Of origin,
and the founding hand.

The first Marlowe of consequence took rooms in Eaton Square in the year MDCCCLXXXVII, having concluded business in the Low Countries and finding the climate of London more agreeable to long custody. He brought with him three trunks, a clerk, and the small leather-bound volume which would, in time, be referred to as the founding letter.

The trunks contained ledgers. The clerk wrote a fine hand. The volume was bound in calf and is held still at the seat.

The family had, before then, occupied itself with matters of carriage and exchange across the German Sea. The particulars of those undertakings are not the business of this page, nor of any page; the particulars are kept where particulars belong.

The house has occupied the same address in Old Belgravia since MDCCCXCI. The lease was, in the founder's view, a temporary measure. It has remained one. The freehold was acquired in MCMXXIX, in a transaction characterised at the time as opportune.

The seat consists of three reception rooms, the Office of the Chamberlain, the Library of Letters, and the room in which the founding letter is kept. Visitors are received in the first reception room. Most are not received beyond it.

The Group was constituted in MCMXIV, in a chambered parlour of the seat, against the small chance — correctly judged — that the century would test the family's patience in unusual ways. The first Sigillum was impressed in wax by the founder's hand, in the presence of two witnesses whose names are recorded in the register and not in this place.

The instruments which constitute the Group remain in force. They have been amended four times. The amendments are the business of the trust and not of correspondence.