Introduction
This is the last of a series of articles concerning the Gentry families that were living in the
southeastern corner of England, in the 1500's and 1600's. The series was initiated by a desire
to identify the source of the Gentrys who left England and moved to the American Colonies in
the 17th century. A search of parish records has revealed the presence ofseveral families that
lived in County Essex. One of these was a family descending from a John Gentry who was
buried in Lindsell in October 1570, leaving a will dated that same year. Descendants and
relatives of John continued to live in Lindsell but also spread to other neighboring
communities, namely Great Dunmow, Witham, Kelvedon and eventually to London. This family
shows the most promise of being the source of Nicholas and Samuel Gentry who emigrated to
the British Colonies and settled in Virginia in the latter part of the 17th century. The family has
been discussed in previous issues of the Gentry Journal at some length<1>. A second extended family descending from a William Gentry, who
was probably related in some way to John, lived contemporaneously with John's family but was
confined to the community of Bocking. Their family history is reported over a span of nine
generations in a companion issue in the Gentry Journal<2>. Other
smaller family fragments of Gentrys have been found in Wethersfield, Great Canfield, Epping
and a few other isolated communities in Essex, and in Little Wenham, Suffolk (see map below).
The Gentrys in Little Wenham, in particular, may have been related to the family that lived in
Bocking, based on the similarity of names. This family is a prime candidate as the source of a
John Gentry who emigrated to Philadelphia at the turn of the century in 1700. To supplement
the material that has already been published, we propose in this article to provide an overall
summary of what we know about the Gentrys of Essex and Suffolk Counties.
Earliest Gentrys
Records of births or baptisms, marriages, and burials in England were not kept until 1538. The
Suffolk County [England] Record office has published (at <www.suffolk.gov.uk/sro>) a
brief and succinct description of the early parish records that developed following the break of
the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church.
It should also be noted that during the time of Cromwell, until the return of Charles II in 1660, many parish rectors lost their jobs and many church records were either not entered or registers were lost.
The first Gentry for whom a record has been found in the Essex/Suffolk area was a John Gentry who signed a deed in 1438, with others, as a donor of a croft <3> near Pebmarsh, Essex, midway between and north of Booking and Colchester. The next reference was to a Robert Jentry, husbandman, of Brightlingsea, Essex, who filed a will in 1546. Soon after, a marriage was recorded for an Alice Gentrie to John Reade in 1564 at Monks Eleigh, Suffolk. These two references are followed by references to individual Gentrys and to extended families of Gentrys who lived within about a twenty miles radius in eastern Essex and southern Suffolk Counties. These included the family of John Gentry of Lindsell, Essex, Henry Gentry of Wethersfield, Essex, the family of William Gentry of Bocking, Essex, the family of Joseph Gentry of Epping, Essex, and the family of John Gentry of Little Witham, Suffolk. In general, Gentrys have not been found living in other areas of England during the 1500's, but there certainly was a concentrated scattering of them in this southeast corner of England.
With such a concentration of Gentrys in a relatively small area, it is probable that they were all related in some manner, perhaps several generations back. John of Lindsell and William of Bocking were of an age such that they could have belonged to the generation following that of Robert of Brightlingsea. Henry of Wethersfield, Joseph of Epping, and John of Little Witham appear to have been a generation younger than the older two. Whether any of them were directly related to Robert or not we cannot say but the re-occurrence of the name Robert in the Bocking and the Little Witham Gentrys suggest that perhaps those families, if not the others, were direct descendants of him. Moreover the very common occurrence of the name Henry in later generations of Bocking Gentrys suggest that Henry of Wethersfield was related to the Bocking Gentrys. Whereas John Gentry of Lindsell was a husbandman and worked the land, William Gentry and his descendants were mostly weavers. This raises the question, were they related in any way to the flood of refugee Huguenot weavers that poured into south-east England in the mid-sixteenth century?
1. As of this date, no indiviidual named Nicholas Gentry has been found in any of the Essex, Suffolk and London records studied. Consequently any possibility of identifying the family to which Nicholas belonged depends upon identifying his presumed older brother Samuel.
2. The name Samuel was a common one within the Lindsell Gentry family. One Samuel in particular, son of Nathaniel Gentry of Kelvedon has been proposed to be the most likely individual satisfying the requirements for Nicholas' brother.
We observe further, that this particular family, while roughly centered around the town of Lindsell, spread over time to a number of neighboring communities including Kelvedon, Great Dunmow, Great Easton, Witham, and eventually London.
Second Generation
1. John Gentry of Little Wenham | ||
– born about 1555 to 1560; | ||
– married (1) Elizabeth Harply/Harxby, 11 Oct 1584; buried 1596; | ||
– married (2) Thomasin Smith, 19 Jun 1599. | ||
John Sr. was buried 1618. | ||
Child of John and Elizabeth: | ||
i | John Gentry baptized 24 Nov 1594. | |
Children of John and Thomasin: | ||
2 | ii | William Gentry baptized 17 Sep 1601. |
iii | Thomas Gentry baptized 29 Apr 1604. | |
3 | iv | Robert Gentry baptized 28 Dec 1607. |
v | John Gentry (2nd) baptized 12 Sep 1610 ; married Ann [--?--]; unnamed daughter buried Mar 1647. |
Third Generation
Children of John Gentry
2. William Gentry | ||
– baptized 17 Sep 1601. | ||
– married Ann Butcher, 1630, in Hadleigh, Suffolk (approximately five miles northwest of Little Wenham). | ||
William was buried 1640. | ||
Children of William and Ann: | ||
i | William Gentry baptized 13 Jul 1631. | |
ii | Thomas Gentry baptized 1 Mar 1634/5; buried 1656. | |
iii | (Speculation) John Gentry buried 1653. | |
iv | Edward Gentry baptized 5 May 1639; buried 1657. |
3. Robert Gentry | ||
– baptized 28 Dec 1607. | ||
– married Anne Liveing, 1636 | ||
Robert was buried 1651. | ||
Children of Robert and Anne: | ||
i | Anne Gentry baptized 25 Jun 1637; married Nathaniel Balden, 1669. | |
4 | ii | Robert Gentry baptized 10 Mar 1638/9. |
iii | John Gentry baptized 4 Apr 1641; buried 1674. | |
iv | Thomasin Gentry baptized 1644; buried 1645. | |
v | Thomasin Gentry (2nd) baptized 8 Sep 1645; buried 1646. |
Fourth Generation
Child of Robert Gentry
5. Robert Gentry | ||
– baptized 10 Mar 1638/9 | ||
– married Elizabeth Bacon, 1661 (both of Little Wenham) | ||
Robert died late 1679 or early 1680, leaving a widow with unborn child. | ||
Children of Robert and Elizabeth: | ||
i | Robert Gentry baptized 29 May 1662. | |
ii | Elizabeth Gentry baptized 3 Apr 1664; married William Turner, 1682. | |
iii | William Gentry baptized 20 Aug 1665; buried 1707. | |
iv | Susanna Gentry baptized 23 Feb 1667/8. | |
v | Nathaniel Gentry baptized 20 Nov 1669. | |
vi | John Gentry baptized 3 Dec 1671; buried 1691. | |
vii | Daniel Gentry baptized 22 Nov 1673. | |
viii | Ann Gentry baptized 12 Mar 1675/6. | |
ix | Thomasin Gentry baptized 1 Feb 1679/80 (daughter of Elizabeth, "relict" of Robert Gentry). |
The Little Wenham references shown above were all collected during the search for antecedents of Nicholas Gentry of Virginia commissioned by Mrs. Herbert R. Gentry in 1978 (see reference section below). Although parish records exist for the period from 1558 to 1900, only records up to 1680 were reported to Mrs. Gentry and are represented by the three generations of family records above. Unfortunately, none of the Little Wenham records have yet to be processed by the FreeREG project underway in Great Britain<4> .
Although the Little Wenham Gentrys appear to not be the source of the Nicholas and Samuel Gentry who went to Virginia, they are prime candidates as being possible antecedents for a John Gentry who was living in Philadelphia in 1711. John is believed to be the father of a Robert Gentry, shipbuilder, who was living in Philadelphia late into the 1700's, and a John Gentry who was born about 1730 and lived in southern New Jersey. Robert had a son, Robert, and John had sons William and Thomas. The correspondence of names with those of the Little Wenham Gentrys in comparison to other Essex/Suffolk Gentrys strongly suggests that the former could have been the antecedents of the Philadelphia/New Jersey Gentrys. The cut-off in reporting of Little Wenham parish records does not allow clear identification of the John Gentry who lived in Philadelphia whose date of birth may have been just past the Little Wenham cut-off. One may hope that eventually these records will be made available online for searching in the British FreeREG project.
1. William Gentrye/Gentrie of Great Canfield | ||
– born about 1540 to 1545, location unknown | ||
– married Joan Beade 28 Jul 1572, Great Canfield. | ||
Children of William and Joan: | ||
2 | i | Thomas Gentry baptized 14 Sep 1578. |
ii | Joan Gentry baptized 11 Feb 1582; married William Wood, 19 Oct 1600. |
2. Thomas Gentry | ||
– baptized 14 Sep 1578. | ||
– married Barbary [Barbara] Chander, 10 Jun 1601. | ||
Children of Thomas and Barbara: | ||
i | Mary Gentry baptized 5 Nov 1601; married Thomas Taylor, 25 Feb 1624/5; buried 20 Jul 1635. | |
ii | Joan Gentry baptized 3 Nov 1603; married Robert Cabbidge, 1629, in High Roding (located almost adjacent fo Great Canfield; recorded in "Boyd's Marriage Indexes, Essex"); buried 1 Jun 1630. |
1. Joseph Gentry of Epping | ||
– born about 1625 to 1630? | ||
– married (1) Elizabeth [Unknown]; died about 1667 to 1668? | ||
– married (2) Mary [Unknown]. | ||
Children of Joseph and Elizabeth (all born in Epping): | ||
i | Elizabeth Gentry born 8 Jan 1653/4. | |
ii | Joseph Gentry born 22 Jul 1657. | |
iii | Thomas Gentry born 27 Jan 1659/60; married Bridget [Unknown]; son John Gentry born 19 Dec 1697. | |
iv | Sarah Gentry born 30 Jan 1662/3. | |
2 | v | John Gentry born 23 Apr 1665. |
vi | Unnamed Child born 14 Jan 1667/8. | |
Children of Joseph and Mary: | ||
3 | viii | Joseph Gentry (2nd) 27 Nov 1670. |
Children of Joseph
2. John Gentry | ||
– born 23 Apr 1665 | ||
– married Mary [Unknown]. | ||
Children of John and Mary (born in Epping): | ||
i | Unnamed child born 7 Apr 1691. | |
ii | John Gentry born 13 Mar 1692/3. | |
iii | Thomas Gentry born 8 Mar 1695/6. | |
iv | Richard Gentry born 23 Oct 1698. |
3. Joseph Gentry | ||
– born 27 Nov 1670 | ||
– married Martha King. | ||
Children of Joseph and Martha (born in Epping): | ||
i | Martha Gentry born 22 Mar 1695/6. | |
ii | Joseph Gentry born 7 Feb 1696/7. | |
iii | John Gentry born 26 Feb 1698/9. | |
iv | Thomas Gentry born 12 Jun 1700. |
The same Epping family appears in Essex Quarterly Sessions court records in which John (bricklayer), Thomas, and Joseph Gentry of Epping were cited in 1689 and 1690. The name Joseph is not particularly common among the early Essex Gentrys, but another Joseph was a son of Nathaniel Gentry of Kelvedon and there were a number of Josephs among the later generations of the Bocking Gentrys.
Date | Location | Name | Comments |
1629 1662 1634 1635 1668 1669 1674 1691 |
West Mersea, Essex Colchester, Essex South Weald, Essex South Weald, Essex Heybridge, Essex Witham, Essex Widford, Essex Witham, Essex |
Richard Gentry Richard Gentry Thomas Gentry Richard Gentry Robert Gentry Richard Genter Mary Gentry Martha Gentry |
Marriage Marriage Marriage Marriage Marriage Admonished in court Marriage Victim of assault |
1534-1631 1534-1631 1669 |
Whatfield, Suffolk Hadleigh, Suffolk Ipswich, Suffolk |
Roger Gentry J. Gentry Anne Gentry |
Muster roll Muster roll Marriage |
Conclusion
It is evident from the families described above that the name Gentry was far from unknown
in Essex and Suffolk during the period of time from 1500 onward, in particular from about 1600
on. No one has found similar pockets of Gentrys in other parts of England, nor do we know of
any such individuals living in much earlier years. This lends some credence to the proposition
advanced by some that the first Gentrys came to England from the Continent, landing on the
south-east coast of England, perhaps fleeing persecution as did the Huguenots in the
1500's.
References
Parish records of Little Wenham, Suffolk
Date | Individual | Parents / Spouse |
Baptisms | ||
24 Nov 1594 17 Sep 1601 29 Apr 1604 28 Dec 1607 12 Sep 1610 13 Jul 1631 1 Mar 1634/5 25 Jul 1637 10 Mar 1638/9 5 May 1639 4 Apr 1641 --- 1744 8 Sep 1645 -- Mar 1647 29 May 1662 3 Apr 1664 20 Aug 1665 23 Feb 1667/8 20 Nov 1669 3 Dec 1671 22 Nov 1673 12 Mar 1675/6 1 Feb 1679/80 |
John William Thomas Robert Robert William Thomas Anne Robert Edward John Thomasin Thomasin <blank> Robert Elizabeth William Susanna Nathaniel John Daniel Ann Thomasin |
John Gentry John and Thomazine Gentry John and Thomazine Gentry John Gentry John Gentry William and Ann Gentry William and Ann Gentry Robert and Ann Gentry Robert and Ann Gentry William and Anne Gentrie Robert and Ann Gentrie Robert and Ann Gentrie Robert and Ann Gentry Dau of John and Ann Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Robert and Elizabeth Gentry Elizabeth, "relict" of Robert Gentry |
Marriages | ||
1584 1590 1630 1636 1637 1661 1669 1669 1682 |
John Gentry John Gentry Will Jentry Robert Gentrie, bach. Rob Gentry Robert Gentrie, bach. Anne Jentry Tomsin Jentry Elz Gentry |
Elz Harxby / Harply Tomasin Smith An Butcher (in Hadleigh, Suffolk) Anne Liveing Sus Gallant (in Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk) Elz Bacon, both of Lt. Witham Nath Balden Dan Bacon Wm Turner |
Burials | ||
1596 1618 1634 1640 1645 1646 1651 1653 1656 1657 1668 1674 1679 1688 1691 1707 |
Elizabeth Gentry John Gentry John Gentry William Gentry Thomasin Gentry Thomazin Gentry Robert Gentry John Gentry Thomas Gentry Edward Gentry Anne Gentry John Gentry Robert Gentry Anne Gentry John Gentry William Gentry |
Endnotes
9/14/2013
© 2013, W.M. Gentry - All rights reserved. This issue may be reproduced in whole or in part for non-commercial purposes provided that proper attribution (including authors and journal names) is included.