ABSTRACT
Early in the seventeenth century, Walter Thackeray, first of the name as now spelt, established himself at Hampsthwaite, a little village close by the forest of Knaresborough, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Here, through several generations, for two hundred years, the family lived doing yeoman’s duty, until 1804, when the last of the line, Thomas Thackeray, died childless, seven years before the novelist was born. Dr. Thackeray, who keeps a school at Harrow-on-the-Hill, has one living and fourteen children; a man bred at Eton, and a great scholar in the Eton way, and a good one every way ; a true Whig, and proud to be so by some special marks of integrity. Sir William Hunter has pointed out that the tombstone says Richmond Thackeray died on September 13, 1815, aged thirty-two years, ten months, and twenty-three days, which would make the birthday October 21, 1782, instead of September 1, 1781, as stated in Family Book of Thackerays.
