University Archives
St. Quintin family, of Harpham and Scampston
Herbert St Quintin is reputed to have arrived with William the Conqueror and been granted lands in the East Riding. In the early twelfth century Herbert St Quintin's descendant, Oliver St Quintin, was married to Adeliza who founded the Cistercian priory for nuns near Appleton. Their eldest son was a knight warrior who conquered part of Wales and their second son, Herbert St Quintin, was responsible for carrying on the family line that became feudal barons of Brandesburton and Skipsea in the East Riding in the early thirteenth century. His marriage to Agnes de Stuteville brought Harpham into the family where they resided and were buried until the second half of the seventeenth century. William St Quintin (1579-1649) was knighted in 1642 and was sheriff in 1648. His eldest son, Henry St Quintin (c.1605-1695), moved the family from Harpham to Scampston on the north west border of the East Riding and all that now remains of the original manor house is earthworks. His eldest surviving son, predeceased him and the 3rd baronet was his grandson, William St Quintin (c.1662-1723), who was Whig MP for Hull for eleven successive parliaments between 1695 and 1723. He served in the Treasury and held several lucrative customs posts. He purchased the two manors of Scampston at a cost of over £10,000 and was responsible for building most of Scampston village. The estates and title passed after his death to his nephew, William St Quintin (1699-1770), who became MP for Thirsk in 1722 and who carried on the expansion of the estates, employing Capability Brown to design a landscaped park at Scampston. William St Quintin (1729-1795) married Charlotte Fane, who was vastly wealthy, but they had no children and the title expired when he died. He was succeeded to the family estates by his nephew, William Thomas Darby (1770-1805), who assumed the surname and arms of the St Quintin family. He sold estates in the 1790s and his son, Matthew Chitty Downes St Quintin (b.1800), who was mentally unstable, squandered a further £90,000 until his wife had succeeded in legally transferring the management of the estates to relatives. His son, William Henry St Quintin (1851-1933) was a Justice of the Peace from 1875 and High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1899. He was a naturalist with abiding interests in hunting, fishing, falconry, ornithology and entomology. He was a founding member of the Avicultural Society of 1895 and President of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union in 1909. He was a member of the British Ornithologists' Union from 1883 to 1922 and served on the council of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds from 1908-1919. He left a daughter who was married to Lieutenant-Colonel E G S L'Estrange and in 1959 the estates became vested in his grand-daughter, Lady Legard. The family papers comprise circa 4000 items and are rich in medieval title deeds, especially for Harpham (1297-1815), and family wills. Papers for Scampston begin in 1623 and there are papers for Burton Agnes from 1759, as well as London property in New Fish Street 1550-1694 and Berkeley Square 1718-1842. Correspondence begins in 1779 and includes 170 letters to Oddie Forster and Lumley, solicitors, 1830-1848 and 65 letters to William St Quintin in the 1880s. Miscellaneous material includes an 1822 draft pedigree and a 514 folio, bound volume 'View and Survey' of the manor of Binham, Norfolk, dated 1576. Accounts include those for Beverley and Barmston Drainage 1798-1876 and rentals from 1785-1860. The collection also includes the diary of Amy St Quintin in 1857 chronicling the mental illness of her husband, Matthew Chitty Downes St Quintin. [DDSQ; DDSQ(2); DDSQ(3)]