EWEN PAPERS

Manorial documents, deeds and family papers of the Holme Park, Sonning, estate and Palmer, Ewen, L'Estrange, Greene and Masham families, c.1275-1965

<p>Other papers relating to the part of the estate inherited by Arthur Fitzherbert and Charles Henry Lionel Ewen are to be found deposited as D/EX 1544.</p>

Deposited in November 1949 (acc. 198); January 1950 (acc. 214); February 1950 (accs. 215 and 217); July 1950 (acc. 261); October 1950 (acc. 291); April 1951 (accs. 328 and 346); July 1951 (acc. 410); April 1952 (acc. 509); October 1963 (acc. 968); January and June 1965 (acc. 1088); February 1965 (acc. 1101); October 1965 (acc. 1166); December 1966 (acc. 1269).

Acc. 378 purchased in June 1951.

Presented in January 1967 (all deposits).

Schedule of accessions

Acc. 198: T2

Acc. 214: C1-2; E1-18, 19-24; F1-27, 29-90, 94; L1-6, 8; M1-27; O1-2, 4-11; P1-17; Q1-6; T1, 3-35; Z1-25, 32-33

Acc. 215: O3

Acc. 217: F92; F120-123

Acc. 261: C3-5; E43; F95; L7; O12; Z26-30

Acc. 278: C6; E45-47; Z31

Acc. 291: F97, 100-105, 110, 112

Acc. 328: F28

Acc. 346: F96, 98, 99, 106-109, 113-114

Acc. 378: Z35

Acc. 410: E18A; O13

Acc. 509: F91

Acc. 968: F118-119

Acc. 1088 C7-8

Acc. 1101: F111

Acc. 1166: F115-117

Acc. 1269: Z34

This peculiarly complicated collection centres around the Holme Park estate built up by the Palmer family in the eighteenth century. Robert Palmer (1713-1787), founder of the family fortune, was a London lawyer who acted as agent to the Duke of Bedford. Not only did he purchase the Sonning property, much of which had formerly belonged to the Rich family, but also received the mortgage of Lord Masham's estate in Essex. Many of the most interesting individual documents in the collection found their way into it because of this Masham connection.

The son, Richard Palmer (1765-1806), had a large family of whom three members, the MP Robert (d.1872), Richard (d.1874) and Susanna Caroline (d.1880) succeeded to Holme Park. On the death of the last named the estate fell to her nephew the Revd Henry Golding (son of Anne Palmer who married the Revd William Golding), who took the surname Palmer (d.1879). This man married Mary Isabella Ewen of Dedham, Essex and broke the entail on the estate. On the death of Mrs Golding Palmer in 1916, Holme Park itself was sold and the remainder of the estate broken up to some extent, apparently for the benefit of Mrs Golding Palmer's nephews and niece. For papers relating to this part of the estate, mostly for the 1920s, see D/EX 1544. It is to be feared that, judging from the list of documents of Robert Palmer, many items were destroyed when Holme Park was sold, notably the early court rolls of the manor of Sonning.

The other main interest of the collection centres in East Anglia with the papers of the Ewen family and their connections. Thomas Glover Ewen of Norwich (1746-1813) married Anna Maria Johnson, a grand daughter of Hamon L'Estrange (1674-1767), descendant of a distinguished Norfolk family, and some papers relating to the L'Estranges found their way into the Ewen papers. Their son Thomas L'Estrange Ewen settled at Dedham, Essex. He married into another important East Anglian family, the Greenes of Marlingford, and had a family of ten. This marriage brought the Foreman and Trimnell papers into the family; Mary Ewen, née Greene, was a great grand daughter of Thomas Greene, Bishop of Norwich and Ely (d.1738) and his wife Catharine Trimnell, sister of Charles Trimnell, Bishop of Norwich and Worcester (d.1723) and William Trimnell, Dean of Winchester (d.1729). Mary Ewen's mother was related to the Foreman family. Of these children only two, Charles John and Henry, had families of their own. Among the other children were Mary Isabella who married the Revd Henry Golding (Palmer); and Arthur, whose letters to his mother have been preserved from 1851 when he entered Sandhurst to 1873. The next generation consisted of Charles John's three bachelor sons and Henry's bachelor sons and a daughter, who together inherited the Palmer estates from their aunt.