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Classification: Query
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Message Board Post:
When did this Thomas Cavendish live?
There is much confusing information regarding William H. Cavendish. Many of our relatives
referred to him as "Lord Cavendish" and it was told that he was the younger son
of Lord Cavendish and, therefore, not eligible to inherit title or lands and so came to
America with his mother and two (?) sisters.
Someone else said that his mother had been in "Old Bailey", for what crime they
knew not, and that she and her three children sailed to America on a "prison
ship".
Another told that W. H. Cavendish's father was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, whatever
that is, and that the family (minus the elder son and father) sailed from Ireland to
America.
By all accounts he was a very learned man for the times, as well as for his young age,
which would lend credibility to the story that he was from a titled family. He acted as
attorney in legal matters and supposedly led soldiers in battle.
My own limited investigation tends toward one or both of his sisters marrying members of
the Mann family or McClintic family in Virginia, although I have no proof of this. If this
speculation is true then I believe his sisters may be named Anne and Else and his mother
Margaret.
Your question about Thomas Cavendish traveling in a circle which included pirates might
fit in somehow with the story of coming on a prison ship, and the possible connection with
Sir Francis Drake may fit in with the fact that he was educated and supposedly from an
upper class.
I would love to learn more of your knowledge of this family.
The only Cavendish family that I know of was the Lord Cavendish in Derbyshire, England.
Please respond. Many thanks. Pam Thomas