Biography of William Widdrington 4th Baron Widdrington 1678-1743

On 16th January 1677 [his father] William Widdrington 3rd Baron Widdrington (age 21) and [his mother] Alathea Fairfax Baroness Widdrington were married. She by marriage Baroness Widdrington of Blankney in Lincolnshire.

In 1678 William Widdrington 4th Baron Widdrington was born to William Widdrington 3rd Baron Widdrington (age 22) and Alathea Fairfax Baroness Widdrington.

Before 26th February 1694 [his mother] Alathea Fairfax Baroness Widdrington died.

In 1695 [his father] William Widdrington 3rd Baron Widdrington (age 39) died. His son William (age 17) succeeded 4th Baron Widdrington of Blankney in Lincolnshire.

In 1700 William Widdrington 4th Baron Widdrington (age 22) and Jane Tempest were married.

In 1718 William Widdrington 4th Baron Widdrington (age 40) and Catherine Graham were married. They were third cousins.

On 19th April 1743 William Widdrington 4th Baron Widdrington (age 65) died.

Henry Chaplin A Memoir: Youth I. The demesne of Blankney had been the property of the Deincourts since the Conquest, until in the fifteenth century it passed through the marriage of an heiress [Alice Deincourt 6th Baroness Deincourt and Grey, Baroness Lovel and Sudeley] to the Lovels of Tichmarsh. All the estates of the house of Lovel were, however, confiscated to the Crown by Henry Vll., after the battle of Stoke-on-Trent, when Lord Lovel himself only escaped by swimming his horse across the river. Blankney was bought by the Thorolds, who did much to embellish the house with the fine carved panelling of the period. But in the reign of Charles I., through a marriage with the Thorold heiress [Mary Thorold], it passed into the hands of Sir William Widdrington, who was created Baron Widdrington of Blankney in 1643. Lord Widdrington's great grandson [William Widdrington 4th Baron Widdrington] had the indiscretion to take part in the rebellion of 1715; he was taken prisoner at Preston and convicted of high treason, and though his life was spared his estates were confiscated in the following year.