Note 39 — Chapter VI

Several of the Edwin family were conspicuous in the early days of Methodism. John Edwin, Esq., the husband of the above-named Mrs. Edwin, held several offices under Government, and was a member of Parliament. Dr. Doddridge, in his Reflections on the opening of the year 1749, thus speaks of him:—“The accession of several valuable friends, to balance the loss of some few by death, is also to be gratefully remembered; particularly my Lady Huntingdon, Mr. Edwin, and Colonel Gumley.” His only daughter and heir, Miss Elizabeth Edwin, whom Horace Walpole complains of to his correspondent, Sir Horace Mann, as having turned Methodist, was the particular friend of the eccentric Lady Townshend, and married Charles Dalrymple, Esq., grandson of the Hon. Sir Hugh Dalrymple, brother of John, second Viscount Stair. (See a Note, post, page 89). Charles Edwin, Esq., M.P., the brother of Mr. Edwin, married Lady Charlotte Hamilton, one of the attendants of the Prince of Wales’s children. Their mother, Lady Catherine Edwin, was sister to the first Duke of Manchester, and to Anne, Countess of Suffolk. Sir Humphrey Edwin, Lord Mayor of London, was grandfather to Mr. Edwin; Mrs. Edwin’s family formed alliance with that of the Marquis of Westminster, and Lord St. John, of Bletsloe. She was eldest daughter of Sir Roger Bradshaigh, of Haigh, in the county of Lancaster, Bart., and M.P. On the failure of the male branch of this family, in 1787, the estate of Haigh devolved on Mrs. Edwin’s granddaughter, the Countess of Balcarres.