Basset family

House of Basset
Noble House
Arms of Basset: Barry wavy of six or and gules
Country	Duchy of Normandy Kingdom of England
Estates	Various Earldoms, Baronies and Manorial Lordships
Titles	Various
Style(s)	Earls, Barons, and Knights
Founder	Thurstan Basset
Ethnicity	Norman

The Basset family were amongst the early Norman settlers in the Kingdom of England. It is currently one of the few ancient English families that have survived through the centuries in a paternal line. They originated at Basset in the Duchy of Normandy.

Thurstan Basset (1050–1128) is the founder of House Basset and came from Quilly Basset, Normandy. He appears in the Battle Abbey Roll, and the one surviving branch of his descendants was long seated at the manor of Tehidy in the parish of Illogan, near Camborne, in Cornwall. The family later moved its principal seat to Devonshire (Whitechapel, Bishops Nympton, then Umberleigh and Heanton Punchardon) and Tehidy became the seat of the junior branch, which became very wealthy in the 18th century from leases granted by them for tin and copper mines located on their estates, most notably the tin and copper mines at "Pool", between Camborne and Redruth, from which they earned income of £10,000 per annum. The family also controlled two of the richest mines in Cornwall, namely "Cook's Kitchen", in Pool and "Dolcoath", near Tehidy. They were the fourth largest landowner in Cornwall in 1873, as revealed by the Return of Owners of Land, 1873, with 16,969 acres, after the Rashleigh family of Menabilly (30,156 acres), the Boscawens of Tregothnan (25,910 acres) and the Robartes of Lanhydrock (22,234 acres).

According to Hals, a Basset held some military post in Cornwall as early as the time of Robert, Earl of Mortain (fl.1066). However Lysons (who had a good opportunity of forming a sound judgment, from his personal acquaintance in the early part of the 19th century with Sir Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville) says that the Bassets (who seem to have been first settled in Oxfordshire and other of the midland counties) can scarcely be said to have become Cornish folk (although they may have held property in Cornwall earlier) until the marriage of Adeliza de Dunstanville with Thomas, Baron Basset of Hedendon, Oxfordshire, in the time of King Henry II (1154-1189). Her ancestor, Alan de Dunstanville, was lord of the manor of Tehidy as early as 1100. Scrope in his History of the Manor of Castle Combe, Wilts, corroborates this account.