The history of the Harvey family begins with Thomas Harvey, father of William, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. The careful search of interested and competent genealogists has ended in the barren statement that the family is apparently descended from, or is a branch of the same stock as, Sir Walter Hervey, “pepperer,” or member of the ancient guild which afterwards became the important Company of Grocers. Sir Walter was Mayor of London in the year reckoned from the death of Henry III. in November, 1272. It was the noise of the citizens assembled in Westminster Hall clamouring for Hervey’s election as Mayor that disturbed the King’s deathbed.

The lineage would be a noble one if it could be established, for Hervey was no undistinguished Mayor. He was the worthy pupil and successor of Thomas Fitzthomas, one of the great champions in that struggle for liberty which ended in the death of Simon de Montfort, between Evesham and Alcester, but left the kingdom with a Parliament. Hervey’s counsels reconstituted in London the system of civic government, and established it upon its present base; for he assumed as chief of the executive the right to grant charters of incorporation to the craftsmen of the guilds. For a time his efforts were successful, and they wrought him much harm. But his idea survived, and in due season prevailed, for the companies have entirely replaced the guilds not only in London but throughout England.

It would be truly interesting if the first great discoverer in physiology could be shown to be a descendant of this original thinker on municipal government. The statement depends for the present on the fact that both bore for arms “argent, two bars nebulÉe sable, on a chief of the last three crosses pattÉe fitchÉe; with the crest, a dexter hand appaumÉe proper, over it a crescent inverted argent,” but arms were as often assumed in the reign of Elizabeth as they are in the Victorian era.

Thomas Harvey, the father of William, was born in 1549, and was one of a family of two brothers and three sisters, all of whom left children. Thomas married about 1575 Juliana, the eldest daughter of William Jenkin. His wife died in the following year, probably in childbed, for she left him a daughter, Julian or Gillian, who married Thomas Cullen, of Dover, and died about 1639.

Thomas Harvey married again on the 21st of January, 1576-1577, his second wife being Joane, the daughter of Thomas Halke, or Hawke, who was perhaps a relative of his first wife on her mother’s side. She lived at Hastingleigh, a village about six miles from Ashford in Kent, and to this couple William was born on the 1st of April, 1578, his father being then twenty-nine and his mother twenty-three.

William proved to be the eldest of “a week of sons,” as Fuller quaintly expresses it, “whereof this William was bred to learning, his other brethren being bound apprentices in London, and all at last ended in effect in merchants.” This statement is not strictly true, as only five of the sons became Turkey merchants and there were besides two daughters.

Thomas Harvey was a jurat, or alderman, of Folkestone, where he served the office of mayor in 1600. He lived in a fair stone house, which afterwards became the posthouse. Its site, however, is no longer known, though it is the opinion of those best qualified to judge that it stood at the junction of Church Street with Rendezvous Street.

Thomas Harvey seems to have been a man of more than ordinary intelligence and judgment, for “his sons, who revered, consulted, and implicitly trusted him, made their father the treasurer of their wealth when they got great estates, who, being as skilful to purchase land,” says Fuller, “as they to gain money kept, employed and improved their gainings to their great advantage, so that he survived to see the meanest of them of far greater estate than himself.” To this end he came to London after the death of his wife in 1605, and lived for some time at Hackney, where he died and was buried in June, 1623. His portrait is still to be seen in the central panel in one end wall of the dining-room at Rolls Park, Chigwell, in Essex, which was one of the first estates acquired by his son Eliab. “It is certainly,” says Dr. Willis, “of the time when he lived, and it bears a certain resemblance to some of the likenesses we have of his most distinguished son.”

All that is known of Joan Harvey is on a brass tablet, which still exists to her memory in the parish church at Folkestone. It bears the following record of her virtues, written either by her husband or by William Harvey, her son:—

“A.D. 1605 Nov. 8th died in the 50th. yeare of her age
Joan Wife of Tho. Harvey. Mother of 7 sones & 2 Daughters.
A Godly harmles Woman: A chaste loveinge Wife:
A Charitable qviet Neighbour: A cÕfortable frendly Matron:
A provident diligent Hvswyfe: A carefvll teder-harted Mother.
Deere to her Hvsband: Reverensed of her Children:
Beloved of her Neighbovrs: Elected of God.
Whose Soule rest in Heaven, her body in this Grave:
To her a Happy Advantage: to Hers an Unhappy Loss.”

The children of Thomas and Joan Harvey were—

(1) William, born at Folkestone on the 1st of April, 1578; died at Roehampton, in Surrey, on the 3rd of June, 1657; buried in the “outer vault” of the Harvey Chapel at Hempstead, in Essex.

(2) Sarah, born at Folkestone on the 5th of May, 1580, and died there on the 18th of June, 1591.

(3) John, born at Folkestone on the 12th of November, 1582; servant-in-ordinary, or footman, to James I.—“a post,” says Sir James Paget, “which does not certainly imply that he was in a much lower rank than his brothers. It may have been such a place at Court as is now called by a synonym of more seeming dignity; or, if not, yet he may have received a good salary for the office whilst he discharged its duties by deputy.” Thus Burke in his famous speech on Economical Reform mentions that the king’s turnspit was a member of Parliament.

He received a pension of fifty pounds a year when he resigned his place to Toby Johnson on the 6th of July, 1620. He was a member of Gray’s Inn, and filled several offices of importance, for he was “Castleman” at Sandgate, in Kent, and King’s Receiver for Lincolnshire jointly with his brother Daniel. He sat in Parliament as a member for Hythe, and died unmarried on the 20th of July, 1645.

(4) Thomas was born at Folkestone on the 17th of January, 1584-1585. He married first Elizabeth Exton, about 1613; and, secondly, Elizabeth Parkhurst, on the 10th of May, 1621, and he had children by both marriages. His only surviving son sat as M.P. for Hythe in 1621; he also acted as King’s Receiver for Lincolnshire. Thomas Harvey was a Turkey merchant in St. Laurence Pountney, at the foot of London Bridge. He was perhaps a member of the Grocers’ Company. He died on the 2nd of February, 1622-1623, and was buried in St. Peter-le-Poor.

(5) Daniel, also of Laurence Pountney Hill, a Turkey merchant and member of the Grocers’ Company, was born at Folkestone on the 31st of May, 1587. He was King’s Receiver for Lincolnshire jointly with his brother John. He married Elizabeth Kynnersley about 1619, paid a fine rather than serve the office of Sheriff of London at some time before 1640, and died on the 10th of September, 1649. He was a churchwarden of St. Laurence Pountney in 1624-1625, and was buried there; but his later days were spent on his estate at Combe, near Croydon, in Surrey. His fourth son became Sir Daniel Harvey, and was ambassador at Constantinople, where he died in 1672. His daughter Elizabeth married Heneage Finch, the first Earl of Nottingham, and from this marriage are descended the Earls of Winchelsea and Aylesford.

(6) Eliab, also of Laurence Pountney Hill, a Turkey merchant and member of the Grocers’ Company, was born at Folkestone on the 26th of February, 1589-1590. He was the most successful of the merchant brothers, and to his watchful care William owed much of his material wealth; for Aubrey says that “William Harvey took no manner of care about his worldly concerns, but his brother Eliab, who was a very wise and prudent manager, ordered all not only faithfully but better than he could have done for himself.” Eliab had estates at Roehampton, in Surrey, and at Chigwell, in Essex. He built the “Harvey Mortuary Chapel with the outer vault below it” in Hempstead Church, near Saffron Walden. Here he buried his brother William in 1657, and here he was himself buried in 1661. He married Mary West on the 15th of February, 1624-1625, and by her had several children, of whom the eldest at the Restoration became Sir Eliab Harvey.

Walpole writes to Mann about one of his descendants. “Feb. 6, 1780. Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa Tree, the difference of which amounted to an hundred and fourscore thousand pounds. Mr. O’Birne, an Irish gamester, had won £100,000 of a young Mr. Harvey of Chigwell, just started for a midshipman into an estate by his elder brother’s death. O’Birne said, ‘You can never pay me.’ ‘I can,’ said the youth; ‘my estate will sell for the debt.’ ‘No,’ said O’B., ‘I will win ten thousand—you shall throw for the odd ninety.’ They did, and Harvey won.” This midshipman afterwards became Sir Eliab Harvey, G.C.B., in command of the TÉmÉraire at the battle of Trafalgar, and Admiral of the Blue. He sat in the House of Commons for the town of Maldon from 1780 to 1784, and for the county of Essex from 1802 until his death in 1830. With him the male line of the family of Harvey became extinct.

(7) Michael, the twin brother of Matthew, was born at Folkestone on the 25th of September, 1593. He lived in St. Laurence Pountney, and St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate. Like his other brothers he was a Turkey merchant, and perhaps a member of the Grocers’ Company. He married Mary Baker on the 29th of April, 1630, and after her death Mary Millish, about 1635. He had three children by his second wife, and one of his sons died at Bridport in 1685 from wounds received in the service of King James II. Michael Harvey died on the 22nd of January, 1642-1643, and is buried in the church of Great St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate.

(8) Matthew, the twin brother of Michael, and like him a Turkey merchant and perhaps a member of the Grocers’ Company, was born at Folkestone on the 25th of September, 1593. He married Mary Hatley on the 15th of December, 1628, and dying on the 21st of December, 1642, was buried at Croydon. His only child died in her infancy.

(9) Amye, the youngest daughter and last child of Thomas and Joan Harvey, was born at Folkestone on the 26th of December, 1596. She married George Fowke in 1615, and died, leaving issue, at some time after 1645.

Mr. W. Fleming, the assistant librarian, tells me that nine autotype reproductions of the portraits of the Harvey family at Rolls Park (page 4) are now suspended on the left-hand side wall of the hall of the Royal College of Physicians in Pall Mall. They represent (1) Thomas Harvey and his seven sons. (2) William Harvey, probably an enlarged portrait of that in the preceding group. (3) A family group in the dress of the Queen Anne period. (4) Portrait of a lady in the dress of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; in the corner of the picture appears “obiit 25 Maii 1622.” (5), (6) and (7) Portraits of ladies in the dress of the eighteenth century. (8) Portrait of a gentleman in the dress of Charles II.’s time. (9) Portrait of a gentleman in the dress of Queen Anne’s reign.