Collection open for research.
Physical characteristics and conditions affect use of this material. Photocopying not permitted.
Charles, 3rd Earl of Tankerville, Will, 1762 (1814 copy) (SC 0103), Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, VA.
Loudoun County Public Library
None
2011.0284x
Elizabeth E. Preston, 16 May 2012
Charles Bennet, 3rd Earl of Tankerville (6 September 1716-27 October 1767) had a career in the military and served as a Member of Parliament. Bennet held the title Lord Ossulston from 1722-1753, and on the death of his father, Charles Bennet, 2nd Earl of Tankerville (1697-1753) assumed the title Earl of Tankerville.
Bennet served in various regiments of foot guards beginning in 1734; he left active military service in 1749 as a lieutenant colonel. Although the Bennet family resided primarily in Harlington, Middlesex, they also owned Chillingham Castle, a large estate in Northumberland. Based on their ownership of Chillingham, Bennet served as a Member of Parliament for Northumberland in 1748 and 1749. Chillingham Castle is known for a herd of wild cattle that has lived on the estate for almost eight hundred years. The cattle have been genetically isolated for centuries, rendering them all genetically identical. The survival of the cattle is due largely to the works of the Bennet family and the Earls of Tankerville. The family founded the Chillingham Wild Cattle Association in 1939 to protect and preserve animals thought to be the descendants of prehistoric herds.
In 1742, Bennet married Alicia Astley (1716-1791) and together they had five children. Their oldest child, Charles Bennet, became the 4th Earl of Tankerville and inherited much of his father's estate on the death of the 3rd Earl on 27 October 1767.
Bennet's mother was Camilla (Colville) Bennet (1697-1775). From her cousin, John Colville (1690-1755), Bennet inherited interests and properties in the American colonies of Virginia and Maryland. The Virginia properties included land in what became Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, and contained "Plantation Lands, Mills, Houses, Utensils, Negroes, and Stocks" as well as "two ninths shares of certain Copper Mines and two hundred acres of Land." Bennet's heirs sold the Loudoun County property to Joseph Braden (d. 1810) in 1790.
This collection is made up of a handwritten copy of the will of Charles Bennet, 3rd Earl of Tankerville. Charles Bennet signed the original will in 1762 and died in 1767. William Newton, a notary public in London, certified a true copy of the will on 9 February 1790. That copy was recorded in the Dumfries District Court in Virginia, probably in the process of completing the sale of the Loudoun County property by the Earl's heirs to Jospeh Braden in 1790. On 22 August 1814, the Prince William County Clerk of Superior Court certified this copy of the will recorded in Dumfries District Court. The document is eleven handwritten pages.
It is not clear how this copy of the will came into the possession of Loudoun County Public Libraries. In 1978, it was briefly involved in several news stories concerning the disposition of library materials. See issues of the Loudoun Times-Mirror from March and April 1978 for further information.
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