Countering "The Great Carrington Imposture"

[Chris Smith]

Hello group,

On the advise of Andrew Lancaster[1], I am posting here to invite you to examine my critique of "The Great Carrington Imposture" by John Horace Round[2]. He cites, heavily, from a book by Dr. W A Copinger[3].

My work, in two parts, can be found here, on my personal blog:

https://smithgenealogy.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/countering-the-great-carrington-imposture/

https://smithgenealogy.wordpress.com/2022/06/11/countering-the-the-great-carrington-imposture-part-dux/

I am currently waiting for my copy of "Old Cheshire families and their seats" by Lionel M. Angus-Butterworth[4] to arrive from England. It is currently a copyright controlled work, so much of it's content is not freely available online.

I've not undertaken this work for any professional reasons. I have only sought to explore a story which is in proximity to my genealogical research.

There are places where I can add sources, but I have done my best to provide accurate citations where possible.

Thanks in advance for any interest.

Chris

tl;dr

Round attempts to bear the weight of the (self-resolved) issue of the pedigree of Smiths of Boulcott Lodge on the matter of the pedigree of Richard Smith-Carington.

While the visitation records are sufficient to dis-prove any connection between the Smiths of Boulcott Lodge to the Smiths of Rivenhall, Round is unable to find any information that would either prove or disprove the pedigree of Richard Smith-Carington.

In short, Round is making a conclusion about the parentage of Robert Smith of A[l]sworth, Notts. without sufficient evidence. Further, William George Dimock Fletcher does claim, with details, to have sources for Robert Smith’s family connections to the Smiths of Ashby Folville.

Further, Round places an invalid amount of weight on the fact that Sir John Smith, Baron to the Exchequer, used a different coat of arms than his ancestors. Per the College of Arms, the existence of a hereditary right to ancestral arms to does not prevent a man from being issued new arms that are completely different from his ancestors.

Round appears to have missed a lot of information and should not have used coats of arms to dis/prove any pedigree.

While Round does cite sources in some cases, please refrain from citing Round's conclusions in a critique of my work. Cyclic referencing gets us no where.


[1] - https://isogg.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Lancaster
[2] - https://archive.org/details/cu31924102029414/page/134/mode/2up
[3] - https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/493069-redirection
[4] - https://www.worldcat.org/title/old-cheshire-families-their-seats/oclc/221465

[lancast...@gmail.com]

Hi Chris, I see there is no other response. I think this will only be interesting to this list if we home in on specific source-based arguments. I'll try. I think we can focus on this: "Round places an invalid amount of weight on the fact that Sir John Smith, Baron to the Exchequer, used a different coat of arms than his ancestors."

I'll explain it in different words: The first of these Essex Smiths to request arms claimed new arms and showed no indication of seeing himself as descended from the Carringtons in Cheshire, let alone being in the male line of William the conqueror. It is only a few generations later that his descendants supposedly discovered evidence of this. I think you have to admit that this is a bit of a red flag, but I agree it is not absolute proof of anything. I suppose that for every 100 gentry families in the 16th century who discovered miraculous pedigrees, 1 or 2 might have been telling the truth.

However, I actually think you misstate Round's argument a bit. What he repeats over and over is that what is needed is proof of some kind which confirms that the pedigree is possible and likely. The onus is on those who want to argue for anything. This is his normal method. Instead, the Smith-Carrington pedigree itself is impossible to confirm or even match-up with the medieval records we have. I think it is therefore on medieval evidence that you need to focus. As Round points out, the only document the Smiths brought in to prove their case is written in a bad imitation of medieval English and is clearly fake, so to him that was the biggest red flag of all.

There is evidence Round did not consider, but it is also incompatible with the Carrington story. For example, I've shown in the past that the Smiths of Rivenhall and their neighbours the Lenhams were already gentry in the 14th century, before the Carrington story says that the alias Smith was invented. They appear in the 1377 poll tax records for example. The Smith connection via the Lenhams to the wealthy mayor John Hende was also real, as shown by later inheritance disputes.

Honestly I think that the Carrington discussion distracts everyone (including Round) from studying the real medieval records of an interesting gentry family in the region near London. In any case, whether we want to prove anything in particular or not, I'm a proponent of looking at this question more from the standpoint of medieval documents.

[David Lewis]

Chris, I know we have corresponded via email on this subject, but for completeness for this thread I will add the following.

The pedigree drawn up by Richard Smith-Carington of Ashby Folville (and published by W. A. Copinger, a Suffolk law professor and genealogist in 1907) uses a certain Richard Smith - supposedly the son of William Smith and Hannah (née Cox) of Beeston - to link his family to the Essex Smiths, one of whom previously held the manor of Ashby Folville. William and Hannah Smith are my 4x great grandparents and in a book (published in 1629), which travelled with their youngest son and now in possession of a cousin of mine, are handwritten notes recording dates of birth, marriages etc., of many Smith family members including my more recent ancestors. All the births of the issue of William and Hannah are dutifully recorded by hand as follows:

[...] of William and Hannay [sic] Smith was born September ye 10 in 1739
John Smith Son of William and Hannay Smith was born February ye 23 in 1741
William Smith Son of William and Hannay was born September 19 in 1744
Hannay Smith dowter [sic] of William and Hannay Smith was Born February 27 in 1747
Ann Smith dowter of William and Hannay Smith was Born November 11 in 1749
George Smith Son of William and Hannay Smith was Born April 26 in 1752
Edward Smith Son of William and Hannay Smith was Born July 20 in 1754
Mary Smith dowter of William and Hannay Smith was Born July ye 20 in 1754

The first entry is partially mutilated but I can confirm it refers to a daughter called Sarah. All were baptised at St John the Baptist church in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. With no mention of a Richard Smith, this undoubtedly brings the Smith-Carington family pedigree into question. Furthermore, neither Reade, Copinger, Round, et-al. would have had access to the aforementioned book.