FANNY FREDERICA (1848-1925) was the only one of Hubert and Frederica McLaughlin's four daughters to marry. And she did well in 1870 when she was wedded in Boraston to Frederick Clark DL (1837-96) the younger son of Edward Clark and his wife Maria. Frederick, his father and his elder brother, also called Edward, were all members of the London Stock Exchange.
The couple lived at 42 Great Cumberland Place, in fashionable Mayfair, London. During the decade ending 1891 they also had a home, The Old Manor House, in the seaside resort of Hythe, Kent. The house, now divided into flats, easily accommodated the family with six children and six servants, but it seems that an aged caretaker was usually the sole occupier. The Clarks may have had another home nearby before moving into the Old Manor House. It was built about 1658 and given a Georgian facelift in 1785.

Frederick's portrait (below) shows him in his uniform as Deputy Lieutenant of Herefordshire. The Lord Lieutenant is the British monarch's personal representative in a county. In his absence, a local worthy appointed as one of his several Deputy Lieutenants stands in for him. It seems a pity that, despite all his finery, Frederick's duties were usually limited to opening church bazaars.

On 10th June 1852, Sir William Betham, the Ulster King of Arms, wrote to Fanny's father, the Rev. Hubert McLaughlin: "Although I have not been able to connect by positive evidence your Grandfather Patrick McLaughlin, with the McLaughlins of the North, yet I have no doubt of his descent from them. I have a general pedigree of most of the descendants of the last McLaughlin King of Tyrone, who was killed at the battle of Caim Eirge in 1241 by Brian O'Neill, his competitor for the Throne, down to the year 1620 after which on the settlement of Ulster by James 1st they were deprived of their estates and went into trade for the most part. If that statement of pedigree of the Royal McLaughlins, with the historical notices of them will be sufficient for you I can supply it."

That pedigree was good enough for Hubert. But Frederick Clark, DL, wanted the family tree to look more elegant, so he had Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, spruce it up in 1881 and 1883. (The tree has since been pruned by DNA evidence.)

Sadly Frederick's widow, like so many other McLaughlins, climbed the social ladder downwards. Fanny had only one servant in 1911 when she was living at the Vicarage House, Burstock, near Broadwindsor, Dorset, with her spinster daughters, Augusta Ida Crofton Clark, 34, and Dorothy Agnes Graham Clark, 28.

Fanny and Frederick's eldest child, Frederick Stewart Clark studied to enter the Diplomatic Service but died in 1898 at the age of 26. There were four other sons: two died very young. The other two lived on their private incomes: St. George Rushout Clark, after working as a bank clerk in London, became a genial man about town who visited New York at least twice and also took a ship to San Francisco; Mervyn had a more interesting career.

In 1898, his surname now hyphenated, Mervyn Hanbury Lowther-Clark was promoted to Lieutenant in the 21st Middlesex (The Finsbury), a volunteer regiment. In 1900 Mervyn became a Captain and married Kate Northcote Davis. Some time afterwards he lost his wife and left England for Australia, where, in 1909, he remarried to Florence Nellie Wheeldon. They started a family while living in Kew, Melbourne.

In 1915 Mervyn returned to England. He was attached to the newly formed 18th Service Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, with the rank of major. This was a bantam battalion consisting of men who failed to reach the British Army's height requirement of 5ft 3in but not less than 5ft tall, although most of the officers were of normal height. By the end of 1916 the general fitness of men volunteering as bantams was no longer up to the required standard. No more undersized men were accepted, and units lost bantam status as replacements reduced the proportion of small men.

In 1918 Mervyn was appointed Assistant Provost-Marshal (military police officer). He returned to Australia as a Major in January 1920 aboard the SS Megantic.

When she was 23, Kathleen Frederica, the eldest of Fanny's three daughters, married Harry Everard and went to New Zealand. A year later, in 1899, they had a son Eric. Harry's father was Royal Navy Captain John Courtenay Everard, a relative of William Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon (1777-1859). Upon boarding a Portuguese privateer in 1854 the captain found a spur-thighed tortoise, which served as a naval mascot until 1892 when it was taken to Powderham Castle, home of the Earl of Devon, where it died in 2004, aged 160, the United Kingdom's oldest known resident.

On the left are the last-born of Hubert and Frederica's children: WALTER STEWART McLAUGHLIN (1855-70) and GEORGINA SUSAN McLAUGHLIN (1849-1925).