"Heneage"

Certain names can proliferate within a family and may persist over time. We find that certain male names arise and maintain a prevalence in our immediate relatives and more distant cousins that form a cohesive pattern over time. Like the ‘magic-eye’ children’s toys, the naming patterns are sometimes only perceived with the perspective of time and familiarity with the subject.

Selective naming within a family is no great surprise and we find the same dynastic pattern most easily recognised within Royal and noble families. How often do we marvel at the ability of the French Bourbons to call their heirs “Louis” through the ages or for ordinary French families to have generation after generation of males called Jean-Baptiste? Some families do that sort of thing and some others do not.

The Finch family to which I belong in the genealogy displayed on Ancestry.com have the usual Finch male names such as “Richard”, “William”, “Heneage” or “John”. The names are repeated again and again and although the English tradition is not to hyphenate names and create “John-Richard” or similar forms, we do find that we can start to see a pattern and that pattern is quite powerful. Naming a son (or a daughter) is a personal matter to the parents but it also serves as a message to the world about identity, culture, society, history and belonging. The effect is so strong that if we spot a “Charles Finch”, we can immediately switch off from the search and move on to another name because this is not a name in the family to which we belong. If we see an “Otis Finch” we can be sure that he belongs to a branch in the USA. A whole range of male names can be ignored in favour of the names we have mentioned as well as the occasional “James” thrown in for good measure. Certainly, it would be fun to find an 18th century “Atticus Finch” in Wigan although that is unlikely to happen.

Despite certain fanciful absences from the family nomenclature such as “Atticus”, the Finch family in Wigan and Standish is heir to a range of strong influences when it comes to naming our sons. There are patterns and fashions in names and the Finch family is no different to many others in that respect. However, we are not the French Bourbons or the German Wittlesbach and we have never ruled a country. As a family, we did not have the burden of dynastic expectation placed on us or labor under a burden assumed by ourselves although time and circumstance do play a part in what we call our sons. Putting it simply, there are names more popular than others. History also plays its part and after the Battle of Trafalgar there may have been a number of boys around England called Horatio and George Washington may have set a similar trend or two when it came to the USA.

In addition to male names in Finch ancestry we witness other names which were popular in English society that are not always similarly popular in the family. So, Edward, George, Peter and Joseph are all popular in society and it would be no real surprise if they cropped up in the family although for some reason the Finch family usually omit these popular names. So much for predictability and fashion. Perhaps the distant choices made in the wider family through the ages were more focused than we had previously imagined and names were chosen deliberately and with determination.

Surprisingly, the personal name that perhaps exemplifies a male Finch in 19th Century Wigan and Standish, and sets us apart, is “Heneage” and this is something that is quite startling. We have here a name that identifies ‘one of us’ and sets us apart from other families. Although “Heneage” is a marker for a Finch family it is also hard to avoid the association with Heneage Finch (1580–1631) and his noble descendents. Try researching a person with this name in the family tree and you’ll find links to nobility suggested by the search engine and this is surprising and also confusing.

Our surprise is because the Finch family in Wigan and Standish is often seen to be financially poor and sometimes confined to the workhouse. We have to ask why we have and why do we repeat the same personal name as a noble family and why does the Finch family repeat this name over time? Cousins born in the 20th century similarly bear the name either as a first name or a middle name and it is clear that the name “Heneage” at some points has been important in saying something about identity and belonging. It is perhaps worth looking at the way in which “Heneage” came to Wigan because it has been important to our family and perhaps has some part in uniting us with even more remote cousins. It is fair to say that other families do use the name ‘Heneage’ although it is also fair to say that it appears to be this family that use the name with such resolute determination.

The start of the tradition of calling Finch males “Heneage” in Wigan and Standish seems to have encompassed all spellings. We have “Hendage” in 1674, “Hennage” in 1798, “Heneage” in 1784, “Hennege” in 1832. All from Standish and Wigan with other possible ‘Finch’ relatives in Chorley and Leyland also using the name.

Who was the first representative of this noble family in the area? Well, we can see that in 1692, “The Honourable (Reverend) Henry Finch”, was inducted as Rector of Winwick in Lancashire on August 1, 1692. Notably, this Henry Finch was the 6th son of Heneage, Earl of Nottingham and a younger brother of Daniel, Earl of Nottingham. Here we have perhaps the first link of this noble family with Lancashire although we may find that this clergyman came to Lancashire because they already possessed estates in the area and had a real link to the county. This possibility of a link to Lancashire is worthy of further research and extensive family papers do seem to exist that would allow a real depth of research. The arrival of Rev. Henry Finch in the County seems to have been followed by the subsequent arrival of the Rev. Edward Finch (1663-1738) who was Rector if Wigan 1707-1714 with a further family member, Heneage Finch, (1683–1757), attempting to become the MP for Wigan at an early point in his career. Have a look around on the search engines and you’ll come across some stories about this family and tangential links to Wigan and Lancashire. The links of the noble family to Lancashire are there to find although perhaps there is a need to explore and develop the links.


My meaning in all of this? Well, there is no suggestion that we have a clear, evident and demonstrated link to the Earldoms of Winchilsea and Nottingham and the noble Finch family. Such bold and overly confident assertions are often found in ‘’fantasist’ genealogical circles and too many people have read Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d'Urbervilles“ and hoped for something to happen. The idea of hidden links to a noble family are often a little blunt, over confident and unproven.

On the other hand; there seems to be something interesting going on over and above simple genetics. There may well be no blood connection between the noble Finch family and our own ancestors although ‘our’ family did assume a personal name of the richer and more prominent family. Is it the case that ‘our’ Finch family simply ‘aped’ the manners and circumstances of an aristocratic ‘sound a like’ to enhance their own status? This would be unsurprising in an age dedicated to aristocracy. Did they themselves believe at the time that there was a link of their own family to aristocracy?

It can only be imagined what the noble and aristocratic Finch family felt when the poor and ignorant Finch family in Lancashire started to call their sons by this exalted name and they then found that the son of a stone mason in Standish had the same name as an Earl. Interesting?

So, we have the real and evidenced connections of the aristocratic family with Lancashire and the Established Church of England and this means we have access to family papers and the records of the Church. There is further research to be completed in the area of personal naming and we may find that the links of the aristocratic Finch family to a rural and gentile Lancashire are greater than we currently perceive. “Heneage” as a name may lead us in a whole new direction. Good hunting!