The Stinchcombe Family

Hawkesbury History

A brief resume of what we currently know (or think we do) by Robert Millard 13x Great Grandson of Thomas Stinchcombe

So just who were the Stinchcombes the obvious first thought if your local is to connect to the village of that name about 9 miles North of Hawkesbury it stands to reason that our families name must have some connection to it, almost certainly it has, but we should not expect to go there and find any trace of the family except for a much later burial. Lets firstly get the Stinchcombe name out of the way there is much confusion over names the Oxford Dictionary of English place names (new edition) says it was first mentioned in 1155 meaning " valley frequented by the sandpiper or dunlin in Old English stint + cumb". In Wales the term and place name Cwm appears and means Valley, in Hawkesbury we have the area North of the village to Tresham known as the Coombes as there are 2 valleys, up until the 13th century we did not commonly have surnames as today, people were referred to as Peter de Stinchcombe ie of Stinchcombe, or Peter Longshank a tall person or Thatcher referring to a trade and so on, so when we come across Peres de St Comb we are looking probably at a Norman who settled in Stincumb and probably thought it was Saint Comb hence he is Peres of St Comb who founded a home called Peres Court now Piers Court we have to remember most people could not read or write and you would go to the local scribe who then wrote what he heard phonetically so we cannot dwell to much on names and neither should we disregard a similar name as later in Rangeworthy 1544 in his Will we find Wyllya Styncon and the same person recorded earlier in the muster of 1522 William Stynchecombe. So when we look back to the 12^th Century for a mention of a Knight by the name of Peres de St Comb who did frankenpledge (a promise in exchange for local privileges to do Knightly service) for his Lord Maurice De Berkley we can assume he held lands there, so a completely different unrelated person could be Hugh de Stinchcombe and so associated his name with the village, we may have a small clue as to Peres ancestry in the fact that he got away with murder literally at this time a Norman could do this with a donation or two to the church but very unlikely a Saxon could get away with it. There is an opposing argument to this, as this family sold lands at Kingscote a village nearby named after the Kingscote family who were friends and relatives to the Berkley's, after the Norman conquest the Kingscote's were some of the few Saxon Barons to retain their lands so was Peres from Saxon Kingscote originally, we will probably never know.

Our first mention which can be more closely related to the later family is in the reign of Edward III 1327 in the Parish of Yate about 5 miles south west of Hawkesbury (where I grew up) one William Stinchcombe was listed on the Subsidy roll of that year so we can probably assume he was born in the 13^th C interesting to note that not much existed in Yate in those days one major feature however was a fortified farm house that was owned by the Berkley family and was in the gift of Lord Berkley in exchange for frankenpledge now known as Yate Court and partially in ruins perhaps this is how our William became established in Yate, later in 1370's there is mention of a Stinchcombe family in the Acton Turville court rolls for a number of years, not a lot more is known and records from that period are scarce if we move forward a century we get closer we find two Stincombe's mentioned in the Oxford illumini as being ordained one from Rangeworthy the other from Tytherington we are getting quite close to are known origins, from here we need to look at our first ”connected” family in Tortworth the first one we have, we know of from his Will is Thomas Stinchcombe we can estimate from the ages of his family that he must have been born about the turn of the century in 1500 possibly in Tortworth or may be more toward Cromhall where about the same time we find William Stinchcombe I feel sure these are fairly closely related probably by Grandparents we also learn from Williams Will he is connected to Rangeworthy and from Thomas’s Will we find he owe’s monies to Jane Stinchcombe of Thornbury who it might seem is a family money lender, Thomas also mentions his brother Nicholas and we first come across the name of Martens it would seem Thomas married a Martens probably his second marriage as he refers to his wife’s God children a term used in that time for Grand Children and these are clearly Martens of Cromhall, Thomas has a son also named Thomas who dies in 1557 only 4 years after his father we also have his will, this is interesting for what it does not say, we know that Elizabeth Marten who was raised at Chawkley manor house, daughter of Nicholas Marten Great Grand Daughter of Sir Nicholas Marten of Chawkley married Thomas Stinchcombe I think she married Thomas who died 1557 and died probably in child birth, the name of Thomas’s daughter Cicerly has the same name as Elizabeth’s younger sister, Thomas probably remarried its therefore the reason we find Mohanne Bowser named as Thomas’s wife in his Will, the curious thing we should ask ourselves is why does Thomas place the elder children with family and friends and not let his wife raise them after all her father was quite wealthy. I think the reason is because they were not her children, but the two younger children are not placed in his will, was this because Mohanne had an attachment to the “babys” of the family, certainly we can calculate Thomas’s approximate age which seems to be about that of Elizabeth’s.

One thing we can be reasonably sure of is Thomas’s son Thomas was placed with the Vizard family of Hawkesbury his fathers wishes were that Nicholas to go to John Searney Thomas's brother in law of Wickwar and Jane to Arthur Crewe or his Brother William, If I am correct Arthur Vizar was also Thomas’s brother in law (if he had married Elizabeth) having married Elizabeth’s sister Katherine, and we see later in 1575 Nicholas appears on the court rolls of Hawkesbury Parish is well educated (probably due to the Sarney family) and is a tenant at Hawkesbury, but we still do not have mention of Thomas at Hawkesbury but in 1608 we find a Thomas Stinchcombe about the same age at Wotton under Edge (ref in Men and Armour) Nicholas appears in Hawkesbury at the same time, when Thomas dies he mentions in his none copulative Will his house he has leased in Wotton under edge where his now wife lives, this would be consistent with Thomas being placed with the Vizard family who had close ties with the Crewe family (Arthur Crewe had married Elizabeth’s Aunt Alice) who had lands at Hawkesbury and Alderley near Wotton we also see in his Will he owes £10 to Edward Hopkins of Wortley (part of Wotton) again this person is closely connected to the Crewe family Thomas has inherited at least part of Chawkley manor and this is probably the reason we find him in Hawkesbury (Elizabeth received one fifth from her fathers will) when he dies his eldest son Thomas then inherits a large amount of estate at this time we see his brother Nehamiah challenge their fathers will in the courts, he has converted to the Quakers by this time over the years I think he was much wrong done by, we still find him in court after nearly 50 years by which time his fathers estate has been reduced being passed from brother to brother until it is claimed by his brother in law Cornelius Gingell who claims to have loaned the value of the estate to John Stinchcombe his brother in law Nehemiah dies in 1710 a broken and poor man having paid legal fees for most of his life, was he correct did his brothers and sisters conspire against him we will probably never know.

The Family is now firmly established in Hawkesbury we can still find relatives in Tortworth, Cam, and of course the Stinchcombes in Cromhall who are spreading out. At Hawkesbury we can divide into three main groups Thomas of Chawkley, Nicholas of Kilcott and John of Swangrove lets first look at John in his Will his father Thomas gives him the lease at Swangrove in Hawkesbury later to become part of Badminton park, Swangrove was used for sheep rearing John died quite young this line carries on through Johns son Nicholas and we find his decedents still living at Swangrove up to around 1860 they were closely associated with the Beaufort estate as estate managers and Gamekeepers Edward Noel Stinchcombe (Noel comes from the Duke of Beauforts name) took his branch of to Monkswood Monmouth where they still farm today other descendants of John are the line of Daniels who are farmers at Horton, Kingwood, Wickwar and Hawkesbury and descendants still live at Hawkesbury from this line we also have the second exodus to America James son of Henry in abt 1850 travels to Michigan where we find descendants in the area today his cousin in Fredrick Rufus Stinchcombe also went to the same area probably initially staying with his cousin before returning to Horton to marry his sweetheart and returning ending up in Kansas his decedents are also in the area today.

If we return to 1660 and Thomas’s son Nicholas the founder of the “Kilcott” line we find his son Nathaniel leaving for Maryland with one Cow and a servant John Mericken he marries and sets up as a tanner, farmer, and tobacco grower after only a few short years Nathaniel dies and leaves 2 sons Nathaniel and John, there are many descendants of this line in two main groups the Baltimore and Ohio lines today, not long after Nathaniels death his cousins son Nathaniel also appears in Anne Arundel county he was at first thought to be the nephew of Nathaniel but now is almost certain to be Nehemiah's son he prospered and married Anna Meriken (yes a real name) daughter of John mentioned before, from here the Anne Arundel Line derives with many descendents today its known that the family fought in the Indian wars, French War, the War of independence, and on both sides of the American civil war.

I have a theory based on facts that both Nathaniel's traveled to Maryland with connections to Quakers we know some Hawkesbury Stinchcombes notably Nehemiah were Quakers, very close to Broad Neck one Hundred is Cape St Clair the landing place for the Quaker colonies there, the second Nathaniel was son of Nehemiah they both would have been aware of George Fox who married in Bristol and drew huge crowds to his Quaker meetings, after the Quakers were evicted from Virginia in 1655 they settled in Maryland in such numbers as to cause problems, George Fox sailed from London to Maryland in 1672, was Nathaniel one of an earlier ship we know that in 1662 a ship sailed directly from Bristol to Maryland bringing people from Bristol area, he bought The "Tanyard" from Thomas Thurston a well known Quaker evicted from Virginia and a name known to early Stinchcombes in Tortworth. Nathaniel's son also Nathaniel was mentioned in the Will of John Baldwin a Quaker of South river Anne Arundel County that when he should be of legal age he should have the use of the Quakers ministry.

We have other Stinchcombes who left England for faraway shores a mystery for sometime but now we think we can link him to Bristol is Henry John Stinchcombe thought to be a Mariner who is found in New Brunswick Nova Scotia he has two sons, one John becomes an Iron Founder in Portland Maine, the other Henry William we find in Ardrosian Scotland (a port on the Clyde) a mariner probably employed by the merchants in St John's New Brunswick to transport good Scots families to Nova Scotia he married in Ayr Scotland and settled in Liverpool before returning to New Brunswick later we find his grand children traveling to Alberta in the early 1900's, James Stinchcombe son of Henry of Hawkesbury decides to emigrate to Canada we find him in Michigan in 1850's his cousin Fredrick Rufus Stinchcombe of Horton also later leaves for Michigan then returns shortly after to marry in Horton and return to Kansas where he settled with brothers and sisters joining him, Stinchcombe brothers from Thornbury went to St Petersburg Russia to open a pickle factory one returned the other stayed. Stinchcombes also traveled to new York from Bristol to work on the building contracts in New York in the 1880's

Back to England and Nicholas again most of the rest of this line intermarried into the Hawkesbury families and have numerous cases of Stinchcombe Stinchcombe marriages, first cousin marriages grand children marriages until we end up with a “spaghetti” family tree this is my line we tended to be small farmers at first going on to labourers and blacksmiths mostly by the 1800’s but we can claim the Stinchcombe family band ,there are a large number of descendants living in Hawkesbury village today not all Stinchcombes most not even aware of our families past.

What of the Cromhall and Rangeworthy lines I think we can safely say that all other Stinchcombes we can trace with a Gloucestershire past derive from this line they returned to Rangeworthy by 1750 and were I think responsible for the branch’s at Stone and Thornbury certainly for some of Wickwar and North Nibley, Winterbourne, Yate, Iron Acton, probably as well, certainly from either the Tortworth or Cromhall line but which I’m not sure at present perhaps we will find the answer to this and many other mysteries soon but it will be a sad and unlikely day when we are sure of everything meanwhile the clues are out there somewhere.