Aquila Ginn of Reed End, Therfield died 1708

 Aquila Ginn was the eldest son of Aquila the elder of Great Hormead (see post of 14th August 2012  ).  He and his family have remained a footnote on my post on his father until now.  But in late 2023 I turned up two court cases and these gave me so much information that I felt compelled to create this post.

He was born in 1634 in Great Hormead.  His father lived to such a great age for the time that Aquila jnr never really inherited a lot, his father providing in life and, obviously, Aquila jnr tried to marry to advantage to affirm his position as a yeoman.

In about 1657/8 (during Cromwell's Commonwealth after the English Civil War when you were compelled to marry before a Justice of the Peace - so the marriage is lost) he married a lady called Joan or Joanna.  Until 2023 that is all I knew.  But as a result of a discovered court case see below (helpfully indexed under the name of Glynn) it seems likely that her maiden name was Battle or Battell and she came from Bassingbourn which straddles the Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire border.  How they met I have no idea.

It seems clear that Aquila gained financially (and likely in land) from the union.  Joan clearly had a brother Robert of Royston (see below) and although the couple had a son, Aquila, in the Hormeads in 1659, by 1662 or so they had made the move to Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire.  This is quite some distance from Great Hormead and I had always wondered the reason for such a move.

They had a daughter Elizabeth at Bassingbourn in 1663.  My suspicion is that there may have been other children I have no knowledge of.  They had no less than 5 Hearths there in the Hearth Tax record, but Aquila pleaded relative poverty to get his tax reduced, and my guess is that he was living in a house provided by or rented from the Battle family.

By 1670 I know that Aquila and Joan were in Therfield back in Hertfordshire, almost certainly in Reed End, where Aquila was to live for nearly the next forty years, until the end of his life.  Reed End, indeed the whole of this area is still almost completely rural.  But by this period the manorial copyhold system was already beginning to die out, and although Aquila is mentioned quite frequently in the manorial rolls that I found for this period in the Guildhall Library in London no less, he was not so much holding considerable copyhold land as holding manorial official posts, such as this of Constable.

For Aquila can be clearly seen to have been a tenant farmer, how the yeoman class were to be seen for the next two centuries.  He rented land on a short terms basis or rented on longer leases.  He seems to have lived in some hard earned comfort, but his existence was precarious.  Bad luck, bad weather or ill health would have treated him very unkindly.

Aquila witnessed the will of his distant cousin Francis Ginn of Therfield in 1673, with a certain Edward Mead, of whom more later.  Little Elizabeth, Aquila and Joan's daughter died at Therfield in 1675 and on the face of it the couple were now childless, and Joan herself died at Therfield in 1682.  

Edward Mead of Therfield died in 1679 leaving a widow Mary.  And in 1683 Aquila married Mary Mead "widow of Edward" at Great Hormead, doubtless surrounded by his family.  This was all I knew about this marriage until late 2023.

Mary Mead was born in Therfield in about 1640, but her maiden name was Gray - her parents being Anthony and Rose Gray.  For those interested in the Gray family (there is some nonsense on Ancestry) I will tell the story

Anthony Gray was born in Therfield (to another Anthony) at the beginning of 1600.  His was a very solid Yeoman family.  He married Rose Fison at Cambridge in 1625 and they had a large family, not all the baptism entries surviving - namely Rose (1628)  Anthony jnr (1629) Elizabeth (1631) Henry (1634) Edward and Mary.  Anthony snr had a good deal of land both in Therfield and Sandon in Herts (the latter near Buntingford)

The children are interesting and to help

Rose married Job Holmstead of Queenhithe in the City of London (a Feltmaker - ie a Hatter) at St Botolph Bishopsgate in 1657.  I cannot find any reference to issue and Job was dead by 1664.

Anthony jnr married Ann Fillney at Therfield in 1657.  They had one son, also Anthony in 1660 and then Anthony jnr was also dead by 1664.  Anthony Gray snr referred to Ann as his daughter and she and the infant were very well cared for in his will.  Whether little Anthony survived is unknown.

Elizabeth clearly married Jeremiah Downes of Hertford at distant Great Amwell in 1652.  This was a little scary for me.  Because Jeremiah Downes was one of the sons of Hezekiah Downes of Hertford.  And Hezekiah is an old friend of mine.  He was a Hertford Blacksmith, also a Burgess and the Mace bearer to the Corporation.  He was strongly involved for Parliament (as were his sons) in the English Civil War and is mentioned in not only the story of Richard Ginn of Ware, but also that of Peter Ginn, also a Blacksmith of Hertford.  It now appears that Aquila Ginn here was the brother in law of his sons!  I was astonished.  It illustrates the small population of the 1600s and the relatively small gene pool of the yeoman and tradesman class.  For the record, Jeremiah (some sort of builder) and Elizabeth had a son, also Jeremiah in 1660, who some say went to Harpenden and established a drapery business - I will leave it with you

Edward took all the land in Mardleybury Manor in Therfield - he clearly married and reputedly died in 1705.

Henry - inherited all the land in Sandon - was alive in 1664 - nothing more is known.

Mary Gray clearly married Edward Mead, where and when unknown.  Mary like her sisters was an eligible spinster.  Anthony Gray senior died in 1664 (will PCC) and on his death he left a lot of bequests, a lot of them tied to the life of his widow Rose and payable upon her death and even more conditional upon whether little Anthony above (his grandson) survived to his majority.  Mary received £50 when her father died.  If little Anthony had died she would have been quite a catch.  And upon her mother's death (1687/8) she was due an additional £70.

So, when Rose Gray snr died in 1688 Edward Gray's worst nightmare came true.  His siblings went to him for their money.  Had he laid it aside over the years he would have been alright, and he clearly had some, because some bequests were allegedly paid out.  But not Mary's £70, Ted's cloud has a silver lining for me, because Aquila sued (C8/350/180 ).

The Bill of Complaint had some gaps for essential information (eg Anthony Gray's death) and that, together with the absence of an Answer (defence) from Edward Gray leads me to the conclusion that the case was settled.  The lands in Therfield had been charged with payment of the legacies and Aquila was suing for land in lieu of the money, so he and Edward obviously came to some arrangement. So in 1689 Aquila acquired a little money through his wife.

In 1694 Aquila was 60.  But he was clearly an energetic and active chap and up for a challenge.

The next story starts in North Yorkshire of all places.  This is a lot of research imparted lightly.  How these people moved around is a genealogist's nightmare

In 1630, a lad called John Cockett was born in Yorkshire.  A poor boy, he went to Giggleswick School, a charity school.  Giggleswick chose one bright poor pupil every year to get a scholarship to Cambridge University, and in the mid 1640s John was the lucky one.  He got two degrees, entered the Church and in 1660 this chap was made the Rector of the parish of Reed in Hertfordshire.  The church is shown below, Aquila Ginn is buried in the churchyard.

In 1668 the no nonsense yorkshireman John Cockett married an Ann Flexmer (daughter of Francis) in London and in 1670 they had their only child, a son Francis, at Reed.  In 1693 Francis Cockett, Gentleman of Holborn in London (he had rooms there) married Alice Battle of Royston in Herts in Soho, London.  And in 1694 they had their only known child Ann while living in Royston.  They were back in London by 1695.  You can see how this is starting to come together.

Now, in 1655 or so another character in this story was born, a Christopher Cooper was born near Buntingford, likely in Reed (his family had land there).  Little Christopher also went to a charity school in Buntingford and (no jokes) it is said caught the eye of a local Bishop who put Chris forward for the church and Christopher Cooper also went to Cambridge University.  This could be called the "Clergymen's Tale".

Christopher Cooper became the Vicar of Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire.  He as a Latin scholar and wrote books on latin grammar (bestsellers no doubt)  and became the Headmaster of Bishops Stortford Grammar School.  He comes over as a little pompous.  In 1686, thorough the auspices of the Church of England he had a vicarage (now called "The Old Vicarage" it still stands) built at Bishops Stortford.  The house is important as it figures in Aquila's story.

In 1697 (C7/133/9) all of the stars aligned and, in a court case, all of this came together.

It appears that Christopher Cooper had a house and thirty four acres of land in Reed to be granted by lease.  The house was a bit dilapidated but Aquila Ginn was up for the challenge and in 1694 he negotiated with Cooper to take a lease for 6 years at £25 a year and to renovate the house for his occupation, Cooper rebating (ie reducing) the rent at the start to allow for the work Aquila and Mary needed to do.

Aquila was unknown to Cooper and Cooper later said (hindsight being a wonderful thing) that he had heard reports of Aquila's "ill character" and had got on his horse and ridden from Bishops Stortford to Royston (a fair trek) to check Aquila out.  It is clear that Chris went to see the 24 year old Francis Cockett who was then in Royston (likely residing at the Tabard Inn) for a reference.  It does not necessarily follow that he had heard ill reports of Aquila.

All went well.  The Lease was drawn up by a scrivener called Brown, known to Cockett said the Reverend Cooper but "an utter stranger" to him.  On the 29th November 1694, the sixty year old Aquila Ginn himself travelled down to Bishops Stortford and walked into what is now the Old Vicarage above.  He signed the lease.  He later claimed that he had not read it and my guess is that Aquila was illiterate.

It went wrong of course.  Aquila renovated the house but the good Reverend refused to rebate the rent for the amount Aquila claimed, so Aquila sued.

Now the central figure in this story, the elephant in the room is Francis Cockett, gentleman.  Because I have not mentioned a couple of things.  Firstly, Cockett was a joint plaintiff with Aquila. And the reason for that is that when Cooper rode to see him in Royston, Francis Cockett did more than give Aquila a good reference, he not only stood surety for the rent, but he gave Cooper a financial bond guaranteeing if Aquila could not pay.  Given that Francis Cockett was 24, newly married with a babe in arms- why did he do that ?

Francis was not in business with Aquila, that is clear. And it seems unlikely that Aquila was a long term friend of John Cockett.  And, anyway,  John Cockett had died aged 63 in 1693 (will PCC) still the Rector of Reed. And although Francis and Alice had had their first child at Royston no doubt surrounded by her family, Frank had taken the family to London by 1695 and his widowed Mum Ann had gone with them  She died in Bishopsgate (living there 1695 - Inhabitants Outside the Walls) in 1696 (will PCC)  Both she and John made much mention of the Battle family in their wills, and it is clear that they had known Alice some years before she had married Francis.

So it is the Battle family that I turned my attention to, and particularly Robert Battle of Royston, Alice's dad. Alice was born in 1666.  Now Royston (as the name hints) had had ancient links to the monarchy, and in the first half of the 1600s there was something of a royal palace or at least large residence (below) there which gave employment and benefited tradesmen of the town while the royal entourage of the Stuart kings was there.

This made Royston a somewhat unusual place during the English Civil War as, in an area declared for Parliament, it sheltered more than a few closet Royalists.

And Royston was also an important spot on the Great North Road from London to Cambridge and had many inns and alehouses.  One of these was the Tabard Inn which went back to Tudor times and was in the High Street near the Cross.  It is sadly long gone.

The sign of the Tabard

Robert Battle owned the Tabard Inn and three or four other properties besides. But Bob did not come from Royston but rather Cambridgeshire, and most of his property likely came to him from his father in law, Tom Turner.  Now I know this because in 1674 Robert Battle and his wife Ann pursued a court case over the estate of her late father.  And, like Robert, Thomas Turner is known to have been an Inn Keeper in Royston, and an inn keeper who during the English Civil War was accused of using the Inn to recruit men for the King's army, so Tom was an open Royalist.

Cavaliers at an Inn

Now Robert Battle married Ann Turner at Bassingbourn in 1660, Ann being a Royston girl as I say and Robert clearly born to a William Battle in Bassingbourn (Bob having brothers Leonard, William jnr who married Mary Man or Mann in 1668 and as sister I am figuring our Joan ).  And in 1662 or so Aquila had made that strange journey to Bassingbourn that I have never been able to explain, logically given what we know of him, going after whatever advantage he might be able to gain from the Battles.  This would make him  Alice Cockett's (Battle) Uncle by marriage and would explain why Francis might had stood surety for him.

Sadly I know nothing more of Francis Cockett, he was alive aged 27 in 1697.  His daughter Ann was still alive at the end of 1697 as she is mentioned in the will of Robert Battle (PCC).

My suspicion is that the second legal case was also settled and Aquila and Mary lived on in some comfort.

Now the average Englishman of the 1600s was not the polite, restrained and cold Englishman of the Victorian era.  These were combative and loud.  And so it was with Aquila.  Civil court cases aside, he was also involved in a criminal case involving John Warren and his wife Cecily of Reed End who were convicted of assaulting him.

Aquila and Mary hopefully spent their last years in some quiet comfort.  He died in 1708 aged 74 and is buried at Reed. Mary is as yet untraced.

Children of Aquila and Joan

Aquila - born 1659 died in infancy

Elizabeth - born 1663 at Bassingbourn died 1675 aged 12 at Therfield

But were there more ?  This is the question.  If Aquila was still such a friend of the Battles and Cocketts in 1694 with his first wife having died quite some years before - did he still have children living ?  Time may give the answer perhaps

Arthur Ginn of Kent Island, Maryland, British America died 1676

 Arthur here is the first recorded Ginn in America.  So 2023 is a remarkable year in that he has been found.  The return of the prodigal perhaps.  More American discoveries will follow.

He seems clearly to be one of the numerous Arthurs in my Study (a possible connection to Devon having been ruled out) but I have no idea as to which one though have a suspicion that he was the Arthur born to the yeoman Robert Ginn of Anstey and Barkway in Herts in 1635 see post of Feb 18th 2021.  We will never know. Twelve of the fifteen recorded Arthur Ginn references before 1837 come from this Hertfordshire family.

The third settlement in British America (after Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620) was on the Island of Kent (shortly after Kent County in Maryland) in Chesapeake Bay.  Kent Fort was built in 1631 and a small settlement of about 120 English souls was established in 1642.

The Crown granted the proprietorship (right to receive the income) of Kent to Lord Baltimore of the Calvert family.  If there were no settlers then there was no income, so Baltimore devised a way of luring colonists from England.  The government supported the move as they wanted England to settle America as quickly as possible as a buffer against any French plans to do so.

The scheme devised was the "head-rights" system, whereby any man (or woman apparently) who could pay for their own passage to America (cost about £20 - a substantial sum) would be  granted 100 acres of land in America shortly after arrival, more if he brought wife, children and servants - ie rights "by head".  The rights attached to the people who were brought our or "transported" so a man who had paid the passage of another could claim the  extra land.  And these rights were assignable, so effectively a settler could acquire a fair chunk of land if he could afford to buy the rights attaching to a person who was brought out there.

The scheme worked - people began arriving from England in greater numbers (early settlers seem to have been almost exclusively English) and by the 1660s or so it is estimated that there were some 600 English settler on Kent, more spreading along small settlements along the Bay on the mainland.

For Kent was an island of sorts, a small strip of land joins it to Maryland proper  as can be seen from the 1866 map above.  

We cannot be entirely certain of the date because the evidence is circumstantial (court records) but Arthur seems to have arrived in

Kent in 1666/7.  He was certainly there by 1668.  His voyage from England (likely from London) would have been very hard and taken two to three months.

What we know of Arthur is that he was certainly English, he was literate and he must have come from the Yeoman class or similar, as he paid his own passage out (cost about £20) and was prepared for a very tough life working on the land.  This would fit the guy from Anstey.

The Kent County court (there was no actual Court House until after Arthur's death) likely met in taverns and alehouses as it often did in England.  It dealt with business matters, debts etc and Arthur is mentioned both as a juror and as a party to legal proceedings.  I was surprised to discover that English coinage was in short supply in all of the American colonies, so tobacco was used as the barter currency of choice.

                         Land Patent to Arthur 1672 (Maryland State Archives)

Arthur made an application for the 100 land grant that, as a free settler, Baltimore had promised him - and so in 1670 he obtained a Warrant acknowledging his claim.  In 1671 the land was surveyed, and in 1672 he received the formal grant of the land.  The 100 acres were to be called Cony or Conny Hall (the alternative spellings were still used later) and the land was adjacent to the head of  Great Thickett Creek the name of which is no longer used and it took me some months to track this down.  The boundaries were marked on the corners by marked (apparently notches were cut in each tree in a pattern unique to each owner to mark them out) pock hickory trees.  The terms "pock hickory" was the English phonetic rendering of an Indian word, the trees now known as Hickory of course and still common on Kent.

Conny Hall would, of course have been a wilderness that Arthur was obliged to clear before he could farm or grow tobacco, the principal crop.  Kent was pockmarked by creeks and it was somewhat damp and marshy.  For this reason the various native tribes who inhabited it and Maryland generally (they were very friendly to the English) chose to use the waterways and fish, rather than make any attempt to live off of the land.

At some point Arthur married a lady called Alice.  There is  no evidence that he married in England so America is the more likely, particularly given that  at this time the head right was 100 acres per person who came over to the Eastern Shore.  But although a sort of Anglican church was established at Back Creek from 1652, there are scant records and no mention of Arthur.  So the marriage remains a mystery.

So Arthur and Alice would have been working hard to clear the land, build a rudimentary cabin (nothing fancy) and make a living. He seems to have employed the odd indentured servant or two to help him  There is evidence (a set of cooper's tools in his inventory) that he took up that trade as a side line.  From what I can see this was the most popular and numerous trade in early colonial America as barrels were needed for everything, from tobacco to beer and numerous other liquids.  There is also evidence he also went in for fishing, a major food source for the native tribes and, obviously, hunting.  There were a few essential farm animals and he was growing tobacco.

To my astonishment, I found out where Arthur's plantation was and I think I know where he lived.  A researcher of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Cindi Schmidt,  has mapped the plantations granted on Kent Island in the 1600s.  And the Upper Shore Genealogical Society have helped me a great deal.  Combine this with my own research and we have a story.

Cindi produced a map, superimposed on a 1862 map of the landmarks of the 1600s, and I have in turn superimposed on that shown by the hatching the rough location of Conny Hall.

It is apparent that at some point in the late 1600s Conny Hall or at least much of it reverted to Lord Baltimore, the Lord of the Manor.  This was not freehold or leasehold land, but copyhold of the manor (which concept is now extinct in English law) and my suspicion is that it reverted back for want of a surviving male heir of Arthur and Alice.

But, in any event, the land of Conny Hall was subsequently to a large degree incorporated in the Plantation (later farm) called Barnstable Hill, which survives.  By the mid 1700s both Conny Hall and Barnstable Hill were in the ownership of the Gardner family.  Both passed down through that family and in 1866 (see map above) Richard Gardner was the owner (he died in 1870) and you will see mention of R Gardner, he was living in Conny Hall and I know that the Gardner family had their own family cemetery there, containing grave markers and stones from the 1700s to 1900 or so apparently.  The cemetery was allegedly illegally bulldozed about 20 years ago because it obscured the view of an advertising hoarding from the road.  I think it likely that the Gardners occupied the site of the cottage that Arthur had originally built in 1670 or so !

Kent, like much of the Chesapeake Bay coastline was obviously damp, marshy with a lot of creeks and whilst very cold in winter, damp hot and humid in the summer.  There are 59 species of mosquitoes in Maryland and in Arthur's day the freshly arrived English settlers got malaria and died like flies if you forgive the pun.  Many did not even last long enough to receive their land grant.  It was only the constant replenishment of new arrivals and the second and third generations building some resistance to the disease that kept the colony going.

So it is perhaps no surprise that in July 1676 Arthur got ill, he had perhaps been on the island for ten years - it was almost certainly malaria.  He and Alice seem to have lived in rural simplicity.  If he is who I think he is, he was about 41.

Arthur left Letters of Administration to Alice and she produced an Inventory of his goods to the Court.  Alice would have taken an interest in Conny Hall for life, but if she died without a male heir then it would have reverted to the Manor, which it clearly did as widows apart, most manorial courts did not recognize women as heirs.

Arthur had led a simple life, he had his cooper's tools, his fishing equipment, a fur coat for the winter, a knot or ball of tobacco at his death (some weighed 100 lbs before being placed into barrels - which he likely made himself)) some farm animals and, perhaps the greatest comfort to him, "an old bible".  I am very glad to have found him.

                     Arthur's Inventory (Maryland State Archives)

Post script

Conny Hall and Barnstable Hill have been absorbed into Barnstable Hill Wildlife Reserve.  The land that Arthur broke his back trying to clear has gone back to nature.  I doubt he would mind.

Acknowledgement

I am indebted to Jennifer Abbott of Maryland State Archives and particularly David Baker of the Upper Shore Genealogical Society of Maryland for their help and assistance

Mary Ginn and the Bownest family - a mystery

As I type this post the research is fresh and the mystery here like that in a Michael Connelly novel (a favourite author and like me born in 1956).

In my last post, I referenced an indirect link between the Ginn family and the Bownest family of Little Hormead in Hertfordshire - there is another, but in this case a direct link - it is one of the mysteries that intrigue me.

The pertinent year was 1614.  William Shakespeare was 50 and living and working in London.  He had less than two years to live.  In that same year the Globe Theatre (destroyed by fire - a common occurrence in wooden and thatched London) was rebuilt.

The Bownest family were established in Little Hormead and were  there in the early 1500s.  Their origins seem to be obscure.  They were a minor gentry family that acquired a property called Stonebury (it no longer stands) which like Bandons in Anstey, was what we would see as a large farmhouse.

A Thomas Bownest died at Stonebury in  Little Hormead in 1577 leaving a will (PCC)  He had a second son John and it is was clearly this John who  married and moved up the road to Buntingford (a small market town - not a parish in itself but forming part of Layston, Wyddial, Aspenden and Buckland parishes) in the year that his father died.

Now the John who interests us married a Mercy Cook in 1577.  No marriage entry survives, but a Marriage Licence does, and we know that Mercy came from Great Chishill in Essex, just over the Hertfordshire border and not too far away.  John is described as of Little Hormead.

Mercy came from the family of Cooks in Great and Little Chishill that were minor gentry, owning land there (they had a lease of the Parsonage of Great Chishill ) and owned a house called "Osbornes" but also (including the Manor of Bottisham) owning land in Cambridgeshire, the Chishills being on the Herts, Essex and Cambridgeshire borders.  Her parents were Thomas and Margery and she had many siblings namely, William (the heir) Samuel and sisters Anne (wife of Thomas Meade) Katherine (Rowley) Elizabeth (wife of Robert Wallis) and Grace, the latter was unmarried in 1584 when Thomas Cook died (Will - PCC).   Her father modestly called himself a Yeoman, but he was a little more than that !  He bought Bottisham Manor in Cambridgeshire the year that he died (sold by son William in 1592) and had a lease of Chishill Hall Manor that eventually found its way to son Samuel.  It seems likely that the Elizabeth Cook who married Robert Ginn in 1559 (see post of 7th July 2012 ) came from this family and may even have been Tom's sister and thus Mercy's aunt. The Ginns had had a connection with Great Chishill since 1554 and the Cooks back to at least 1560 or so.  We are hampered in knowing more, because the Chishill registers do not survive for this early period.

There is sadly a great deal of nonsense about the family and Mercy's origins on Ancestry.  It looks like an American researcher or two had made claims that have been replicated in publicly available trees so many times that they have been accepted as fact.  The truth is a little more mundane, but fascinating nonetheless.

There is some evidence that the Cooks did not view the Bownests with quite the affection that the Bownests viewed the Cook family.

Thomas Cook's heir was a William who had married an Alice. By his death Willian owned the manor of Chishill outright. They had several children including two sons, but the children were young when William died too soon in 1597.  His will (PCC) was made in the presence of several witnesses including his brothers in law John Bownest and Thomas Mead.  But in the background was Will's younger brother Samuel, and, in 1612 there was a land dealing that  involved Alice Cook the widow, her eldest son Thomas Cook Esq (now in Cambridge) Samuel Cook and John Bownest. Alice had sold the manor of Chishill to Samuel Cook, her eldest son Tom entering into a quitclaim (it having been his birth right). The Cooks by the time were calling themselves gentlemen, which they were of course, William taking that title in 1597.  But in the 1612 Deed (Ref 4008 Herts Archives) they described John Bownest as a yeoman - ouch - he was far more prosperous than that.

After John Bownest married Mercy the baptisms of their children were entered into the Layston (Buntingford) parish registers.  At this point John was indeed mentioned as a Yeoman and there is some evidence that he owned the White Hart Inn in Buntingford which is still there, now a refurbished house.

But in 1612 John Bownest amassed the monies to buy Popes Hall in Buckland, slightly to the north of Buntingford.  This came with manorial lands and thereafter John referred to himself as a gentleman.

The Popes Hall of John's time is long gone - it was probably thatched and of wattle and daub on a timber frame.  It may have been destroyed by fire as a lot of these buildings were - but the reconstruction of the 1700s is there still (below).  I drive past quite often.

John acquired land in several parishes around and forming part of Buntingford and he also had land in Great and Little Chishill, which I assume came to him on marriage from his father in law.

John and Mercy had several children, including three sons who survived, in order of age these were Thomas, George and Samuel.  There were several daughters, including Mercy jnr who married William Faucet at Layston in 1611 and of whom nothing more is known, Alice who married William Norton of Bishops Stortford at Layston in 1604 (more of her later) and Frances, who was unmarried in 1615 but seems to have married subsequently.

John Bownest died in 1615 leaving a will (PCC)  As he had some manorial land in Buckland there was an Inquisition Post Mortem.

By rights his eldest son Thomas was the heir.  But Tom as we shall see had done very well for himself in London, so John, who clearly knows that Tom has other fish to fry in London and does not need, let alone want his inheritance, makes provision in his will for his lands to be divided up between his sons if "God forbid" says John, Tom turns them down.

What Tom did was to enter into  an agreement with his brothers in 1616, this was to divide the lands up as to who got what, and that deed ( ref:4009 ) survives, is at the Hertfordshire Archives and is shown below and then in subsequent detail.

The gist of this was that Tom effectively gave up most of the land.  His brother George Bownest, Gentleman got the lands in the Chishills and never married dying in 1650 (will PCC).  George also seems to have ended up with the Parsonage and thus the advowson in Thunderley (not Thundersley in Essex as seems to be reported) in Saffron Walden in Essex.  Their brother Samuel Bownest, Gentleman (who marrieed Helen Stapleton in London in 1617) settled at Wyddial where he took lands.  Nothing much further is known of him as the registers for Wyddial do not survive for this period - but George mentions the couple in 1650.

But it is Tom we are concerned with.

Thomas Bownest was apprenticed into the Grocers Company in London in about 1592, he became a Member of the Company and consequently Citizen of London in about 1600.

Now Grocers were not what we think of, they were wholesalers dealing directly with the merchants whose ships had come into port bearing foodstuffs from everywhere.  And it is clear that Tom intended to make his fortune cutting out the middle man.

The East India Company (a joint stock company) was born in 1600 to trade with India and the Orient.  The Levant (Turkey and Persia) and the Virginia (eastern America) |Companies soon followed.  These were exciting times for the English merchants, they were now trading in areas of the world that had been newly discovered or closed to them before, English ships were sailing the world and the roots of the British Empire (no apologies for that on this blog!) were beginning to grow.

And they were exciting times for Bownest too, because in 1614 he was introduced by another Grocer to the East India Company, he seems to have become involved in quartering and furnishing the ships.  Soon after he was a member of the Levant and Virginia Companies.

He married Mary Ginn in London, most likely the daughter of Robert Ginn and his cousin through the Cook family as I say (see post of 7th July 2012) that same year, ie 1614, and my suspicion is that it was a marriage of convenience, for appearances,  Bownest needing a wife to help him further his ambitions in trade.  And it was that that made Bownest somewhat distanced from his father's wish he take up his inheritance in 1615, in truth Tom had no need of it.

Thomas Bownest's sister Alice Norton lost her husband.  And she and two sons ended up in Virginia, British America, soon after - one of her sons was a Church of England Minister, but somewhat Puritan. Now Tom Bownest was not only a member of the Virginia Company, but he knew a certain Abraham Jennens, a Merchant and Ship owner of Bristol, who was also a member of that Company, heavily involved with trade in Virginia and elsewhere and a member of the Council of New England, caught up in the colonisation of British America.  Bownest must have know the guy quite well because he took Jennens' son Ambrose (Jennens had a ship "The Little Ambrose|") as apprenctice.  It is my guess that Jennens or his sons had some involvement in getting the Nortons to America, perhaps also other Bownest relations.

Bownest's rise was meteroric.  By the 1630s he was a Director of the East India Company.  I know that in that decade he explored the possibility of the English trading with Japan as well as China, but turned it down as the original involvement of the English in Japan (think the book and TV series "Shogun" based on a true story) had not turned out well "they [the Japanese] do not like foreigners" said Tom, and they were fickle, the English had to plan their woollen cloth exports in advance and "one year the Japanese favoured one colour, another the next".

By 1628 Thomas Bownest had moved out of the City of London and across the Thames into Putney. there are various surviving Certificates of Settlement (National Archives) that tells us that, but he still retained property in Hertfordshire.  Putnry was a boat ride from London and the disease and squalor  I am sure that Mary was dead before 1630, though I cannot find a burial entry.  They never had any children so far as I know.

Now something intriguing happened during the English Civil War.  Because the Mary Ginn who I think married Tom if I am correct came from the Ginn/Genn families connected to Huntingdon and Ely, and the men of those families I have proved were acquainted with Oliver Cromwell.

The first English Civil War ended with a victory for Parliament.  And in 1647 the officers and many men of that army came to Putney Church for what are known as the Putney Debates - to discuss democracy, its nature and the future of England.  Some great words were spoken "the poorest hee that is in England hath as much a life to live as the greatest hee" (Thomas Rainsborough) words that proved an inspiration to the Americans in 1776.

The men were quartered on local residents or lived in tents, the senior officers stayed with local gentry for a month or so.  Oliver Cromwell was Second in Command of the Army in 1647 - he stayed at the house of Thomas Bownest !  Did Tom know him through the Ginn connection ?

Thomas Bownest Esquire died in 1658 -  he is buried in Putney Church, where the Debates were held.  He was quoted as being 80 which indeed he was, the move to Putney had likely added decades  to his life.  His will (PCC) is very informative and taken with the will of his brother George gives an insight into the lives of numerous cousins and relations.  The guy may not have descendants, but his was a fascinating life.......

Mary Ginn nee Gill of Anstey died 1728

 I am conscious of the fact that the blog is comprised of 186 posts and counting and, well, every one of them has a title concerning a male Ginn.  Now it is not that I am a misogynist, and, obviously, in my defence the blog is about the proliferation of the Ginn family and that is in the male line - but I am conscious of it.

It is also true that in the past (widows excepted) women had no property rights, so they are almost invisible in the records and little can be known, but there are a few I do know quite a lot about, and Mary Gill here is one of them - she married John Ginn of Anstey in my post of   12th |September 2012  and is the ancestor of many Ginns and others.  I have always been fond of Mary, and intending to put her on the blog for the last few years.

Mary was born in 1641, just before the start of the English Civil War. She was born at the Manor House of Bandons Manor in Anstey, at what was Pains and is now Paynes End in that parish.  Her parents were Edward and Ann Gill (nee Swann) the Gills being a prominent gentry family on the Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire borders.  How a gentry girl came to marry the son of a yeoman is the subject of this post.

The first Gill is known to have been a landowner in southern Cambridgeshire near Royston in the 1270s.  They survived the Black Death in the mid 1300s, and  by the 1400s were clearly prospering and there are various deeds that relate to the family.

A John Gill, Mary's ancestor, married a Joan, daughter of William Horne (some say Sir William) of Buckland in Hertfordshire near Buntingford, and the couple reputedly had six sons and six daughters.  John Gill settled in and died at Buckland in 1499/1500 leaving a will (National Archives) and a Memorial Brass at Buckland survives purporting to show the whole family - the six sons are below.

Some say the next heir was William, I am sure it was Richard, but in any event the heir married a daughter of Leonard Hyde of Throcking in Hertfordshire which is also near Buntingford.  The Gill family were consolidating their lands in the area as the Hydes go back a long way in Throcking.  In 1395 the Manor of Throcking was granted to William Hyde, Citizen and Grocer of London.

Richard Gill died in 1502 leaving a will (National Archives) it mentions his sons John, Richard and Leonard.

John Gill was his father's heir and he did very well, being described as "John Gill of Buckland and Wyddial" .  He married Margaret Cannon or Canon who was the daughter and heiress of George Cannon of Cambridgeshire in 1508.    George Cannon owned a half share of the Manor of Wyddial in Hertfordshire, the other half was apparently owned by the Royal family and from 1509 (when he took the throne) by none other than King Henry the 8th who at this point was the  young, athletic man we see below and not the obese chap we imagine.

It appears that John Gill had acquired some clerical role at the King's court, obviously for a salary, but also in hope of catching the eye of the King and eliciting favours, and at some point King Henry duly obliged and gave John the other half of Wyddial Manor.

John Gill and George Cannon had Wyddial Hall built.  It must have cost a great deal of money.  The Hall that you see below is the original, from an illustration by Drapentier in about 1700.  This burned down in the 18th century and was rebuilt on the same site and almost to the same design,  That still stands.

John Gill also purchased Bandons Manor in Anstey in the 1530s.  This is crucial to our story and it will turn up again.

John Gill died in 1547,  A brass (below) was commissioned to

commemorate him, his wife and children at Wyddial Church but, as it happens, Margaret remarried a John Wrengham that same year and is not buried with John.

John's Gill's heir was his son George.  He held, and likely improved, Wyddial Hall.

In 1535 George married Gertrude Perient, daughter and co-heir of Sir Perient of Hatfied in Hertfordshire.  The Perient family connection gave Mary some interesting ancestors, and my research on the Perient family will be in a post later this year.

George and Gertrude had seven children who survived infancy, the first two of whom were John the heir and Edward.  Mary Ginn (nee Gill) is descended from Edward.  Gertrude died on 15th March 1545.  And in 1547 George remarried an Ann Whethill, daughter of Robert Whethill in Calais in France, in 1545 Calais was still held by the English, the Tudors claiming the throne of France.  George had a further family by Ann.

George died in 1568 - he has a memorial in Wyddial Church with his ancestors, in which he is described as "Lorde of this Towne" below.  He was 57.

George as I say had a number of sons, of whom John was the heir and the second son Edward the ancestor of Mary Ginn nee Gill.

Now, there is an interesting thing here, because we know that there is a surviving portrait of one of the brothers, but there is some conjecture as to who it is.

                                      Queen Elizabeth 1st

Queen Elizabeth had a number of court painters, ie men who served at her Court in London.  Some of these men were permanent like Nicholas Hilliard, but some were visitors, itinerants who only stayed there a few years.  Many of these were foreign and they included Cornelis Ketel, a Dutchman, who was active in London, mostly as a portrait painter, from 1573-1581.

Cornelis painted one of the brothers.  The portrait below was once attributed to Edward Gill, but it cannot be, he did not have the money to purchase this.  And it has, wrongly, also been attributed to a Sir George Gill of Wyddial Hall who did not exist - the portrait is dated,  it was painted in 1578.  No, this must be John Gill of Wyddial Hall, a man of wealth as we shall see.  It is a splendid portrait I think you will agree.

John Gill, though not Mary's ancestor, deserves a mention here as he had a secondary residence built at Buntingford, a place called Littlecourt.  It apparently cost him a great deal of money and is shown below.  It survives, but the grounds have gone and the house is much reduced.

So we will call John - "John Gill of Wyddial and Littlecourt".  He was close to Edward, Mary's ancestor, and reputedly both of them became Calvinists, Puritans if you will, in later life.  And at this point or thereabouts - about 1570  (whether by John or his father George seems unclear) a long lease of Bandons Manor in Anstey was granted to Edward Gill.

Now John Gill of Wyddial and Littlecourt died in 1600 - he has a splendid brass at Wyddial, and his second son (Sir John Gill of Somerset we will call him - he had married a Somerset heiress) had made himself busy at the Royal Court of Charles the 1st, being an Equerry to the King, Member of Parliament, Justice of the Peace etc doing pretty well until the English Civil War.  More of him later.

And so to Edward Gill (referred to as of "Bandons and Littlecourt" in the records) Mary's ancestor.

Well he was a Barrister in London, in American terms an Attorney.  He entered St John's College in  Cambridge University in his teens in 1557, getting his degree in 1561, three years after Queen Elizabeth 1st ascended the throne.  He joined the Bar in 1564.

In February 1574, Edward married Margaret Brograve, widow of Henry Brograve of Buntingford, her maiden name was Campion.  There is a suggestion (originally discounted by me but apparently true) that she was related to the Campions of Anstey in Hertfordshire and those of Witham in Essex, they in turn giving rise to Thomas Campion, the Poet and Musician at Elizabeth's court, and to the Edmund Campion, the Catholic who the same Elizabeth had hung, drawn and quartered for being a traitor in 1581.  Interesting times!

In 1600, upon his brother's death, Edward Gill appears to have taken occupation of Littlecourt as well as having Bandons.  He did not inherit it, it simply appears he lived there - the sons of John Gill of Wyddial and Littlecourt having left Hertfordshire, we do not know the full story.

Neither Edward Gill nor Margaret were that young when they married, and only had two sons.  Margaret died in February 1605, and Edward remarried the widow "the lady" Barbara Fludd (nee Bradbury) in London in 1607.  Barbara had already buried two husbands, both knights.

Edward Gill died in 1616, supposedly at Littlecourt.  Barbara was a widow for the third time.  She died in 1618.  Edward (will National Archives) left his son Thomas £800 (not a great sum - but Edward was from a cadet family - ie a younger son and not the heir) and his son Edward junior the lease of Bandons Manor "for divers years yet to come".  Thomas died unmarried in 1625, so Ted junior likely had everything.

Now Edward junior here, Mary's grandfather, married Mary Smartfoot, widow of Richard Smartfoot of Puckeridge.  You will notice that marrying widows was popular, they could bring money and property to the marriage ! Mary was actually the daughter of Edward Mitchell of Standon.

The couple lived at Bandons Manor House, drew their income (which would not have been much) from the rents and fines that the tenants of that manor paid.  They had five children, three sons, the eldest of which was another Edward Gill, Mary's father.

Edward Gill died in 1642, the English Civil War was just beginning.  His will (National Archives) reflects the diminishing fortunes of the family.  His daughter Susan was given £100, son George £250 and, crucially, the lease of Bandons Manor was given to his widow for life, and only then to Edward, Mary's father.  And the widow did not die until 1675.

Edward Gill, Mary's father, entered Trinity College, Cambridge University in 1631, he did not finish his degree, not uncommon at this time, the gentry need only show a pretence of education.  And in 1638 he married Ann Swann, daughter of Robert Swann of Newton/Foxton in Cambridgeshire, a minor gentry family.

Now Edward of course did not have the lease of Bandons Manor in his own right until his mother's death.  Though she clearly let him live there, presumably she was there too, maybe also other members of the family.

Edward and Ann had two daughters, Ann 1639 and our Mary in 1641.  Both were born at Bandons.  Ann Gill snr then died, likely in childbirth, she is buried at Barkway.  Mary  scarcely knew her mother.

Edward Gill then remarried, a Lucy Bolnest of the Bolnest/Bownest family of Great Hormead,  In time, they had five more children.  But Edward died in 1658 (there is no will) and Mary was an orphan and Lucy left alone with a good number of young children and little or no income given that Bandons was not hers.  In fact there is evidence (Hearth Tax) that Ted's brother George took it, Lucy was penniless. She could not remarry and died herself in 1664.

Now the Gills had not had a great time generally since 1642.  Sir John Gill of Somerset tried to sit on the fence but was accounted a Royalist by Parliament who made moves to punish him by taking his Somerset estates, and he died impoverished in 1651, having himself at some point occupied Littlecourt which was sold after his death.

Now, if you have managed to not be too bored and got to this point, you will recall that Mary Gill was born at Bandons.  What I have not told you is that the Manor House survives.  It is true that the majority was rebuilt in brick in the 19th century, but it is a historical building, and the 15th century (no less) cross wing, a major thing, survives in its entirety - you can see it below.  Every Gill, every Ginn of Anstey would know it, Mary would know it today.

So, it was a combination of matters-  family impoverishment, 

timing, and I am sure a good deal of love, which led to Mary Gill marrying John Ginn, a yeoman's son in 1661.  The marriage is entered on the Gill pedigree.

Mary had obviously retained the family connection with Buntingford, because although their marriage is entered in both the registers of Layston (a parish of Buntingford) and Anstey (so it was considered a significant marriage) they actually married at Buntingford Chapel, built in the Puritan style in 1614.  I have wondered if the Gills had retained their Puritan ways.  Buntingford Chapel (extended but otherwise unaltered) is still there below.  For the rest of Mary's story see my post of 12th September 2012.

David Gynn of Stratford and Buckinhamshire died 1883

 David Gynn jnr here was son of  David Ginn/Gynn snr mentioned in my post of  16th November 2014.  He adopted the spelling Gynn as had his father.  In 1842 he married Mary Perridge at Hackney. I confess I know more of their children than of this couple.

By 1846 he had become a Coachman and the couple were living in Shoreditch, but David had other ambitions and shortly afterwards he set himself up as a Pork Butcher in Church Row in Stratford, West Ham next to  "The Angel" Public House.  This was a substantial pub built in 1838 (the brewers were Charringtons) which was rebuilt in 1910 as below (the pub like so many has now gone)

David had retired to Buckinghamshire by 1881 and died in Romford district in 1883.  Mary died in Wandsworth district in 1908 aged 76.

The couple had some eight children and there are some interesting stories here

Sarah -  married John Quye at West Ham in 1866

Mary - married Henry Mason at West Ham  in 1868

David - this part of the post is not suitable for vegetarians, so if you are one please look away - now.

David married Julia Avard at West Ham (they lived in Stratford) in 1873 and Dave took up his father's occupation as a Butcher, his father had likely given him some early training, this was a more skilled occupation than might be thought.

By 1878 (Trade Directories) David had set himself up on his own account with a shop at 35 Chapel Street in Stratford, near the High Street. Much of this area was obliterated by German bombs in the Blitz of 1940, but we can see (below) Chapel Street in 1910.  It was a quiet day (note the steamroller) as the road was obviously being resurfaced

Normally the road would have reflected the throng of people in the nearby High Street, shown below in 1906

When I was a boy, in the 1960s.butcher's shops were still pretty much what they were in David Gynn's day - carcasses hanging inside the shop and out, sawdust on the floor and portly butchers in long aprons, sharpening knives  and hefting heavy cleavers for lamb and pork chops.  I used to peer over the counter with grisly fascination, face to face with the pig's heads that sat there.  So it was with Dave.

But David was perhaps not the hearty butcher we think of and my suspicion is that he was unwell at an early age, as there were only two children and he died, likely of consumption in 1885, aged just 34.  Julia lived on beyond 1901 having never remarried, but the Trade Directories show that the shop was sold shortly afterwards.

Edward - some of the broader "Farnham" Ginn family were a bit like Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings stories, they occasionally went on adventures - journeyed "there and back again" as the story goes.  Ted was one of those - though he never fought a Dragon.

In the 1871 census Edward is given as a journeyman baker.  Then he disappeared.  In 2009, it was discovered than an E. Gynn from West Ham, a baker, went out to Sydney, Australia on the "Star of India" in 1876.  He was an unassisted immigrant.

Now the "Star of India" to my amazement survives.  She was built in 1863, but is still by some miracle seaworthy and is in San Diego in California in a Maritime Museum- see below.  A wonderful ship.

 I knew that Edward had returned to England, but it was not until 2022 that I found out part of what happened before he did.  My friend Jennifer Clark(nee Ginn) in New Zealand and not too distant cousin of his "turned him up" on the Trove (Australian Newspapers) website.  Ted joined the New South Wales Artillery in Sydney upon his arrival, but things did not work out as in 1880 he deserted.  See below

I had already discovered that he had returned to England in the early 1880s, now we know why. The guy went around the world - he came back into Britain via a ship from New York !

You might have thought that he had learned his lesson and would find another occupation (perhaps he could not), but in May 1886 he joined the Royal Artillery over here ! He took a risk that the record would be linked and he would be arrested - but partially to offset this he claimed to be a good deal younger than he was.

Edward Gynn married Sarah Jones at Mile End in 1890.  They had a number of children.  Ted left the army in 1898 and in 1901 the couple were back in Stratford in West Ham (where the story started) with Ted as a carman - ie he drove a cart.  He died in Surrey in 1942 - he had lived a long life.

Joseph - originally this guy was helping out Dad and was a Butcher in 1881 having married Mary Ann Newman in 1878.  Then after his father's death he joined the Merchant Navy as a Cook ans sailed the London - Australia route.  The family had a number of children, but Joe was obviously away a lot and although there is some evidence that in for a short while all of the family were in Australia, Mary quite clearly seems to have returned with the children and Jos stayed in Australia.  So they separated, whether divorced is unclear.  Joe's brother (see below) had also settled in Australia, and it is likely the brothers lived together for a time.

In 1905, Joe is mentioned as a "Land Cook" as opposed to a "Sea Cook"( who was also in an article) in the "Australian Star" - the two of them went to the Hunters Hotel" in Sydney for drinks where an alleged crime took place.  At some point he moved to Gosford on the Coast  which has stunning sea views and died there in 1934 with a short announcement of his death in the Sydney Morning Herald.

William - for reasons best known his himself (it may have been a middle name) this guy called himself Richard.  It is definitely the same man,  He joined the Merchant Navy, was a cook and sailed the London-Sydney Australia with his brother. He never married.  He also settled in Australia and died there in 1913 of peritonitis.

John - was alive in 1861 but not traced in 1871 - so likely died young

Jane - married George Illett in 1905