Henry Ginn of Great Hormead d. 1586

Henry Ginn was the eldest, and only surviving son of Thomas Ginn of Great Hormead mentioned in my post of 5th July.

For a long time, I knew comparatively little about Henry.  Then, quite some years ago, the Hertfordshire Record Office purchased a number of manuscripts at auction, including the manuscript of William Barlie of 1593 mentioned earlier, summarising (with a gossipy commentary) the Great Hormead manorial records of the mid to late 1500s.  Then some astonishing information came to light.

Henry Ginn was born in 1540.  The parish registers do not survive for 1540, but Barlie tells us.  His parents died of the plague when he was 5 and he went to live with his uncle, Thomas Brand jnr,  a significant yeoman in Great Hormead who had an association with some properties which survive there.

We are told that Henry was, as my late father would say "not quite the ticket" or in Barlie's words, not always "able to govern himself".  Whether this came about as the result of physical illness, eg epilepsy, or whether it might have resulted from the emotional trauma of losing his parents so young and in such a manner is anybody's guess.  I understand that the fact that he fathered children seems to rule out slight Down's Syndrome, this having been with humanity since the dawn of time.

This became a problem for Henry in 1561, when he was 21 and able to come into his inheritence of "Margery Smiths", for the manorial court would not let him inherit on the grounds he was not mentally up to running the farm.

By 1566 it is clear that Henry was planning to marry (Alice - her maiden name is unknown), so obviously his diability cannot have been that bad.  The manorial court was summoned to meet "at the instance of his friends" Barlie says, and after much deliberation decided that Henry was "reasonably able to govern himself" but fearful that whatever troubled him might be inherited by any children, they decided that he and his future wife could have the farm for their lives but that it could never be inherited by any children.  It is very rare in genealogy to have such insights into the lives of our ancestors.

So Henry acquired "Margery Smiths" in 1566 and, as it happens, this is known anyway because the Great Hormead registers always refer to him as "Henry Ginn of Margery Smiths" should there have been any doubt.

Henry died in 1586, two years before the attack of the Spanish Armada - he was 46.  We do not know the cause.  Barlie says that he left a will, he even tells us the terms, but I have never found it.

Alice remarried a William Weston of Great Hormead the next year and, obviously, inherited the farm for the term of her life.  In 1593, when Barlie wrote, this was how the position stood.

Alice made her will in 1614, well before she died, and was obviously in continued dispute with the manorial courts because in that will she tried to outflank the position of 1566 by leaving the farm to her grandson.  It was not going to work as we shall see.

Alice outlived two husbands and three sons, dying in 1625 as Alice Weston alias Ginn and leaving a will, the original document being preserved at the Essex Record Office and is shown below.  She must have been at least 80.  The saga over the farm was not over.

Henry and Alice had a number of children

Richard - who "inherited" the farm and is the subject of a later post

John - who married Elizabeth Cartwright alias Martindale

Thomas- married Annis Dellor (and may have descendants I believe)

Thomas (an earlier son who definitely died infancy) and Gamaliel  (alive 1586) who likely did