Nantwich. The southward movement carries some to the Welsh border,
others into Shropshire. The Wettenhall family established themselves in
the fourth generation at Rushall, and held property in Handsworth and
Walsall; the Brindley family sent a branch to Macclesfield, whose
representative, Samuel, must have been on the town council when the
Young Pretender rode through on his way to Derby, for he was mayor in
1746; while at the end of the sixteenth century, George, the
disinherited heir of Brindley, became a merchant in London, and
purchased Wyre Hall at Edmonton, where his descendants lived for four
generations, his grandson being knighted by Charles II in 1663.

But my father had no particular interest in tracing his early ancestry.
"My own genealogical inquiries," he said, "have taken me so far back
that I confess the later stages do not interest me." Towards the end of
his life, however, my mother persuaded him to see what could be found
out about Huxley Hall and the origin of the name. This proved to be from
the manor of Huxley or Hodesleia, whereof one Swanus de Hockenhull was
enfeoffed by the abbot and convent of St. Werburgh in the time of
Richard I. Of the grandsons of this Swanus, the eldest kept the manor
and name of Hockenhull (which is still extant in the Midlands); the
younger ones took their name from the other fief.

But the historian of Cheshire records the fact that owing to the
respectability of the name, it was unlawfully assumed by divers "losels
and lewd fellows of the baser sort," and my father, with a fine show of
earnestness, used to declare that he was certain the legitimate owners
of the name were far too sober and respectable to have produced such a
reprobate as himself, and one of these "losels" must be his progenitor.

Thomas Henry Huxley was born at Ealing on May 4, 1825, "about eight