BARON HYLTON.
The elevation of the Right Hon. Sir William George Hylton Jolliffe to the Peerage, ‟by the name, style, and title of Baron Hylton, of Hylton, in the county-palatine of Durham, and of Petersfield, in the county of Southampton,” was gazetted on Friday.
The affectionate sentiment of the North will be gratified by this revival of an ancient dignity—a dignity over which the historian of the Bishopric fondly lingers, on his pleasant pages, when he comes to “the castle that stands low in the vale of the Wear,” and traces the fortunes of the family whose illustrious name it bears. Mr. Hylton Longstaffe, too, the historian of Darlington, devotes a chapter to the old Saxon family—not the least interesting of the chapters in his admirable volume; and he opens it with words which we are now tempted to quote. ‟Perhaps,” says our Gateshead neighbour, ‟no feeling of clanship ever animated any race in a stronger degree than that which characterized the Hyltons in the North. The line of pedigree might be utterly lost, a long tract of country intervene, but still every man pf the name looked up to the Baron of Hylton as his kinsman and natural protector, however humble his station and remote his claim. The idea at the present day has in no way altered though the Barons have passed sway. Universal tradition, similarity of arms to those of undoubted scions of the parent stock, acknowledgment by the Barons, and the never-failing characteristic of the blue eye and fair flowing hair of the Saxon, have led the Hyltons of Westmoreland and South Durham in all ages to look back to the green manors on the Wear as their fatherland; to remember their Saxon parentage, and their origin in one of Odin’s ravens and a mild maiden of the Bishopric; and, in fine, to look upon the towers and traditions of the Barons as their own.”
The heirs of the Barons are the Jolliffes; and in the late member for Petersfield, therefore, the ancient dignity is fitly restored. His eldest surviving son, Mr. Hedworth Hylton Jolliffe, who was at Alma and Inkerman, and in the Balaklava charge, has a seat in Parliament as member for Wells; and he derives both his Christian names from families of the county palatine.