John Young of Hook Norton died and left a will Probate Oxford 13 Jul 1698. He is recorded as being a yeoman, but he also had a significant role in the Baptist church in Hook Norton. The Baptists were strong in this small North Oxfordshire town from before the civil war and many of their leaders faced persecution in the 1660’s and 1680’s.
The baptism of John Young, son of Richard Young, is recorded on 2 Dec 1641 in St Peter’s Hook Norton. This is very likely him although there are two or three Richard Youngs who could be the father.
Significantly, John Young married Mary Gillett on 30 Dec 1678 in neighbouring Swerford. The couple proceeded to have five children as listed in the will. There are no baptisms as, it is presumed, they were members of the Baptist church, whose records are very patchy before 1720. What we do know is that one of those who appraised the 1698 will was a Humphrey Gillett, a leading figure in this church and it is presumed he is John Young’s father in law. John Young’s wife also had a brother Humphrey Gillett (died Burford 1733) and the role of father and son can easily be conflated in what records survive.
John Young’s oldest son was also John Young and he is the father in law of Joseph Warmington who married Mary Young on 4 Jul 1757. Mary Warmington is memtioned in John Young Junior’s 1758 will.
John Young, the son, must have been born in about 1681 and he married Mary Harris on 12 Jun 1715 in Broughton. He would have been 18 years of age or so when his father died. The second son Nathaniel Young is mentioned in 1698 but no further record can be found. However, the will mentions that the trustees will need to finance an apprenticeship for Nathaniel, suggesting he was likely born about 1684.
Three daughters are listed in the order – Hannah, Mary and Sarah. Hannah married William Plater, a chandler from Oxford, and are identifiable as both left wills in 1755 and 1759 respectively. The daughter Sarah married John Hagwood a Quaker and grazier from Water Stratford in Buckinghamshire. What became of the daughter Mary is unknown.
John’s wife Mary Gillett is buried in the established church on 17 Apr 1695, and it is clear that John Young must have remarried again quickly as the will refers to his “now loving wife, Ann”. Although Ann is the sole executrix of the will it is clear she is not the mother of the five listed children. Two friends, Richard Hitchman and William Wyton, are appointed as trustees.
John Young is also buried in St Peter’s Hook Norton on 13 Jun 1698. At the time the Baptists had their own burial ground so this might indicate an ambivalent attitude to non conformity or a more amenable minister at St Peter’s. In the 1706 list of members of the congregation none of this Young family are listed as ‘subscribers’
Sources and Notes
- Will of John Young, Probate Oxford 13 Jul 1698
- The most likely father is Richard Young, yeoman who left a will Probate Oxford 2 Dec 1682
- Will of Hannah Plater, Probate PCC 12 Nov 1759 (Daughter)
- Will of John Young, Probate Oxford 6 Dec 1758 (Son)
- Sarah Hagwood (daughter) died in 1762 in Water Stratford Bucks and was buried a Quaker at Whittlebury. The name also appears as Hangood or Haugood. Her husband John died a Quaker in 1778 having remarried.
- Hook Norton Baptist Church records OFHS
- St Peter’s Hook Norton parish Registers OFHS and Ancestry.com
- There is a pattern of official marriages of these families taking place in outlying parishes
- Humphrey Gillett had become radicalised in Commonwealth Oxford in the 1650s before moving as a ‘woolman’ to Hook Norton
- He was a signatory in 1659 of the “Testimony to Truth” see Larry J Kreizer Baptist Quarterly Volume 43, Issue 5 2010.
- He married Katherine Nicholas in St Michael’s Oxford on 2 Jul 1656
- He is one of 30 members of the Baptist Church excommunicated in 1684.
- the elderly couple (one presumes) are listed first in the surviving 1706 subscription list of Hook Norton Baptist Church.
- Two articles from the Hook Norton Local History group are particularly useful