GLANVILLE FAMILY of CORNWALL and DEVON
Home page Edward Glanvill Home page

William Urmston Searle Glanville Richards -
The man who tricked the Glanville family
with his book about their family.

Edward Glanville married in 1703 at Ashburton, Devon.  Many people who have him in their family trees on the internet have included the error that he was a son of John Glanvill and Katherine Fortescue who married 1653.  That error originates from the book: Records of the Anglo-Norman House of Glanville from AD 1050 to 1880 by William Urmston Searle Glanville Richards published in 1882.

We have been unable to prove that ancestry for Edward, in fact we have found that it is extremely unlikely.  Go to our page Edward Glanvill Mystery and see Theory 2.

Glanville Richards also offered to help the Leete family with their family history.  However when his material was checked it was found that he had tampered with manuscripts at the British Museum.  That led to his appearance at the Central Criminal Court in 1891.  He was found guilty and sentenced to two months in prison.  You can see an article about this entitled
- The Man who Wrote on the Manuscripts in the British Museum - by C J Wright.

Also see the item about the trial in The Times of 12 March 1891.

WORTHIES OF DEVON
John Price lived from (1643-1723) and wrote his Worthies of Devon.  Below is a copy of one of the items from the book which was printed in 1810.  Note that John Glanvil left only one son, John junior.  Therefore Edward Glanvil of Ashburton was not his son.

"John, the second son of Serjeant Glanvil, was a counsellor at law, a gentleman of warm and brisk parts; he married a daughter of Sir Edmund Fortescue, of Fallopit, in the county of Devon, Kt. lived mostly in the city of Exeter; and at length removing to Broad-Hinton, aforesaid, he there breathed out his last, and lies interred in the church belonging to that parish. He has yet no monument raised to his memory; though one is shortly designed him by his excellent relict, who is yet surviving. He left issue one son, John Glanvil, Esq; who now inhabits at Broad-Hinton."