ABOUT the middle of the seventeenth century, during the Civil War and the Restoration, there dwelt in Bristol one James Phipps, a gunsmith by trade. He was blessed with a numerous progeny; of him it might truly be said that "his quiver was full of them," for he had eventually twenty-six children, of whom twenty-one were boys. Having only his gunmaking trade to depend upon for a living, he found it difficult to provide means for feeding, clothing, and educating them, and often lay awake long at nights, pondering in his mind what he should do to meet the necessities of the case. At that time, and for two or three reigns previously, we had been at work laying the foundations of the present great American Republic, by establishing plantations of colonists, aristocratic and Episcopalian, in the south, and Puritanical in the north, most of whom had been driven thither by the persecutions they had undergone in the mother country. Bristol was then the great port of imports and exports of the Western Continent, and James Phipps naturally heard of the unbounded capabilities of the new continent, as also he heard, by tradition, of the vast wealth which the buccaneers of Elizabeth's reign—the old Vikings of Devonshire—brought from the West Indies, Peru, Mexico, etc., into the ports of Bristol, Barnstaple, Bideford, etc., and it occurred to him that here was scope enough for him and all his sons, and he emigrated with them to New England, where William, his youngest son, was born, and he seems to have died soon after, as this son is stated to have been brought up by his mother until he was eighteen years of age.

This William Phipps was the founder of that family who are now lords of Mulgrave Castle, and whose dignity has culminated in a Marquisate. He had received no education, but taught himself to read and write when apprentice to a ship carpenter. At the expiration of his apprenticeship he married the daughter of Captain Robert Spencer, and relict of a rich merchant of the name of Hull, who brought him a small fortune, with which he commenced business, but his speculations were not successful. But he did not despair, although fortune did seem to frown. He was a man of unbounded enterprise and energy, and he said to his wife, who was lamenting the loss of her money, "Be not cast down, my dear; I will live to be the commander of better men than I myself am now. Providence has great things in store for me, and the time shall come when I will build a fair brick house in the green lane of North Boston, of which you shall be the mistress." When casting about for employment, he chanced to hear of a Spanish galleon, laden with specie and plate, which had been wrecked half a century previously somewhere in the Bahamas, and he resolved to go in search of it, and to endeavour the recovery of the cargo by means of the diving-bell.

Aristotle, 300 years b.c., makes some obscure references to a machine of this kind, but what it was or how employed is not known. The first reliable account we have of such a machine is given by Taisnier, who describes a "cacobus aquaticus" (marine kettle) which was exhibited by two Greeks before the Emperor Charles V., at Toledo, in 1538; but it seems to have been of no practical use, as it had no apparatus for supplying the divers with fresh air. A similar sort of bell, but constructed on better principles, had been made use of on the coast of Mull, between the years 1650 and 1660 to operate upon some sunken vessels of the Spanish Armada, but without much success. It was this which directed the attention of Phipps to the diving-bell, who perceived that by various modifications and improvements of the apparatus it might be made a most valuable instrument for submarine operations, and after a long and patient study, and numberless experiments, he succeeded in constructing a bell very much the same as that now used, and capable of being worked much more efficiently and with greater safety than any previously employed. In consequence of his having thus, by his skill and scientific modifications, produced a really working machine, he is generally styled "the inventor of the diving-bell." He sailed for the Bahamas, but was not able to find the spot where the vessel lay. He received information of another, however, the position of which was more accurately defined, and which held a much greater treasure.

He then sailed for London, his resources having failed, where he arrived in 1683, and laid the project before King Charles, who furnished him with a 19-gun frigate, in which he returned to the Bahamas. Before he found the locality of the object of his search, he again became crippled for funds, and went again to London for further assistance, but King James, who had succeeded to the crown in the interval, deeming his views visionary, declined having anything to do in the matter. The Duke of Albemarle, however, was more sanguine and got up a subscription for a fresh outfit, on condition that he and the subscribers should share in the proceeds, and Captain Phipps sailed with two vessels. This time he was more successful; after some search he found the precise spot where the galleon lay, and, by means of his diving-bell, brought up from the wreck thirty-two tons of silver, besides gold plate and jewels, of the estimated value of £200,000. With this splendid prize he came again to England, but on a division of the spoil, he got no more than £20,000, the Duke absorbing £90,000, whilst the remainder was distributed amongst the other subscribers and the crews of the vessels. The King, in appreciation of his ingenuity and enterprise, knighted him, and constituted him Sheriff of New England. He made a second visit to the wreck, and made a gleaning of what had been left, and on his return to New England he built the "fair brick house in the green lane of North Boston," where he dwelt some time with his wife, now Lady Phipps, who no longer twitted him about the loss of her fortune. He afterwards served in the army, and was appointed, by William III., Governor of Massachusetts; but two years after, refusing to sanction certain corrupt practices, he was charged by his enemies with maladministration of his government. He went to London to clear himself of the false charges, but died there soon after his arrival, in 1694, and was buried in the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, where his widow erected a sumptuous monument to his memory, with a sculptured representation of his achievements in the Bahamas.

Not having any issue by his wife, he adopted Constantine, her nephew, and at his death bequeathed to him the bulk of his fortune. He is said generally, in the genealogies of the family, to have been Phipps's own son; but in "The Life of his Excellency Sir William Phipps, Kt., late Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, New England, 1697," which was published during the lifetime of his widow, it is said distinctly, "not having any child of his own, he adopted a nephew of his wife to be his heir." Sir Constantine Phipps, his nephew, who assumed the name of Phipps on inheriting his uncle's property, became Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, was knighted, and died in 1728. William, his son, married the Lady Katherine, daughter of James, fourth Earl of Anglesey, by the Lady Katherine Darnley, a natural daughter of King James II., who re-married John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, Duke and Marquis of Normandy, and Earl of Mulgrave. Constantine, his son, who died 1780, was created Baron Mulgrave of New Ross, in the Peerage of Ireland, in 1768. Constantine, his son, second Baron, was the famous navigator, who made a voyage of discovery into the Arctic regions, and was, in the Pitt Administration, Joint Paymaster of the Forces, a Lord of Trade, and a Commissioner of the India Board. He was created, in 1790, Baron Mulgrave, of Mulgrave Castle, in the Peerage of England, but, dying issueless in 1792, that title expired. His portrait may be seen in Greenwich Hospital.

Henry, his brother, succeeded as third Baron Mulgrave of New Ross, and in his person the Barony of Mulgrave, of Mulgrave Castle, was re-created in 1794. He was further created Viscount Normanby and Earl of Mulgrave, in 1812, and G.C.B. He was Governor of Scarborough Castle and Foreign Secretary, 1805-6, and died in 1831. Constantine Henry, his son, succeeded to all his father's titles, and was advanced in the Peerage to the Marquisate of Normanby, in 1838. His Lordship, who died in 1863, was an eminent statesman and diplomatist, was constituted P.C., 1832; G.C.H., 1832; G.C.B., 1847; and K.G., 1851, and held the following offices:—Governor-General of Jamaica, 1832-34; Lord Privy Seal, July to November, 1834; Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 1835-39; Secretary of State for the Colonies, September to December, 1839; Home Secretary, 1839-41; was Minister at Paris, 1846-52; Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Florence, 1854-58; and represented Scarborough in Parliament, 1818-20, Higham Ferrers, 1822-26, and Malton, 1826-30. He was a man of accomplished literary taste, having published "A Year of Revolution," from a journal kept in Paris, in the year 1848, 2 vols., 1857. Also several novels—"Yes and No," "Matilda," "The Contrast," "Clorinde," and "The Prophet of St. Paul's," and several political pamphlets of great ability, with some other minor works. George Augustus Constantine, his son, the second Marquis was a K.C.MG. and P.C.; was M.P. for Scarborough, 1847-21; Treasurer of the Household, 1853-58; a Lord-in-Waiting in 1866 and 1868-69; Captain of the Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, 1869-71; Governor of Nova Scotia, 1858-66; of Queensland, 1871-74; of New Zealand, 1874-78; and of Victoria, 1878-84. He died in 1890, and was succeeded by his son, the Rev. Constantine Charles Henry, the present Marquis, who was born in 1846.