15 JANUARY 1876, Page 15

THE TOLLEMACHE PEDIGREE.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

Stu,—With reference to the letter in your last impression, signed -" M. P. F. G.," I beg to say that your article of the let inst., on the pedigree of Lord Tollemache, of Helmingham, was correct, except in one particular. It is quite true that the new peer can trace an unbroken lineal descent from a family which was settled in Suffolk before the Conquest. The male descent continued without interruption till the death of the last Earl of Dysart in 1821, when the Tollemache family became extinct in de male line.

The present Earl of Dysart and Lord Tollemache of Helming- ham are descended in precisely the same manner and degree from Lionel, third Earl of Dysart,—the one through Lady Louisa Tollemache, who married Mr. Manners ; the other through Lady -Jane Tollemache, who married Mr. Halliday.

By the will of Lord Dysart, the son of Lady Jane, on whom the old estates of the family were settled, was required to take the name and arms of Tollemache. Lady Louisa Manners, without any obligation, likewise assumed the name, upon becoming, as the elder of the two sisters, Countess of Dysart in her own right.

Ham House came to the family with the Dysart title in the -time of the later Stuarts. Buckminster never formed any part of -the Tollemache property. Lord Dysart derives it from the Manners