User talk:22 Bury Street

In the entry for Sir George Hayter it is stated that his mistress, Louisa Cauty,was the daughter of Sir William Cauty. This appears in a number of other sites and I would like to explain why I think it is wrong.

Louisa Cauty was the sister of, among others, Elizabeth Cauty who was the long term mistress of the Bond Street Auctioneer, Harry Phillips.

Their father was William Cauty and their mother was Elizabeth Cauty. It is probable that Elizabeth’s mother, William’s first wife, Elizabeth Cauty was buried at St. James, Westminster on February 8, 1792, namely the year after Louisa Cauty was born. William then married another Elizabeth, Elizabeth Combes, said to be a spinster, by licence at St. Martin in the Fields, on September 14, 1793. What can be assumed is that any of Elizabeth’s siblings born after February 1792 were, in fact, half brothers or sisters. Elizabeth Cauty, the death of whose husband, William, was probably reported as being on September 19, 1804, was paying Land Tax in respect of  property in Pall Mall in 1805 and 1806 but not in 1807 or thereafter. From 1813-1820, (an) Elizabeth Cauty was paying Land Tax in relation to a property in York Place, Chelsea and, in the surety that she entered into for her daughters Sophia and Marianne in 1818 to enable them to go to India, she was referred to as living there. Interestingly enough, Harry Phillips was a co-surety and there is no reference to Elizabeth Cauty (widow) holding the title “Lady”.

The Gentleman’s Magazine announced the death of (a) Mrs Elizabeth Cauty at Brandenburgh Cottage, Hammersmith on October 21, 1842, aged 82, and she was said to have been the daughter of the late Tho. Brown King, esq. of the Ordnance Office, Tower (of London). Unfortunately the magazine appears to have conflated two entries from another press report, possibly the Standard, which referred to Elizabeth Cauty and, immediately under that, to Eileen W. King who was the daughter of Thomas Brown of the Ordnance Office. The St James Chronicle and London Post for October 22 merely stated that mrs Elizabeth Cauty was in her 83rd year.

Not only is there no entry for a Sir William Cauty in any of the contemporary books on titled gentlemen and landed gentry, it appears very unlikely that his widow would be known as “Mrs” when she died if, indeed, he had died with the title “Sir”. There is quite an interesting ‘William Cauty’, who was probably Elizabeth’s and Louisa's father, and whose death was reported on September 19, 1804, in the Morning Chronicle at the age of 62. He was described as “a well known character on the turf for the last 35 years and was universally respected by the first people, he has left a wife and twelve children, two of whom hold lucrative situations at Bombay in the East Indies”. That would tie in with Elizabeth and Louisa having at least 10 siblings but it is again difficult to trace the Cauty family. Currently it would appear that in addition to George, Robert, William, Dominick, Henry John and Thomas Henry Horatio, there was Richard, Sophia and Marianne and, probably,Ellen.

Elizabeth’s father’s interest in horses extended to ownership and the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette for September 6, 1792, refers to His Majesty’s 100 guineas being won by Mr Annesley’s ‘No Pretender’ which had beaten Mr Cauty’s ‘Alderman’. However in 1793, William Cauty appears to have become involved in a charge of keeping a disreputable house although the conviction was overturned on appeal when the original magistrate failed to turn up for the hearing.

William Cauty had a son also known as William with a long criminal reputation although the only previous conviction for gaming was also overturned on appeal but in his late 60s he was to feature, in 1851, in the arrest by Mr Whicher for robbery at a bank for which he was sentenced to be transported although he only got as far as the hulks at Portsmouth and was released shortly before his death.22 Bury Street (talk) 16:04, 3 June 2019 (UTC)