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A DISTINGUISHED HIGH SHERIFF By W. H. HOWSE, F.S.A. One day in September, 1956, I was sitting in my study with our member Dr. R. Williams when I received a visit from Lt. Col. E. W. Busk, of West Mersea, Essex, who explained that he was writing the history of his family and wished to find the whereabouts of a house in which an ancestor, Hans Busk, lived who was High Sheriff of Radnor- shire in 1837 and was described in the Dictionary of National Biography as a Radnorshire Squire." After several fruitless enquiries he had been referred to my house as a place where he might get the required in- formation. Evidently he had not previously called on a member of the Radnorshire Society. Naturally I referred him to the paper on the said Sheriff, Hans Busk the elder (1772-1862), and his son, Hans Busk the younger (1815-82), written by the late Rev. D. Stedman Davies for Vol. VIII of the Transactions (pp 47-50). That pleased him, but he was more pleased and surprised when Dr. Williams began reeling off the titles of certain books written by Hans the younger on the subject of the rifle and musketry instruction, some of which he had not heard of himself! Hans the younger (educated at Trinity College, Cambridge), it might be explained, was recognised as the pioneer of the Volunteer movement in this country, and as such, like his father, finds a place in the D.N.B. It was a strange coincidence that Dr. Williams, with his wide knowledge of arms and armour and the literature relating thereto, should have been present at the interview, which I think concluded to Colonel Busk's complete satisfaction. Since so little has hitherto been known about the origins of the above Sheriff with the foreign name, or indeed of the Sheriff himself, who came so strangely to be known as a Radnorshire squire, I record here some of the information kindly supplied by Colonel Busk at the interview and in subsequent correspondence. It appears that the family is of Norwegian origin, descended from a certain HansHanssonBusck his eldest son, Jacob Hans, cameto England in 1712, and was naturalised in 1722, when he changed his surname to Busk. The family had been engaged in the wool trade in Russia, and this Jacob Hans became one of the heads of the industry at Leeds, where the "handsome house" he built may be seen in Cossins 1726 plan of Leeds. His younger brothers (from one of whom Colonel Busk is descended ) remained in Russia for a time, and the family business was maintained there until at least 1860.