Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 20 - Gambier
Gambier. — A branch of the Norman family of Gambier was in England in the reign of James I.; and several persons of the name became exiles for their religion. “Some monumental fragments in Normandy (says Lady Chatterton), together with various other circumstances, prove the family to have been one of antiquity and importance.” The English family, with its several branches, is sprung from a good Huguenot refugee. Nicolas Gambier left France some time after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He settled in London in 1690, where he died in 1724, leaving two sons, James and Henry. The latter was represented by a clergyman in 1824, at which date he published the third edition of his book, “An Introduction to the Study of Moral Evidence, or of that Species of Reasoning which relates to Matters of Fact and Practice, with an Appendix on Debating for Victory and not for Truth. By James Edward Gambier, M.A., Rector of Langley, Kent; of St. Mary-le-Strand, Westminster; and Chaplain to the Right Hon. Lord Barham.” James Gambier, born in London in 1692, became a barrister in good practice, and was a member of the Common Council of the city. He was elected a Director of the French Hospital, 9th April 1729. He married Miss Mary Mead and had several children. The daughters were Susan, wife of Sir Samuel Cornish, Bart, and Margaret, wife of Sir Charles Middleton, Bart., who, after her death, was First Lord of the Admiralty, and raised to the Peerage with the title of Lord Barham. (Their only child was Diana, Lady Barham, wife of Sir Gerard Noel, Bart.) Their sons were John and James. The latter was Admiral James Gambier (born 1725, died 1789); he married Jane, daughter of Colonel Monpesson, and was the father of Sir James Gambier, British Consul-General in the Netherlands. Sir James (born 1772) married in 1797 Jemima, daughter of William Snell, Esq. of Salisbury Hall, Hertfordshire, and was the father of William Gambier, Esq., Rear-Admiral Robert Fitzgerald Gambier, and James Mark Gambier, Esq.
The head of the senior line, the above-named John Gambier, Esq., was born in 1723 and died in 1782; he was Lieutenant-Governor of the Bahama Islands. His eldest son was Samuel; the second son was the gallant and magnanimous Lord Gambier. As to the daughters, Mary married Admiral Samuel Cornish. Susanna married Richard Sumner, of Devonshire. Harriet, wife of the Rev. Lascelles Iremonger, Prebendary of Winchester, deserves eminence as the mother of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton, to whom we are indebted for two volumes of Memorials of Lord Gambier. Margaret, “a woman of singular beauty and attractiveness,” married William Morton Pitt, M.P. for Dorchester, son of John Pitt of Encombe, who was a cousin of the great Earl of Chatham. Mr. and Mrs. Morton Pitt had an only child, Mary, who in 1806 was married to the second Earl of Romney, and is the ancestress of the present Earl.
We now return to the head of the family, Samuel Gambier, Esq. He was born in September 1752, and rose to be First Commissioner of the Navy; he married Jane, and Lord Gambier married Louisa, daughters of Daniel Matthew, Esq. of Felix Hall, Essex, and the latter having no children, it would have been creditable to his Majesty’s ministers if they had responded to the suggestion to reward his lordship’s great and varied public services by advising the king to grant him a new patent, with a remainder to Samuel and his heirs. “Died May 11, 1813, in Somerset Place, after a few hours’ illness, Samuel Gambier, Esq., one of the Commissioners of the Navy (brother of Lord Gambier), leaving a widow and eleven children.” Upon this family, according to the destination made by Admiral Sir Samuel Cornish, Bart, (who died in 1770), devolved the estate of Shambrook, in Bedfordshire. The eldest son (born 1790, died 1848) became Charles Samuel Gambier, Esq. of Sharnbrook; he was succeeded by his next brother, Admiral Robert Gambier (born 1791), whose son and heir is Rev. Charles Gore Gambier, B.A., Oxon. The third son of Samuel Gambier, Esq., was Sir Edward John Gambier (born 1794), M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Chief-Justice of Madras from 1842 to 1849.