Howards of Norfolk and Suffolk

[Andrew Lancaster via]

This is not specifically a medieval question, except, as often on this
list, that it might involve a link between modern and medieval families.

My question to this list is whether anyone is aware of good resources
for the following up of minor branches of the Howard family in Norfolk
and Suffolk. That family seems to almost suffer from being too much
written about, for anyone seeking to know about less famous branches!
Any ideas would be very much appreciated!

The background to my question (just in case this helps explain) is
trying to identify a well-landed "gentleman" named William Howard
(sometimes Haward) who when he died was said to be of Bungay. His will
was a Norfolk NCC will "Haward, William, gentleman, of Bungay,
Suffolk 1701 NCC will register Edwards 193". He had a wife Anne,
and a daughter Anne who was not yet 21. The will was made 20 June 1701.
Mr William Betts and his son Thomas Betts Esq. both of Yoxford, had
responsibilities if the daughter died before reaching 21 without any
legitimate issue. William's brother John was already deceased, leaving
children, including one Robert who is not to get a share in part of the
inheritance though his living children do receive something. I have
failed to find parish register entries for his death or marriage, or the
baptism of his child.

From his will and also from legal cases about his inheritance in the
18th century, it is clear that William Howard owned various freehold and
copyhold lands in Theberton, Ilketshall St Lawrence, Westleton Leiston
and Middleton Fordley, all in Suffolk. These are all lands I think can
be associated historically with the ducal Howards?

More generally he clearly had links with neighbouring Norfolk, and
specifically with priests and doctors with Norwich connections. But I
have not yet found him alumni lists. His wife Ann was a Howman, sister
of a well-known Norwich doctor and daughter of the parish priest of
Salle. Her paternal grandmother was Catherine Bozoun, a descendant of
the Norfolk Le Stranges and Hastings. Ann née Howman re-married twice in
Norfolk, first to a the rector of Kirkby Bedon, and then there was an
unhappy marriage to a brewer of Norwich. She was buried in her father's
old parish of Salle. Their daughter Ann Howard also married in Norfolk,
to Jonathan Wrench, also a priest, and himself brother to a well-known
Norwich doctor. Their son, also named Jonathan Wrench, not only took
over his father's parish at Aylsham, but also became "Chaplain to the
Countess Dowager Deloraine. Rector of Alburgh" (1738-42). The Countess
was born to a branch of the ducal Howard family as Mary Howard, and was
associated with the area around Alburgh and Bungay.

Regards
Andrew

[wjhonson]

https://books.google.com/books?id=xUzYAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA139&ots=_XOcyX7vIz&dq=howard%20bungay%20priory&pg=PA139#v=onepage&q=howard%20bungay%20priory

[Ian Goddard]

On 24/02/15 11:34, Andrew Lancaster via wrote:
> This is not specifically a medieval question, except, as often on this
> list, that it might involve a link between modern and medieval families.
>
> My question to this list is whether anyone is aware of good resources
> for the following up of minor branches of the Howard family in Norfolk
> and Suffolk. That family seems to almost suffer from being too much
> written about, for anyone seeking to know about less famous branches!
> Any ideas would be very much appreciated!

Make sure they started out as Howards. I have a family that started out
being mostly spelled Heward in the early C18th (& may have been Heyward
or Hayward previously). Gradually the Howard spelling crept in so that
by the late C19th they were almost entirely spelled that way. I suspect
the proximity of the Howards acquiring a manor from the Talbots some
miles away was a factor.

--
Ian

The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang
at austonley org uk

[Colin Withers via]

Continuing the theme of 'of' or 'de', my thoughts relate to England, and
how locative names developed.

I have often wondered when someone takes on a locative name for the
first time, would he likely have conferred that name on himself, or had
it conferred by others? Did people take on a locative name for the first
time while still resident in the place, or only when moving out of the
area, to describe where he was from? If a gentry family were using the
local place as their locative surname, would other common folk from that
place feel it would be above their station to use the same locative?

Did people relate more to their parish, their township, or to their
manor? So if, for example, someone lived in the parish of Bubwith in the
East Riding, but within the hamlet or township of Gribthorpe, which was
part of the manor of Wressle, which placename would he (or others) have
likely used as his locative name?

Did people predominately use 'of' or 'de'? In Poll Tax lists of 1381 I
see liberal sprinklings of both 'of' and 'de' being used (and rarely
'del'), but wondered which was more common and why use one rather than
the other?

Fascinating subject.

Anyone care to share their thoughts on this?

Wibs

[Derek Howard]

I would second what Ian says. My own Howards appear to have probably originally derived the name from Heworth on the outskirts of York, however in the 17th century they used all sorts of spellings (Heyward, Hayward, Heaward, etc.) in local records with Howard only appearing once in a hearth tax return. In the first half of the 18th century a widow, who had therefore acquired the surname only by marriage, remarried to a Mr Ward. Thereafter the earlier children of the wife, including one (my ancestor) born between marriages, standardised to Howard. This may have been a nod to the second husband but I have always suspected that it may also have been influenced by the arrival not too far away of the Earls of Carlisle at Castle Howard.

Derek Howard

[Andrew Lancaster via]

Ian Goddard wrote 5/03/2015 0:01:

On 24/02/15 11:34, Andrew Lancaster via wrote:

> >This is not specifically a medieval question, except, as often on this
>> list, that it might involve a link between modern and medieval families.
>>

>> My question to this list is whether anyone is aware of good resources
>>for the following up of minor branches of the Howard family in Norfolk
>> and Suffolk. That family seems to almost suffer from being too much
>> written about, for anyone seeking to know about less famous branches!
>> Any ideas would be very much appreciated!

>Make sure they started out as Howards. I have a family that started
out being mostly spelled Heward in the early C18th (& may have been
Heyward or Hayward previously). Gradually the Howard spelling crept in
so that by the late C19th they were almost entirely spelled that way. I
suspect the proximity of the Howards acquiring a manor from the Talbots
some miles away was a factor.

Yes I suppose many families gravitated towards that spelling, but that
does not really help because the famous Howards also gravitated from
other spelling variants, especially Haward, and I understand there is no
reason to suspect their name is not of the same origin as most other
such families, deriving from the occupation of Hay Ward. As we are
talking about a person who died around 1700, spelling of many surnames,
even of well-known families, was still quite unstable.

Also, it is not necessarily my aim to prove any particular connection,
but just to work out who this William was in Bungay. (Sometimes less
famous people are even more interesting.) He was obviously very well off
and well connected, and normally in this period that makes a person easy
to track in official records because they were probably involved in
business, politics, religion etc. Any Howard family in the area of
Bungay would be a possible missing link that might explain who he was.
He owned freehold and copyhold lands in Theberton, Ilketshall St
Lawrence, Westleton Leiston and Middleton Fordley, and if you look up
parish histories one Howard family keeps coming up.

Anyway, thanks for your response.
Andrew

[Jakub Mirza Lipka via]

I have come across an example where Vivian has created a lot of confusion by guessing that "de Morvell" referred to the Manor of Morval rather than the Parish of Morval. The widely accepted marriage of Katherine Fulford to John Glyn of Morval appears to have been a creation of Vivian in order to tie up loose ends in the Fulford of Fulford pedigree based on his confusion relating to a reference to someone as being "of Morval". In the 1620 Visitations of Devon a daughter of Henry Fulford is shown as married to someone from Morval ("filia nupta ... de Morvell"). (1) Vivian has taken this to refer to Glyn of Morval and has given us a marriage between Katherine, daughter of Henry Fulford and John Glyn of Morval (2) as well as a marriage between Katherine, daughter of Humphry Fulford and the same John Glyn. (3)

Neither Henry Fulford or his great-grandson Humphrey are possible fathers of Katherine, the wife of John Glyn of Morval. We know that she was having children in the period 1480-90. She was born far too late to be a daughter of Henry Fulford and born too early to be a daughter of Humphry Fulford. In a footnote to the Coode pedigree in the 1530, 1573 & 1620 Visistations of Cornwall, Vivian admits he is just guessing as to whom the "filia nupta ... de Morvell" in the Fulford pedigree referred. (4)

The 1620 Visitations of Cornwall give an alternative to a Glyn-Fulford marriage. Walter Coode, the father of the Richard Coode who married Thomasina, the daughter of John Glyn and Katherine, is shown as married to "filia ... Fulford."(5) Richard was quite old when he married Thomasina so the timescale makes it quite possible for his father Walter to have been married to a daughter of Henry Fulford. There would appear to be a problem here in that the Coodes only obtained the manor of Morval after the marriage of Richard Coode to Thomasina Glyn. However, the Parish of Morval contained more than the Glyn manor of Morval, and the Coodes did indeed live in this parish. There is a property deed of 1442 where Walter is described as Walter Coode of the Parish of Morval. (6) Vivian, in the 1530, 1573 & 1620 Visitations of Cornwall, mistakenly attributes Walter Coode's marriage to a daughter of Humphry Fulford - an impossibility. (4) The balance of probabilities, based on the scant available evidence, is that Walter Coode of the Parish of Morval was married to a daughter of Henry Fulford and that there was no Glyn-Fulford marriage.

The question remains unanswered regarding the identity of Katherine, the wife of John Glyn of Morval. Katherine is said to have been the widow of Ralph Prye. In both the Colby and Vivian versions of the Visitations of Devon we find that Katharine, the daughter of Thomas Tremayne of Collacombe and a daughter of Thomas Carew and Joan Carminow, is shown as as married to a Ralphe Prye of Cornwall.(7) (8)


(1) The Visitation of the County of Devon in the Year 1620. Ed. F.T.Colby, 1872, p.118, Fulford pedigree.
(2) The Visitation of the County of Devon, 1531, 1564 & 1620, Ed. J.L.Vivian, 1895, p378, Fulford pedigree.
(3) The Visitation of the County of Cornwall, 1530,1573 & 1620, Ed J.L.Vivian, 1887. p178, Glyn pedigree.
(4) The Visitation of the County of Cornwall. 1530,1573 & 1620, Ed J.L.Vivian, 1887. p94, Coode pedigree.
(5) The Visitation of the County of Cornwall in the Year 1620, Ed J.L.Vivian & H.H.Drake. 1874. p47, Coode pedigree.
(6) Cornwall Records Office, document reference ME/224/2
(7) The Visitations of Devon, 1564, Ed F.T. Colby, 1881, p198, Tremayne pedigree.
(8) The Visitation of the County of Devon 1531,1564 & 1620, Ed J.L.Vivian, 1895. p730, Tremayne pedigree.

[Ian Goddard]

On 05/03/15 15:39, Andrew Lancaster via wrote:
> I understand there is no
> reason to suspect their name is not of the same origin as most other
> such families, deriving from the occupation of Hay Ward.

If the early spelling has the second element as -worth it could be a
place name derivation.

[Andrew Lancaster via]

Ian Goddard 6/03/2015 0:09:

On 05/03/15 15:39, Andrew Lancaster via wrote:
>> I understand there is no
>> reason to suspect their name is not of the same origin as most other
>> such families, deriving from the occupation of Hay Ward.

>If the early spelling has the second element as -worth it could be a
place name derivation.

Ah ok. But I am not seeing that type of spelling very often if at all in
the East Anglian region.

Regards
Andrew

[Tompkins]

We don't really know how much people chose their own locative by-names and surnames and how much they were acquired by general repute. The substantial number of uncomplimentary nickname-type surnames, which an individual would have been unlikely to choose for himself, suggests many names must have been conferred by the community, not self-adopted, though no doubt there was always a certain amount of self-fashioning going on, with individuals trying to persuade their neighbours to use the surname they preferred (I remember once seeing a cartoon of a rather whispy knight timidly asking a passer-by whether his new nickname of Bill the Bold had caught on yet). Possibly the higher levels of society were more able to insist of the surname of their choice than the lower levels.

Locative names were acquired both from an individual's current residence, while he was still living there (toponyms of residence), and from a former residence, after moving away from it (toponyms of origin). The frequency with which these types of surname were adopted, and the proportions of each, varied with social class and with region. Lords were much more likely to be known by toponyms of either type than the lower orders; freemen were more likely to be known by toponyms of residence than unfree people; townsmen were particularly likely to be known by toponyms of origin. But the landscape zone also influenced the frequency of adoption of toponyms of residence; in areas of dispersed settlement, where ordinary people lived in small hamlets and islolated farms, people were much more likely to be named after their place of residence, which identified them uniquely, than they were in areas of nucleated settlement, where most people lived in villages - to be named after your village would not differentiate you from the scores or hundreds of other people who also lived there.

I don't know whether ordinary people would have been deterred from using a toponym of residence if the local lord was also taking his name from the same place - but if the place was a village then its name would only provide a unique identifier for the lord, anyway.

It would be hard to say whether ordinary people were named after their manor rather than the settlement, as almost all manors were themselves named after the settlement. But I think people probably generally took their surname of residence from the smallest settlement unit they belonged to - ie the farm or hamlet or village - rather than any larger administrative unit - ie the parish or manor. But that would be less true of toponyms of origin - the further away you moved the more likely people would be to describe you by reference to some larger area or region, for example the county you had come from, or even just 'the North'.

Matt Tompkins

________________________________________
From: Colin Withers via [gen-me...@rootsweb.com]
Sent: 05 March 2015 07:40

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