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Note: The History and Topography of Essex by Thomas Wright. After the death of her husband, Mrs. \Walford left Harsted Hall, and, with her son and daughter, went to reside in London. Her son, who was then about sixteen years old, and the Favorite of his mother, was permitted to enter into all the gaieties of town, and, being endowed with good abilities and a genteel person, his company Avas courted by young men, in a superior situation in life, which led him into extravagance, and endangered his estate. One of his eccentricities was a visit to a friend at Cambridge, where (without his mother's knowledge) he entered himself a fellow-commoner at Sidney College, which occasioned her a considerable expense, as well as trouble, to get him back again to town. Upon his return, she prevailed with him to study the law, under the care of a gentleman in the Six Clerks' office, to whom she gave �380, and found him board and lodging at her own house in Gloucester Street, Queen's Square, London. He continued in this office tolerably attentive till he came of age, but a few days had elapsed, when he hurried down to his steward at Finchingfield, and gave orders for all the timber upon the Harsted Hall estate to be taken down and sold. Before this order could be put in execution, he was seized with the smallpox, and died at Finchingfield, twenty-three days after he came of age. His estates then devolved to his sister Mary, who afterwards married George Gent, Esq. of Moynes, in the parish of Steeple Bumstead
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