17th Century

Richard Shaw of Pinfolds

Richard Shaw of Pinfolds is a significant but very hard member of the Shaw family of 16th century Dudley to pin down, as his life parallels that of his putative first cousin Richard Shaw of Netherton. Continue reading →
Last updated on 4 October 2018 by JJ Morgan

Thomas Whitehouse

Thomas Whitehouse, Yeoman  of Coseley in the Parish of Sedgley left a will, probate 13 Feb of 1710/11. Continue reading →
Last updated on 9 December 2019 by JJ Morgan

Richard Brettell

The history of the Brettell family of Brettell and Amblecote just north of Stourbridge touches on a couple of the families discussed in this site – notably the Bendys of nearby Shut End and the Trysull branch of the Barneseley family. Continue reading →
Last updated on 13 January 2020 by JJ Morgan

Edward Grove of West Bromwich

Edward Grove of West Bromwich left a will, written in 1634 and executed in 1641, that gives a long list of children and children in law. It is a very useful will in getting to grips with a few of the families discussed on this web site – notably the Darbys, Willetts  and Russells of Rowley Regis.  Continue reading →
Last updated on 10 June 2023 by JJ Morgan

John Jesson

John Jesson married Amy Darby on 22 Jan 1609 in St Mary’s Handsworth. Amy is mentioned in her father Thomas Darby’s will of 1607 and her spinster Aunt Ann Darby’s will of 1612. Amy Jesson’s grandfather was therefore Edmonde Darby who left a will of 1598.  Continue reading →
Last updated on 8 May 2019 by JJ Morgan

John Turton of Rowley Regis

John Turton, yeoman of Rowley Regis left a will probate 7 May 1635. He names his three sons William, John and Thomas and three daughters Eleanor, Elizabeth and Mary. William, Eleanor and Elizabeth are all married.  Continue reading →
Last updated on 18 November 2023 by JJ Morgan

Humphrey Coleborne

Humphrey Coleborne, yeoman of Rowley Regis, left a will Probate 15 Sep 1660. It is clear though that his interests and roots came firmly from the nearby town of Dudley, also at the time in Worcestershire.  Continue reading →
Last updated on 28 February 2022 by JJ Morgan

Edmund Darby

There were three successive, fathers and eldest sons, called Edmund Darby of Rowley Regis, near Dudley in Staffordshire. Firstly Edmund Darby buried in St Giles Rowley Regis on 22 Feb 1687/8. Secondly Edmund Darby 1670-1746  Thirdly Edmund Darby 1695-1768. All were literate and left wills, held at Worcester. Continue reading →
Last updated on 9 March 2024 by JJ Morgan

William Barnesley

William Barnesley was born in Trysull, near Wolverhampton, in about 1568. His parents were Thomas Barnesley and Katherine Cooke, who had married in All Saints, Trysull in 1565. Continue reading →
Last updated on 1 January 2023 by JJ Morgan

John Bradney

John Bradney was probably born about 1590 in Penn, near Wolverhampton. When he died, he left a will written on 30 Apr 1667 (but probate 9 Sep 1675), in which he is described as a yeoman of Nether Penn. He was buried in St Bartholomew’s Penn on 15 Jul 1675. The executors of his will were William Bendy and William Barnesley. Continue reading →
Last updated on 1 October 2017 by JJ Morgan

Thomas Pudsey

Thomas Pudsey was baptized on 24 Mar 1607/08 in Sutton Coldfield but lived most of his life in Seisdon, near Wolverhampton. He was the son of Nicholas Pudsey of Harborne and Catherine, daughter of Raphael Norman, vicar of Harborne. This was a cadet branch of the gentry Pudsey family of Langley Hall in Warwickshire.  Continue reading →
Last updated on 1 September 2023 by JJ Morgan

William Hayward of Little Wenlock, died 1708

William Hayward was born in 1642 and was buried on 14 Sep 1708 in St Lawrence, Little Wenlock. He is the father of Mary Hayward, the second wife of William Bendy (1653-1724). In the marriage bonds of February 1697 it states that she comes from Little Wenlock in Shropshire. The Hayward family were prominent landowners in that area of Shropshire since the middle ages. Continue reading →
Last updated on 31 August 2023 by JJ Morgan

Henry Gough

Henry Gough was an important Wolverhampton draper who died and left a will dated 1655. He was the oldest son and heir of John Gough, a wealthy merchant engaged in the Wolverhampton cloth trade. The family, it is believed, had originally come from London. A baptism record for a Henry son of John Gough is recorded in the register of St Peter’s Wolverhampton on 29 Dec 1561. However, this baptism is very early and would make him a man of 94 when he died. It is widely recorded elsewhere though that when his father married Elizabeth Blount of Ridware in St Peter’s on 8 May 1565 this was John Gough’s second marriage. The name of Henry’s mother is different and omitted. The baptism of his brother or half brother Richard is recorded in St Peter’s as 15 Sep 1569. Continue reading →
Last updated on 5 December 2023 by JJ Morgan

Lancelot Lee of Coton Hall

Lancelot Lee was baptized in Alveley, Shropshire on 14 Nov 1594, the oldest son and heir of Thomas Lee (1561-1620) and Dorothy Ottley (bur 9 Aug 1636), of Coton Hall, which is about 13 miles from Wolverhampton. The Lees were wealthy Elizabethan gentry – Thomas’s father John Lee (1530-1605) had been knighted and had attended the queen’s court. Continue reading →
Last updated on 17 March 2024 by JJ Morgan

William Bendy

William Bendy was baptised in All Saints, Trysull on 20 Aug 1620 and died in 1684. He was an Oxford educated barrister and during the Civil War both he and his father were evidently both stalwarts for Parliament in Staffordshire. He was born at the family house at Shut End, Kingswinford and his parents were William Bendy (1593-1657) and Mary Barnesley (1593-1653). He matriculated at New Inn Hall Oxford on 17 Oct 1634 at the tender age of 14. He attained his BA on 17 Jan 1637 and was precociously admitted at Lincoln’s Inn on 3 Jun 1638 and was active in 1645. This would make him a direct contemporary of Richard Cromwell. Continue reading →
Last updated on 10 January 2024 by JJ Morgan

Peter Toovey

Peter Toovey, yeoman of Turville, in Buckinghamshire died in 1668 leaving a will, probate granted 17 Jul 1668.  This will indicates he left a widow, Elizabeth and a young family of four daughters and one son Peter. The trail of land documents D-X977 in the Buckinghamsire archive would strongly suggest that he was therefore the father of Peter Toovey of Wormsley (1665-1741) and Ann Rolles (1660-1739). We can also surmise that he is the Peter Toovey who is baptized in Turville Parish Church on 28 Jul 1622, the child of Edward and Ann Toovey and he is therefore one of the young children each bequeathed a sheep by their grandfather Peter Toovey’s will of 1636, where it mentions Edward and his brother Jeffrey. Continue reading →
Last updated on 24 September 2017 by JJ Morgan

Ann Toovey

Ann Toovey married William Rolles in All Hallows Church in the City of London in 1686. Both their families were from the Turville area on the edge of the Chilterns. Continue reading →
Last updated on 24 September 2017 by JJ Morgan

William Rolles

William Rolles was baptized on 30 Oct 1648 in Garsington in Oxfordshire, the second eldest son of Ralph Rolles and his wife Jane. This branch of the Rolles family had been living in Turville from the mid 16th century but it is almost certainly a junior branch of the Rolles family of nearby Lewknor, where they briefly had tenure of Lewknor Manor and where there is an impressive eighteenth century monument to the full Rolles ancestry in the local church. Indeed William Rolles ‘returned’ to Lewknor and died there in 1711 leaving a will, describing him as a ‘yeoman of Lewknor.’ Continue reading →
Last updated on 24 September 2017 by JJ Morgan

Bartholomew Collingwood

Bartholomew Collingwood was baptized in St Mary the Virgin, Bampton, Oxfordshire on 10 Sep 1643. His father was Thomas Collingwood a yeoman farmer. Bartholomew became a glover and breeches maker, which was a significant trade in Bampton, based on the by-products of the wool trade and the blanket making in neighbouring Witney. Bartholomew left a will dated 1 Dec 1713. Like his father he was a literate man. Continue reading →
Last updated on 25 September 2017 by JJ Morgan

Thomas Collingwood

Thomas Collingwood was a yeoman farmer from Bampton, Oxfordshire, son of John Collingwood and Cicely Slaymaker, baptized on 26 May 1601 in St Mary the Virgin, Bampton. He left a will of 1668 that permits us to begin to uncover his family and position in the early industrial society of the small town, 9 miles west of Oxford. Both his father and mother left wills of 1630 and 1643 respectively.  Continue reading →
Last updated on 25 September 2017 by JJ Morgan