Biography

Banks claimed by his father connection with the family of Banks of Whitley in Yorkshire whose descent he traced from Richard Bankes, a Baron of the Exchequer in the time of Henry IV

Henry IV of England

Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...

 and Henry V; and he asserted that his maternal ancestors were the Nortons of Barbados, baronets of Nova Scotia.

Banks was educated for the law, and on the strength of his genealogical knowledge proffered his services as an agent in cases of disputed inheritance. From 1813 to 1820 he practised at 5 Lyon's Inn

Lyon's Inn

Lyon's Inn was one of the Inns of Chancery attached to Inner Temple. Founded some time during or before the reign of Henry V, the Inn educated lawyers including Edward Coke and John Selden, although it was never one of the larger Inns...

, and subsequently he took an office, called the Dormant Peerage Office, in John Street, Pall Mall. Although none of the cases he undertook possessed more than the very flimsiest claims, which he would strengthen with an imaginary pedigree, some of his published works contained accurate research and are not without merit.

The Manual of the Nobility, his first publication, appeared in 1807. The same year he brought out the first volume of the Dormant and Extinct Baronage of England, a second volume following in 1808, and a third in 1809. In 1812 he published the first volume of a corresponding work on the Peerage, nearly one half of the volume being occupied with an account of the royal families of England down to the death of Queen Anne, and the remainder by the peerage from Abergavenny

Abergavenny

Abergavenny , meaning Mouth of the River Gavenny, is a market town in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located 15 miles west of Monmouth on the A40 and A465 roads, 6 miles from the English border. Originally the site of a Roman fort, Gobannium, it became a medieval walled town within the Welsh Marches...

 to Banbury

Banbury

Banbury is a market town and civil parish on the River Cherwell in the Cherwell District of Oxfordshire. It is northwest of London, southeast of Birmingham, south of Coventry and north northwest of the county town of Oxford...

; but the work was never carried beyond this volume.

The same year (1812) he edited, in one volume, reprints of Willima Dugdale's Ancient Usage in bearing Arms, Dugdale's Discourse touching the Office of Lord High Chancellor, with additions, together with Simon Segar’s Honores Anglicani. The first of his pamphlets in support of spurious claims to peerages appeared also in the same year under the title An Analysis of the Genealogical History of the Family of Howard with its Connections; showing the legal course of descent of those numerous titles which are generally, but presumed erroneously, attributed to be vested in the dukedom of Norfolk. In 1815 the pamphlet was republished with the more sensational title, Ecce Homo, the Mysterious Heir: or Who is Mr. Walter Howard? an interesting inquiry addressed to the Duke of Norfolk. A third edition appeared in 1816, with a copy of Walter Howard's petition to the king. The same year there was published anonymously the Detection of Infamy, earnestly recommended to the justice and deliberation of the Imperial Parliament by an Unfortunate Nobleman. The author of the pamphlet, as attested by his own hand in the British Museum copy, was Mr. Banks; the unfortunate nobleman was Thomas Drummond, of Biddick, who, as a descendant of the junior branch of the Drummonds, claimed to succeed to the estates in preference to James Drummond, who had been recognised as heir in 1784, and was created Lord Perth in 1797.

In the 1810s Banks was also engaged in compiling the cases printed by Lewis Dymoke on his claim to the barony of Marmion in right of the tenure of the manor of Scrivelsby, Lincoln. In 1814 Banks published an Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Nature of the Kingly Office, the Coronation, and Office of King’s Champion; and in 1816 a History of the Ancient Noble Family of Marmyun, their singular Office of King's Champion.

In 1825 he brought out Stemmata Anglicana; or, a Miscellaneous Collection of Genealogy, showing the descent of numerous ancient and baronial families, to which is added an analysis of the law of hereditary dignities, embracing the origin of nobility. The second part contained an account of the ancient and extinct royal families of England, re-embodied from the Extinct Peerage'. In 1887 this was republished as a fourth volume of the Dormant and Extinct Baronage of England, and continued down to January 1837, with corrections, appendices, and index.

In 1830 he undertook the case of Alexander Humphrys, or Alexander, who laid claim to the earldom of Stirling

Earl of Stirling

Earl of Stirling was a title in the Peerage of Scotland created on 14 June 1633, along with the titles Viscount Canada and Lord Alexander of Tullibody, for William Alexander, 1st Viscount Stirling. He had already been created Viscount of Stirling and Lord Alexander of Tullibody on 4 September 1630...

, as descended from a younger branch of the family by the female side; his mother, who died in 1814, assuming to be Countess of Stirling in her own right. In support of the claims of Humphrys there appeared in 1830 Letters to the Right Hon. the Lord K—on the Right of Succession to Scottish Peerages, which reached a second edition. The letters were by Mr. E. Lockhart; the advertisement, pp. 1-8, and the appendix, pp. 43-118, by Banks. The same year Banks published on the subject a Letter to the Earl of Roseberry in relation to the proceedings at the late election of Scotch peers, and this was followed in 1831 by an Address to the Peers of Scotland by Alexander, Earl of Stirling and Dovan, and in 1832 by an Analytical Statement of the Case of Alexander, Earl of Stirling and Dovan. Banks gave proof of his own personal faith in the claims of Humphrys by allowing the pseudo-earl, in accordance with rights conferred on the first Earl of Stirling by King James VI of Scotland, to create him a baronet, and by accepting from him, in anticipation, a grant of 6,000 acres of land in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

. When the documents on which Humphrys founded his claims were discovered to be forgeries, Banks ceased to make use of his own title; but in his obituary notice he is styled a Baronet of Nova Scotia and Knight of the Holy Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

While the Stirling case was still in progress. Banks published the imaginary discovery of another unrecognised claim to a peerage, under the title of a Genealogical and Historical Account of the Earldom of Salisbury, showing the descent of the Baron Audley of Heleigh from the William Longespe, Earl of Sabsbury, son of King Henry II by the celebrated Fair Rosamond, and showing also the right of the Baron Audley to the inheritance of the same earldom. In 1844 he published, in two parts, Baronia Anglica Concentrate. He also published, without date, Observations on the Jus et Modus Decimandi, an Account of the ancient Chapel of St. Stephen's at Westminster, and a Poem on the Family of Bruce. During his later years he resided near Ripon, Yorkshire. He died at Greenwich 30 September 1854.