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Lord's Meade Electronic Budget

The site is provided by the current generation of their descendants to help maintain cousinly links amongst ourselves, and to provide a point of contact for others with an interest in our family history. For over a hundred years, a "Budget" (i.e. a folder) of letters has circulated around representatives of each branch of the family - a process which continued until recently, but which has now been mostly replaced by email communication among those members of the family who wish to take part - contact us via the link below:



Other visitors may wish to contact us at


The Original Budget
There is no record of who the first correspondents were in 1893. When May Fox, the daughter of Sarah Maria, and the eldest grand-daughter of John Eliot and Maria Howard, started circulating a package (a "budget") of letters among her brothers and sisters and her uncles and aunts, she had no idea that she was starting a cycle of letters that would carry on for one hundred years, and is still going strong. Now there are about eighteen correspondents, and it takes about a year to get round if all goes well. There is no record of it ever having been totally lost, but there have been several long delays. It must have progressed faster in its earlier days, as now in 2007 it is in its 108th circulation.  It is not surprising, when one remembers how often they visited their children and other relations and maintained such a correspondence, that the family has hung together on the thread of the Budget like beads on a well-loved necklace.

And if you have ever wondered why its called "The Budget", here is a dictionary definition of the word's etymology:

Middle English bowgette, from Middle French bougette, diminutive of bouge leather bag, from Latin bulga, of Celtic origin; akin to Middle Irish bolg bag; akin to Old English belg bag.
Definition #
1 chiefly dialect : a usually leather pouch, wallet, or pack; also : its contents


See the Parties page for a history of the many times that family members with Budget connections have gathered together socially for meals or sporting activities.  


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