In 1844 my father married Ellen Elizabeth, only child of John Pollard,
M.D., a member of the ancient Yorkshire family of the Pollards of Bierley
and Brunton, now chiefly represented, I believe, by the Pollards of Scarr
Hall. John Pollard's wife, Charlotte Maria Fennell, belonged to a family
which gave officers to the British Navy--one of them serving directly
under Nelson--and clergy to the Church of England. The Fennells were
related to the Bronte sisters through the latter's mother; and one was
closely connected with the Shackle who founded the original _John Bull_
newspaper. Those, then, were my kinsfolk on the maternal side. My mother
presented my father with seven children, of whom I was the sixth, being
also the fourth son. I was born on November 29, 1853, at a house called
Chalfont Lodge in Campden House Road, Kensington, and well do I remember
the great conflagration which destroyed the fine old historical mansion
built by Baptist Hicks, sometime a mercer in Cheapside and ultimately
Viscount Campden. But another scene which has more particularly haunted me
all through my life was that of my mother's sudden death in a saloon
carriage of an express train on the London and Brighton line.
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