The parish church of St Mary and Nicholas in Leatherhead, Surrey, contains a memorial to Elizabeth Rolfe, the text of which reads:
“Here lies all that is mortal of Mrs. Elizabeth Rolfe,” of Dover, in Kent, who departed this life the 26th of October, 1779, in the 67th year of her age. Interred by her own desire at the side of her beloved cousin, benefactress, and friend, Lady Catharine Thompson, with whom she buried all worldly happiness. This temporary separation (though borne with patience, fortitude and hope), no engagements, no pursuits, could render less bitter to the disconsolate Mrs. Rolfe, who from the hour she lost her other self,knew no pleasure but in the hopes she cherished, (on which point her eyes were ever fixed) of joining her friend in the region of unfading felicity. Bless’d with the power and will to succour the distressed, she exerted both, and in these exercises only found a ray of happiness. Let the ridiculers of female friendship read this honest inscription, which disdains to flatter Much might be said, – but can any encomium more exalt a character than the unadorned simple account of a Friendship so uncommon, of a Gratitude so extreme?”
The nearby memorial to Lady Catharine Thompson reveals that she was the daughter of Sir Philip and Dame Elizabeth Eaton and widow of Sir John Thompson, lord mayor London in 1737, and that she died on the 8th of October 1764, aged seventy-four.
(The details above come from EW Brayley’s Topographical History of Surrey)
The Eaton family were prosperous merchants in Dover, Kent, and are remembered in Eaton Road in that town. Catharine’s husband, Sir John Thompson, had been a vintner and governor of the Russian Company. When Catherine died she left part of her large fortune to Elizabeth Rolfe.
In her will, Elizabeth Rolfe left instructions about her place of burial and promised the parish of Leatherhead the interest of 400 pounds annually, in memory of Lady Catharine Thompson, as long as they displayed a marble plaque about her gift in the church, and kept Lady Catharine’s memorial in good condition. The money was to go to ten of the poorest families in the parish who did not receive regular relief.
Elizabeth, who was unmarried and had no children, left the bulk of her estate to her cousin John Lott of Hythe, Kent, on condition that he took the name of Eaton in addition to his own surname. When he died the money was to go to “his oldest son lawfully begotten” on condition he too took the name of Eaton: “for by no other name shall my fortune ever be holden by it being the Maiden name of my …. and most inestimable Friend and Cozen Dame Cath. Thompson”. If John Lott died without issue “I give the whole of both estate to one of the nearest of kindred my Cousin John Lott bearing Eaton Name”. She named several trustees, including Mr Loftie, surgeon, of Canterbury, who were to receive a hundred pounds each for their trouble.
In a codicil, Elizabeth considers the possibility that John Lott might leave a daughter rather than a son: “then I give and bequeath to a daughter of his my whole fortune provided she is well educated and marrys a Man of Sobriety honesty which constitutes a good character tho’ with the consent of her truest friends and he takes the name of Eaton for by no other name shall my fortune be holden…” If John Lott were to die without any issue: “then I give and bequeath my whole fortune to Mr Loftie’s son by the Name of Eaton”. Mr Loftie is described as John Lott’s master. William Loftie was a surgeon and apothecary in Canterbury, and John Lott had been apprenticed to him.
It is in the codicil that Elizabeth makes first mention of closer family, leaving her brother Thomas Rolfe ten pounds a year and her brother Nicholas five shillings: “neither of them having ffamilys to provide for I have given it to John Lott”.
John Lott, by now called John Lott Eaton, died in 1807. He left his estate to a cousin, Elias Lott of Postlington near Hythe, who duly went about changing his name to Lott Eaton. The London Gazette announced that on the 28th November 1807:
“The King has been pleased to grant to Elias Lott, of Portling, in the County of Kent, Gent. His Royal Licence and Authority, that he and his Issue may assume, take, and use the Surname of Eaton, in pursuance of the Will of his Cousin John Lott Eaton, late of the Town and Port of Hythe, in the said County of Kent, Esq; deceased.”
But he had been beaten to it. The London Gazette also announced that on the 24th November 1807:
“The King has been pleased to grant unto John Skeere Loftie, of New Romney in the County of Kent, Esquire, Captain in the New Romney Volunteer Infantry, His Royal Licence and Authority, that he and his Issue may, in compliance with the last Will and Testament of Elizabeth Rolfe, Spinster, deceased, take and use the Surname of Eaton in addition to and after his present Name of Loftie.”
At this stage I lost track of what happened to Catharine Thompson’s fortune. Elias Lott was changing his name to fulfill the conditions in John Lott Eaton’s will (and Elizabeth Rolfe’s original will). John Skeere Loftie was changing his name to fulfill the conditions in the codicil to Elizabeth Rolfe’s will. But who inherited? Was the will perhaps disputed? Or was there perhaps some division of the estate that I missed in the wills (and I have only see the copies in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Register of Wills and not the originals)?
In his book, The Family of Loftie, Arthur Gershom Loftie wrote that John Skeere Loftie Eaton “succeeded to the property of a family of Eton, which name he took as an additional surname to that of Loftie, but being of an extravagant temperament, he ran through all his property, and died quite ruined in estate in 1817”. But however much of the Thompson inheritance he acquired, and whatever he did with it, one thing is certain: it is through John Skeere Loftie Eaton that Lady Catharine’s maiden name lives on. John’s son William Loftie Eaton was one of the 1820 British Settlers in South Africa and the name is still found there. (Skeere, incidentally, was John’s grandmother’s maiden name). John Skeere Loftie’s father William, surgeon and Alderman of Canterbury, was the brother of the Reverend John Loftie, the great-great-greatgrandfather of Alan Turing. The brothers featured in my post The Lofties of Kent.
Lady Catharine Thompson had left part of her fortune to her cousin’s son, Richard Monins (son of the Reverend Richard Monins, headmaster of Kings School, Canterbury) on condition he added Eaton to his name. He died childless a few years later, in 1770, and this may have made the perpetuation of the Eaton name so important to Elizabeth Rolfe, especially since the last of the Dover Eatons, Catharine’s nephew Peter, had also died childless.
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