The Noble and Gentle Men of England / or, notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties.

by Evelyn Philip Shirley

Biddulph of Birdingbury, Baronet 1654.

This ancient family, originally of Biddulph, in the northern parts of Staffordshire, is traced to Ormus, mentioned in the Domesday Survey. He was, it is said, of Norman descent, and is supposed to have married the Saxon heiress of Biddulph, from whence the name was afterwards assumed. The elder line terminated on the death of' John Biddulph, Esq. of Biddulph and of Burton in Sussex, in the year 1835. The Birdingbury branch, now representing this venerable house, was founded by Symon, second son of Richard Biddulph, of Biddulph, in the time of Henry VIII., whose descendant, another Symon, purchased Birdingbury in 1687. The family were eminently loyal during the Civil Wars, when the ancient seat of Biddulph was destroyed by the Cromwellians about 1643-4.

Younger Branch. Biddulph of Ledbury, in the county of Hereford, descended from Anthony, younger brother of the first Baronet.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 324; Shaw's History of Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 352; Erdeswick's Staffordshire, ed. 1844, p. 8; Ward's History of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, p. 277; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 442.

Arms.—Vert, an eagle displayed argent, armed and langued gules. Argent, three soldering-irons sable, is also said to have been borne by the Biddulphs.

Present Representative, Sir Theophilus William Biddulph, 7th Baronet.

Skipwith of Harborough, Baronet 1622 (formerly of Newbold Hall).

The name is derived from Skipwith, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and was first borne by Patrick, living in the reign of Henry I., who was second son of Robert de Estotevile, Baron of Cottingham in the reign of William the Conqueror. In the reign of Henry III. the Skipwiths removed into Lincolnshire, and were seated at Beckeby and Ormesby, in that county; a younger son of Sir William Skipwith, of Ormesby, who died in 1587, was of Prestwould, in Leicestershire. He was the ancestor of the Skipwiths of Newbold Hall, created Baronet in 1670, extinct in 1790, and of the present family, who for five generations were of Virginia, in America, where the grandfather of the present Baronet was born.