THE CALLS OF  NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK, THEIR PASTON CONNECTIONS AND DESCENDANTS 

By CHARLES S. ROMANES. Privately printed for the editor by T. & A. Constable, printers to His Majesty 1920 


The Calls of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cornwall are an old English family who have taken part in many political and ecclesiastical struggles that have occurred in Britain. They came prominently into notice during the Wars of the Roses, the Reformation, and the Cromwellian period. 

We find references to the family in the Suffolk Lay Subsidies, and can locate them definitely in Waldingfeld Magna and Parva, and thereafter in Framlingham, both in Suffolk. 

Richard Call of Bacton was Bailiff or Estate Manager for John Paston of Paston. He married, in 1469, Marjorie Paston, daughter of John Paston of Paston and sister of Sir John Paston and his brother known as Sir John Paston the younger. While we have not ascertained his parentage with certainty, we have at least been able to show that this branch of the Call family were long connected with Framlingham and with the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. 

The Dukes of Northumberland (Smithsons) at this period kept up a style almost equal to Royalty, and held Courts in which pageantry and strictest etiquette were observed. When they appeared, for instance, in public they were preceded by outriders and followed by retainers. James Call was entrusted with the erection of their first greenhouses and conservatories and the planning, selecting, and rearing of rare trees, shrubs, and plants. Thomas Call was a surveyor in Alnwick. He was born at Eastwell, Kent, on 13th August 1717. Thomas Call died on 2nd September 1782 and was buried on 8th September 1782, aged sixty-five. James Call married Catherine Anderson in the neighbourhood of Alnwick. He had three sons and four daughters, Hugh, Thomas, Martin Miller, Hannah, Elizabeth, Lucy, and Catherine Martin. 

(1) Hugh Call, his eldest son, was baptised 9th December 1759. 

(2) Elizabeth was baptised 5th April 1761 and was married to • — — Sharp.

(3) Hannah Call, the tliird child of James Call, was bom about 1764. 
(4) Lucy Call, daughter of James Call, was born in 1772 and was married to Charles Manners (of whom hereafter). (5) Thomas Call, bom 1775, was a nurseryman and florist at Spring Gardens, Alnwick.

The youngest of the family was Martin Miller Call, who went to St. Petersburg and became one of the architects and surveyors of the Winter Palace and Tzarkoi Celo Palace. 

Lucy Call, sister of Martin Miller Call, was born in 1772 as mentioned by herself to the writer when a child. She has been described as the Belle of Alnwick. She married, in 1792, Charles Manners, the son of Charles Manners, who succeeded James Call in his office of gardener and steward to the Duke of Northumberland. Charles Manners was, like his brother-in-law, in the employment of the Emperor and Empress of Russia. It seems that the Empress Catherine had heard of the famous landscape gardeners of the Duke of Northumberland and had communicated with the Duke, who arranged that Charles Manners and his brother-in- law, Martin Miller Call, should proceed to Russia in 1792. They settled at Schusselburg, where Charles Manners laid out the Imperial Palace gardens. 

The public-spirited and beloved Empress Catherine next employed Charles Manners to lay out the grounds around Torida Palace as a public park known as the ' Torida Gardens.' This palace, under the Czar Nicholas II., became the seat of the 'Duma' or Russian House of Parhament. 

After the death of the Empress Catherine in 1796, the Emperor Paul (the 'mad Emperor') employed Charles Manners and his brother-in-law, Martin Miller Call, to lay out the Imperial Palace gardens at Tzarkoi Celo. Later Charles Manners and his wife and family removed to Peterhoff, where he laid out the gardens of that Imperial Palace, and took charge of the greenhouses and fruit cultivation. Martin Miller Call worked independently of Charles Manners about this period, because Charles Manners fell into disfavour wth the Emperor for supplying some choice fruit which the Emperor had ordered for one of his mistresses to the table of the Empress, and which had been recognised by the Emperor. Charles Manners seems to have been of a happy disposition and full of humour. An anecdote is told of him when living within the precincts of the Imperial palace of Peterhoff. When returning home one night he was stopped at the entrance gate by one of the guard, who had received orders from the Emperor Paul that he was to allow no person to enter unless he was wearing a swallow-tail coat and cocked hat. Charles Manners promptly pinned up his coat tails, bashed in the sides of his hat, and having satisfied the sentry got home in safety to his family, who like himself enjoyed the adventure. When Charles Manners fell into disfavour with the Emperor he had to seek employment among the Grand Dukes, and so we find him once more living near Schusselburg in his early surroundings, where he laid out what is still known as the Duke's Gardens situated on the Schusselburg Road. Here he died from a paralytic shock in one of the hot-houses on the marriage day of his two daughters, Catherine and Lucy. Previous to his return to Schusselburg, and after he had left the Emperor's service, he was for a time employed by the Count Scherimetieff, whose property was situated on the Peterhoff Road. His brother, Robert Manners, was gardener to Count Scherimetieff at Moscow. 

Charles Manners was buried in the Lutheran burial ground at Grafskoi Slavanka, now known as Czarskaya Slavianka. His widow, Lucy Call, removed to St. Petersburg to reside with her daughter, Mrs. Stevenson, in the Vaseelie Ostroff (literally William's Isle), where she died in February 1862, aged ninety years and three months, and was buried beside her husband. 

As far as we can ascertain the family of Manners has died out except in the female line. Catherine Manners, the editor's grandmother, was born at St. Petersburg on 12th March 1796, and married his grandfather, Simon Romanes, there on the 28th May 1824, on the same day that her sister, Lucy Manners, married John Peter Gaubert. A remarkable tragedy occurred that day after the marriages. Charles Manners, as already stated, suddenly died. 

After my grandfather's death my grandmother carried on his business in conjunction with my father. The house in which they lived, and where my sister and 1 were bom, was at the corner of Vosnesenskoi Street and the Great St. Isaac's Plain at the Blue Bridge (Seinoi Most), and opposite the Grand Duchess Mary's Palace. In the centre of this great plain or square is situated the Cathedral of St. Isaac, and beyond it is the monument to Alexander the First, and further over the equestrian statue to Peter the Great. Beyond it run the placid waters of the Neva. Towards the right, facing the river, is the Winter Palace. On the left side of the great square are many public buildings such as the Duma building, the Synod, and the Horse Guards. Across the square inins the famous Nefsky Prospect, called after one of the Russian patron saints, Alexander Nefsky. In this street are to be found the best shops and many churches such as the Kazan Cathedral. All these died unmarried, leaving now my son and myself as the only representatives in the male line of our branch of the Romanes family.   

GAUBERT John P. Gaubert, papermaker, was three times married, first to Lucy Manners as already recorded. He had only one child by his first marriage, George Manners Gaubert, who succeeded him as managing director of the Ouglitch Paper Mill Company. He died on 22nd July 1885, aged sixty. His line became extinct on the death of his only daughter, Elizabeth Hoeltzer. Mr. Gaubert's second wife was Elizabeth Manners, daughter of Robert Manners, Moscow, and cousin of his first wife. By her he had the following sons : 

(1) John Gaubert, who had an only child, Lena Gaubert, who now resides at Bushey, Herts. 
(2) Frederick Gaubert, an officer in the Russian Army, who died unmarried in Russia. 
(3) Peter Alfred Martin Gaubert, who died unmarried at Chalk Hill, Bushey, Herts, on 19th May 1887, aged thirty- four. 
(4) Robert Gaubert, who succeeded his brother, George Manners Gaubert, as managing director of the Ouglitch Paper Mill. He married his second cousin, Elizabeth Kroukenoffsky, daughter of Elizabeth Bannister and Kroukenoffsky. 

Elizabeth Bannister was the daughter of Nestacia Cleopatra Manners and Robert Bannister, St. Petersburg. Mr. Bannister had by his wife two other cliildren: Robert Bannister, and Lucy Bannister who married Zimmermann, St. Petersburg. Robert Gaubert died at Ouglitch without issue, so that the Gaubert family in the male line is now extinct. Mr. Gaubert married, as his third wife, Anna Maria Manners, who died on 10th October 1880 at Chalk Hill, Bushey, Herts, and was interred at Kensal Green Cemetery on 15th October. He had an only child by his third marriage, Lucy Gaubert, who married Laurence Ustich Jeans, Watford, and has three children : Laurence Jeans, Commander in the Royal Navy; Francis Jeans, Lieutenant in the British Army; and one daughter, Nancy Jeans who recently married Dr. Glyn Hall. 

STEVENSON The third daughter of Charles Manners and Lucy Call, Elizabeth Manners, married Alexander Stevenson, merchant, St. Petersburg. He is said in his will to be a native of Loanhead, and from the titles of a property he succeeded to at Gilmerton, a village about three miles south-east of Edinburgh, I have concluded that he came from that neighbourhood. 

I have prepared a genealogical tree of this family of Stevenson from Alexander Stevenson only. His eldest son, John Alexander Stevenson, was a papermaker at Oulitch, Tver, Russia, where his father-in-law, John P. Gaubert, had established a paper mill which he formed into a joint-stock Company, the shares of which were chiefly held by the Gaubert, Stevenson, and Manners families. 

John Stevenson, who was secretary of the Company, married his cousin, Elizabeth Sarah Gaubert, who died at Bridgewater on 11th October 1898, aged fifty-eight. They had an only child, Elizabeth Lucy Alice Stevenson, who married Arthur Basil Cottam, architect, Bridgewater, Somersetshire, and died on 15th August 1903, aged thirty-nine, leaving two children. Alexander Stevenson, the second son of Alexander Stevenson, married and died without issue. His widow resides at Annerley, London, S.E. He was also a shareholder in the paper mill, and became secretary of the Company on his brother's death. 

The only daughter of Alexander Stevenson, Lucy Stevenson, married her cousin, George Manners Gaubert, who became managing director of the Company on the death of his father. He had an only child, Elizabeth Ann Lucy Gaubert, who married Hoeltzer, Ouglitch, Yaroslav, Russia, and died at Annerley on 15th February 1915, aged fifty-one, without issue. We thus record the failure of the Stevenson line except in the children of Basil Cottam, architect, Bridgewater, before mentioned.