that year; and see vol. LVIII p. 834.
In the Bibliotheca Topographica, No. XLV I find the following epitaph, which, that I may throw all that regards this family together, I here transcribe, though it does not seem perfectly to agree with the account given by Philpot, in Vill. Cant. p. 196.
Inscription on a brass plate in the possession of John Beardsworth, esq. of the Hole, in Rolvenden, Kent, and taken from that church:
Here resteth Robert Gibbon, sonne and Heire of Thomas, sonne and heirs of Gibbon Sackford, lineally and lawfully Descended from the familys of Sackford Hall in Suffolke, and Clan Gibbon*** in Ireland. Ob. XIII die Junii, anno D'ni MDCXVIII.
* Elder brother to the ancestor of the baronets of that name.
** She had no issue by either husband -- Sir John must, therefore, have had another wife, for he left at least a son and daughter. The latter married Sir Duncombe Colchester, of Westbury, in the county of Gloucester, knt. The former Joseph Maynard, of Gunnersbury, esq. left two co-heirs, of whom Mary was second wife of Thomas Grey, second Earl of Stamford, though S.P. Gunnersbury, built by Inigo Jones, afterwards belonged to Mr. Furnese, of whose family it was bought for the late Princess Amelia. -- Lady Maynard devised (according to a power reserved in her marriage settlements) her estates to the issue of her two sisters successively in tail, among which were 200 acres of marsh land in Dimechurch, Joychurch, and Medley, subject to an annuity of £40 per annum to Merchant-Taylers school, which now continues to be paid by the family.
*** Camden in Britannia, p. 984, ed. 1694, under Limerick in Ireland, says, "Near Adare stands Clan Gibbon, the lord whereof, John Fitzgerald, called John Oge Fitz John, Fitz Gibbon, and, from the grey hair of his head, the White Knight, was banished by act of parliament: but, by the clemency of Q. Elizabeth, his son was restored to his whole estate."
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1642 - Bef 1698 (~ 56 years)
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