Beachborough Manor

Heraldry of some of the early English Brockmans

The origins and evolution of the Brockman arms are not completely documented. English arms are given to specific individuals; sons (and daughters) have to be given their own. Any person may display the arms of any lineal ancestor so long as one is honest about whose arms they were.

Beachborough and the Brockmans

The first Brockman to become squire of Beachborough was Henry Brockman, who - around 1500 - bought the adjoining lands of Beachborough Manor, Newington Manor and Cheriton Manor, a little to the north-west of Folkestone in Kent. Cheriton has since been swallowed up, to become a part of the town, Newington is effectively the Eurotunnel terminus and only Beachborough remains, a rural idyll in a rapidly industrialising district, to give a largely-undisturbed insight into the early history of the estate.

Henry's grandson was also called Henry and was the father of Sir William Brockman and of Zouch Brockman.

Sir William Brockman (1595–1654) was an English military leader, politician, and land owner, and a notable combatant in the English civil war, wherein he fought against Sir Thomas Fairfax's Parliamentary forces. He was knighted in 1632.

James Brockman, was the son of William of Newington, Kent. He matriculated into Corpus Christi College on 10 December 1641, aged 15. He was born in Beachborough, Kent. He died in February, 1683.

William Brockman, MP (c.1658-1742) was the grandson of Sir William Brockman. He was a Member of Parliament for Kent, from 1690 to 1695. He was also a JP and a long-standing Deputy Lieutenant (DL), from 1689 to 1703. He married Anne Glydd, elder daughter of Richard Glydd, Esq, of Pendhill, in Surrey. They had three sons, William, James and John. William, and John - who died in 1739 - both predeceased their father, leaving James the second son as the sole heir. In 1733, William handed over the management of the estate to James and in effect, retired.[2]

James Brockman Esq. (died 1767) was the last male heir of the Brockmans of Kent, Beachborough. He died unmarried in 1767 and bequeathed his estates to the family priest who attended to him in his last days, the great nephew of his mother, the Reverend Ralph Drake. (Vide App. VIII). Thus came the double name of Drake-Brockman, for the Rev. Ralph Drake wed the young Brockman cousin of James, took the Arms and Surname of Brockman, and saw the estates left to him. (It is interesting to note that according to the Register of Alumni Oxoniensis, by Foster, vide App. V, it states that as “R. D. Brockman, which latter name he had assumed in addition to his patronymic.”) Concerning this point of the double name, see App. IX and Will of Rev. Ralph Drake-Brockman. The Drake-Brockmans produced several notable descendants in England and Australia (see the English Brockman family summary).

Rev. Ralph Drake-Brockman died at the age of 57, on 11 November 1781. He continued the Brockman succession from Sir William via a maternal line as described above. The Rev. Ralph Drake thus took the Arms and Surname of Brockman and the estates were left to him, though soon thereafter Beachborough passed from the stewardship of Drake-Brockmans.

Despite these interesting beginnings, several notable Australians are descended from Ralph Drake-Brockman (see Brockman surname disambiguation page) or various external links.

A brief history of the Beachborough Brockmans

The Beachborough family has figured prominently in the social and public life of Kent, two of the Brockmans, Sir William Brockman and James Drake-Brockman, having served in the office of sheriff of Kent, and all those who inherited the Beachborough Estate were in the Commission of Peace for East Kent. Several Brockmans in Kent were armigerous gentry and used the "esquire" title.

The first record of the family dates from the reign of King Richard II. Lands which had become vested in the Crown on the attainder of Sir Robert Belknap, were granted to John Brokeman in the 13th year of that monarch's reign, i.e., in 1390, and consisted of the Manor of Pirrie, extending to Old Romney and Medley, with other lands in Stowting and Crundale, by a patent which was enrolled in the Tower in that year.

John Brockman received arms, a motto, a grant of land, and was made Collector of Customs for the Cinque Ports (the five port cities in Kent immediately opposite the upper French coast). Richard II, the grantor, had just achieved his majority, fired his guardians, and was selecting trusted allies for key positions. Keeping watch on those five ports was important--John of Gaunt, Richard's chief adversary in England, was getting major support from France. The family was allowed to maintain the motto "Esse Quam Videri" – "To be, rather than to appear to be." The Brokeman name spelling became "Brockman" within one generation.

An interesting side note of the Kentish Brockmans is their relationship with the St. Leger family, who also have an interesting genealogy and history. John's grandson John Brockman married Helen St. Leger Clifford, a young widow. As a St. Leger by birth, she is descended from a Norman knight who accompanied William the Conqueror from Normandy to England. The St. Legers settled at Ulcombe, Kent, where a "brass" memorial to Helen's father John St. Leger still exists in the church floor. A descendant of John St. Leger through another child, Warham St. Leger, came to Jamestown, Virginia early, but apparently left (as a number of Cavaliers did) when the Cromwellian Puritans came to power in England and made Claiborne the governor of Virginia. Warham had returned to England about 20 years before the ancestor of most USA English Brockmans, Henry Brockman, came to the Catholic stronghold of St. Mary's County, Maryland.

Beachborough, the Brockmans and Haytley

Edward Haytley, a much-underrated English master, was commissioned to paint 'conversation pieces' of the Brockman family at Beachborough. These pieces show the family at leisure in their grounds, with various aspects of Beachborough featured in the background. The paintings are now housed at the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne in Australia.