Bygone birding: are these the first recorded ringing recoveries of British Housemartins?

 From Tottenham to Barcelona and back - illustration of Housemartins in Gould's book

The extract below is from John Gould's Birds of  Great Britain, published in 1873:

I append a note forwarded to me by Mr. Philip Crowley, of Alton, in Hampshire, a gentleman fully imbued with a love for nature, and intimately acquainted with our native birds. 

It is dated July 8, 1852, at which time he was resident at Grove House, Tottenham, Middlesex. 

'The two Martins I caught, labelled, and set at liberty last year have returned. 

'I tied a small piece of parchment to one leg of each, and wrote on it - P. Crowley, Alton, Hants, England.

On the other side of one of them, I now find - Don Vangello, Barcelona.’

Meanwhile, in his  Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Regions in 1833-35, Captain King writes:

'That the Housemartin not only visits the same place but the same nest year after year is a fact which I ascertained by experiment.

'While residing in Kent about ten years ago, having selected a nest, I fastened a small piece of silk round one of the legs of its inmate, then sitting upon eggs. 

'The following season the bird returned, and, with the garter still affixed, was secured in the same nest - a convincing proof of the instinctive knowledge attributed to it.'

In confirmation of the above statement, Mr. Durham Weir reports that he caught several pairs of Martins at the windows of his house in September, 1838.

He fixed small silver rings round their legs, and learned that one of them had been shot in his immediate neighbourhood the following May.