Head baronets

The eighth Baronet was a colonial administrator and served as Governor General of Canada from 1854 to 1861.

His father had assumed by Royal licence the surname of Head in lieu of Mendes in 1770.

"The family, which is of antiquity in Kent, derives its name from the Kentish port now called Hythe, but formerly known as De Hede".

[2] The Head family's ancestral seat was located at The [Great] Hermitage at Higham in Kent, "a pleasant seat in this parish, situated at almost the south-east extremity of it, about a mile northward from the London road to Dover.

It stands on a hill, and commands a most extensive prospect both of the Medway and Thames, the Channel below the Nore, and a vast tract of country both in Kent and Essex.