Transcript:Cokayne, George Edward. Complete Baronetage/List of Printed Baronetages

[volume 1, page xiii]

List of Printed Baronetages,(^xiii-a) previous to 1900.

[Note.—Those works which contain merely the existing holder of the dignity, with no account of his predecessors therein, are excluded. Such are the second (1819) and all later editions of Stockdale's Present Baronetage ; such also Dod's (most useful) Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, first issued in 1841, and, with three exceptions (1843, 1845 and 1847), continued annually to the present date, the vol. for 1900 being the fifty-seventh issue ; and such also, since 1840, Debrett's Baronetage, etc., of which the edition for this year (1900) is stated to be the “ ninety-second year.”]

A.D. 1720.—“ The Baronettage of England, etc., by Arthur Collins ” [the well known editor of Collins' Peerage]. 2 vols., 8vo. This work is incomplete, dealing only with the creations of James I, and containing but three-quarters or so of them, as it ends with Palmer, a creation of 29 June 1621. It, however, unlike any of its successors, comprises all the creations (whether existing or extinct) within the period of which it treats, save only those which were then (1720) merged in an English peerage, and of which its editor had accordingly treated in his Peerage. This work was re-issued in 1742, with (merely) a new title page.

1727.—“ The English Baronets,” etc. [edited by and] printed for Thomas Wotton.(^xiii-b) 3 vols., 12mo. ; comprising the then existing Baronetcies.

1741.—“ The English Baronetage, containing a genealogical and historical account of all the English Baronets now existing . . . [with] an account of such Nova Scotia Baronets as are of English families now resident in England ” [edited by and] printed for Thomas Wotton.(^xiii-b) 4 vols., (the third vol. being in two parts and usually bound in two vols.), 8vo. This is the same work, but greatly enlarged, as the one next above. Its editor, in the preface, acknowledges his obligations to “ Arthur Collins, Esq., the author of [page xiv] the Peerage of England.”(^xiv-a) [see above, under A.D. 1720.] This work, which contains numerous monumental inscriptions, etc., is still “ the fullest source of information upon many of the families which it commemorates.”

1769.—“ A New Baronetage of England, or a genealogical and historical account of the present English Baronets,” printed for J. Almon.(^xiv-b) 3 vols., 12mo.

1771.—“ The Baronetage of England containing a genealogical and historical account of all the English Baronets now existing,” etc., with “ an account of such Nova Scotia Baronets, as are of English families,” by E. Kimber and R. Johnson. 3 vols., 8vo. This is an abridgement of Wotton's valuable work (1741) which (in a meagre form) is here continued up to date.

1801–05.—“ The Baronetage of England or the history of English Baronets [i.e., of those then existing] and such Baronets of Scotland as are of English families, by the Rev. William Betham.(^xiv-c) 5 vols., 4to.

1804 to 1840.—In 1804 the work, well known afterwards as Debrett's Baronetage was first issued under the name of A New Baronetage of England, etc., “ printed for William Miller. 1 vol., 12mo. The second edition in 1808, and all subsequent ones were “ edited by John Debrett,” the third edition was in 1815, the fourth in 1819, the fifth (after Debrett's death) in 1824, and the sixth in 1828 ; all these being in 2 vols. 12mo. The seventh edition, greatly augmented, was edited by W. Courthope [afterwards, 1839–66, Rouge Croix Pursuivant and Somerset Herald] and published in 1835, in 1 vol., 8vo. ; the eighth edition, ed. by G. W. Collen [afterwards, 1841–78, Portcullis Pursuivant], was published in 1840, in the same form. After that date this work ceased to contain more than the notice of such members of the Baronetage and their collaterals as were then living.

1809–12.—British Family Antiquity, by William Playfair, of which (the first five vols. relating solely to the Peerage) vols. vi and vii contain the English Baronetage then existing ; vol. viii, The Baronetage of Scotland, and vol. ix, The Baronetage of Ireland.(^xiv-d) These all relate only to such dignities as were existing at that date. [page xv]

1827–1900.—In 1827 the work so well known as Burke's Peerage and Baronetage first appeared under the name of A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the United Kingdom for MDCCCXXVI, by “ John Burke, Esq.,” 8vo. It was claimed for this work, which “ inaugurated the encylopedic form in treating of our aristocratic genealogy,” that in it “ all the [existing] British hereditary dignities were then, for the first time, brought together and combined in one alphabetical arrangement ” [i.e., Baronetcies were for the first time intermingled alphabetically with peerages]. In the second edition (1828) “ the [existing] Baronets of Ireland and Nova Scotia, which [said the editor] are not to be found in any other book of reference,(^xv-a) are inserted. The fourth edition (1832) was (alone of all the series) in 2 vols., all subsequent editions being in one large vol. of increasing bulk, till in the sixty-first edition (1899) the number of pages amounted to (cxxxvi + 1848) 1984, and in the sixty-second edition (1900) to (clxvi + 1916), 2082. After the death of the first editor, John Burke (27 March 1848, aged 61) his son, the well known Sir John Bernard Burke, C.B., Ulster King of Arms (1853–92), who had been for some years joint editor with his father, continued the work with great success till his death (12 Dec. 1892, aged 80), when his sons succeeded him therein, the last (1900) edition, however, being edited by “ Ashworth P. Burke ” [alone]. This was of a yet larger size than the previous ones.

1880 to 1883.—“ The Baronetage and Knightage of the British Empire ” (as then existing), by Joseph Foster. 1 vol., 8vo. The first edition appeared (together with the Peerage) in 1880, and the last (pp. 786) in 1883. This work is chiefly remarkable for the “ Chaos ” [pp. 693–708], in which persons are placed “ claiming the dignity of Baronet, but regarding whose claims there does not appear to be accessible the primâ facie evidence, which would justify their inclusion among those whose titles are unquestioned.”

The above works, excepting the fragmentary one of 1720 (dealing only with creations during the first ten years of the existence of the dignity of a Baronet), deal only with Baronetcies then existing, but the two following, excluding the existing Baronetcies, deal with Baronetcies then extinct, viz.—

1835.—“ Synopsis of the Extinct Baronetage of England, containing the date of the creation with succession of Baronets and their respective marriages and time of death, by William Courthope, Esq., editor of the improved editions of Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage ” [and, afterwards, 1839–54, Rouge Croix Pursuivant, and, 1854–66, Somerset Herald]. Small 8vo., pp. (xii + 256) 358.

1838 is the date on the illuminated title page of The Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, by John Burke and John Bernard Burke.”(^xv-b) 1 vol., 8vo. A second edition (none has since been issued) of this most valuable work has on the title page the date of 1844, though the preface is dated “ July 1841.” At the end of it are added The Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of Ireland and Scotland, as also some “ addenda ” (pp. 509–604) and an unpaged “ supplement ” of four pages, of which last but twenty-five copies were printed.

Notes

(^xiii-a) See Herald and Genealogist, vol. ii, p. 353 ; also “ Catalogue of Works on the Peerage and Baronetage, etc., in the library of Chas. Geo. Young, York Herald [afterwards, 1820–42, Garter], mdcccxxvii.”

(^xiii-b) Wotton “ possessed the best materials which then existed, and even now exist for such a purpose—the collections made by Peter le Neve, Esq., Norroy ” [1704–27]. These, as far as they relate to the Baronetage, are now in the library of the College of Arms, and W. Courthope [Somerset Herald, 1854–66] had “ free access to them ” when compiling his Extinct Baronetage [1839], so that such Baronetcies as are not noticed by Wotton, from having been extinct before his period, are dealt with, by Courthope, in this work. See preface to Courthope's work.

(^xiv-a) Collins is often credited with being the actual author of this work, an error which obtained great circulation from the well known Sir Egerton Brydges having stated in the preface to his valuable edition (1812) of Collins' Peerage, that Arthur Collins “ reprinted and completed, in 1741 in 5 vols., 8vo., his incomplete Baronetage of 1720,” to which [erroneous] statement Brydges adds (most justly) that this Baronetage of 1741 is “ an admirable work.”

(^xiv-b) John Almon, celebrated as a publisher of political pamphlets, printed the Peerage of Scotland, 1767 ; the Peerage of Ireland, 1768, and that of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1769. John Debrett, was, in or before 1802, his successor.

(^xiv-c) For a full account of these 5 vols., see Moule's Bibliotheca Heraldica, p. 498. Betham contributed also to a smaller Baronetage published by W. Miller in 1804, being the first edition of Debrett's Baronetage.

(^xiv-d) This bulky (though uncritical) work is especially valuable for the Irish Baronetage, which had never before been dealt with, as also was the case in regard to that of Scotland, other then as to certain families settled in England, who had obtained Scotch Baronetcies.

(^xv-a) This, however, was not the case. See the Baronetage of these two Kingdoms in Playfair's British Family Antiquity, 1809–12.

(^xv-b) See as to these writers under the dates 1827–1900, above.