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This page covers a branch of the Williamson family that moved from near Keswick in Cumberland to Oxfordshire and then to other parts of the south. Earlier individuals mentioned here may or may not be not my direct ancestors, but those that moved south are (as far as I know) not.
This page primarily follows a pedigree given (I think in the 17th century or maybe late 16th) by a descendant living in (what was then a suburb adjacent to the actual City of) London. The pedigree is headed "Williamson of Lincons in Grange" and is given in the Middlesex Pedigrees, volume 65 of the publications of the Harleian Society, a 1914 compilation based on records of the Heralds’ Visitation(s) to the County of Middlesex (MS Harl. 1551, folio 66), but also with additional material compiled by the arms-painter Richard Mundy and a clerk in the College of Arms, Robert Dale, and edited by Sir George Armytage. It may rely on family evidence, but in its earlier generations it is backed up by other Visitation Pedigrees.
For this page I have numbered the generations according to how a branch may fit into my ancestry by marriage to Crakeplace then Sumpton, Ponsonby, Jackson, Rawling.
This printing of the pedigree gives the family arms, Williamson quartered with the Thirkeld arms, which themselves incorporate those of Handford. The arms are discussed in more detail on my Thirkeld and Williamson page.
At the centre of the arms, where the quarters meet, is a crescent on a crescent (the colour is not indicated) which I think may be to denote that there are two generations of second sons in the descent of the owner of the arms (Humphrey below, and Francis the man of Middlesex for whom the pedigree is given).
15. Humphrey WILLIAMSON, of Millbeck at Crosthwaite in Cumberland, lived in the sixteenth century. He was the second (or third, according to another version of the pedigree) known son of his parents John and Elizabeth WILLIAMSON, and (according to Cumberland Families and Heraldry by C Roy Hudleston and RS Boumphrey) his oldest brother was born in 1508, so he would have been born somewhere after that.
Humphrey married a woman from the STONOR family of Stonor in Oxfordshire. They had three sons: Robert, Humphrey and Thomas. On Humphrey junior and Thomas the pedigrees give no further information. It is possible that Humphrey junior (or perhaps Humphrey senior but I now think that's less likely) is the Humphrey who heads my more probable Williamson of Applethwaite and New Hall ancestors – see discussion of this below.
14. Humprey senior's son Robert married Mary, the daughter of William Hildesley of Cromers Gifford in Oxfordshire. They lived in Minster Lovell, also in Oxfordshire. Their children were Edward, Francis, Mary and Cecily. (I’m modernising Cecily’s spelling; she’s given as Seisley in the Middlesex Pedigrees and Srewly in the transcript I have of the Cumberland Visitations.)
Edward married the daughter of a Mr Box of Witton in Oxfordshire. They had sons Robert and Edward.
Francis married Susan, daughter of John Hunt, a Doctor of Civil Law. They lived in “Lincons in Grange” (which I read as Lincoln’s Inn Grange; I have found an 1851 address given as Grange Court, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London). They had two children: Caesar (my spelling; given in the pedigree as Seaser) and Francis, who it seems had already died without issue by the time of the pedigree.
Mary married George Berington of Chidley (Chudleigh?) in Devon, and they had a son Humphrey.
Cecily married twice: first to Hastings Ingerham of Little Wolmer in Worcestershire; second to Simon Clifford of Battiscombe in Wiltshire.
I also know that another Thomas Williamson (nephew of the older Humphrey on this page - see the senior family page), in 1566 sold his childhood home, New Hall in Crosthwaite, to one John Williamson of Applethwaite, son of Humphrey Williamson, and that it was at the time of sale already in the occupation of a Humphrey Williamson – perhaps most likely John’s father. If Humphrey and John were both close relatives to Thomas the vendor of New Hall, it might help explain why he chose to allow one to rent/occupy the place and then the other to buy it.
I must declare my interest. If the purchaser in this New Hall transaction were demonstrably related to the vendor, then the later Williamson of New Hall family would merge with the earlier, gaining a longer and more genteel pedigree plus documented arms, which I can’t help feeling is extra interesting. And the purchaser family are potentially my direct ancestors, because New Hall itself provides a strong hint that at least the later Williamson of New Hall family may be related to my ancestral Williamson of Allonby family, who owned a property called New Hall in Crosthwaite later in history. (As it happens, it appears that the earlier Millbeck/New Hall family may be my ancestors anyway, via a marriage into CRAKEPLACE.)
So, Humphrey of Applethwaite, who died a grandfather and left a will in 1578, is very much a person of interest. Might he be identified with either of the Humphreys in this pedigree? The sale of New Hall provides a little circumstantial supporting evidence, as does the fact that all the names of Humphrey of Applethwaite's children appear in the Visitation pedigrees.
More specifically, the elder Humphrey of the pedigrees has a sister Alice, who marries Robert Braithwaite of Ambleside and has children including Thomas and James. Since Humphrey of Applethwaite mentions in his will cousins Mr Thomas Braithwaite and Mr James Braithwaite, that is consistent with, and suggestive of, him being the younger Humphrey from the pedigrees, whose first cousins are Thomas and James the sons of Alice. The difficulty with this identification is the dates. The older pedigree Humphrey was the younger brother of John who (according to Cumberland Families and Heraldry, by C Roy Hudleston and RS Boumphrey) was born in 1508. Therefore what needs to have happened is (something like) that the first pedigree Humphrey was born by about 1510, grown up and married and had a second son Humphrey of Applethwaite before say 1530, who grew up and married and had a daughter, say late 1540s, who was of marriagable age in 1563 when Humphrey of Applethwaite's daughter Mary is known to have first married. Not impossible at all, but three generations in a row starting families in their teens.
My other wishful-thinking scenario, that Humphrey of Applethwaite is the older one in the pedigrees, seems fine for dates but has other issues. Visitation Humphrey senior's wife awas from Oxfordshire and his heir Robert moved there, while this Humphrey doesn't seem to show connections beyond Cumberland/Westmorland - in particular his son Robert is mentioned in the will with no mention of any remarkable residence. Ought that have been mentioned? Might he not have moved yet at that stage? The three children of the older Humphrey in the Middlesex pedigree (Robert, Humphrey and Thomas) are also not a great match for Humphrey of Applehtwaite's children known from his will (Robert, Thomas, John, Anthony, Mary, Nicholas, Isabel, James and Janet, but no Humphrey junior). And who are his cousins Thomas and James Braithwaite? The sons of his sister are nephews, which I don't think would have been called cousins. It would seem a big coincidence for there to be other Braithwaites of the same first names who are his cousins too.
Another possibility would be that the pedigrees' first John Williamson had a brother or cousin, who could have been father (or maybe grandfather) to Humphrey of Applethwaite. That would require Humphrey of Applethwaite in his will to be saying 'cousin' meaning cousin once removed, second/third cousin or similar, but that isn't impossible. This scenario seems less hopeful for me, because anyone before parish registration and outside the pedigrees is probably no longer traceable. Also, if the Williamson arms were granted to John who bought the manor, someone not descended directly from him would not be heir to them.
Or of course that Humphrey of Applethwaite is unrelated to those of the pedigree, but then the cousins in the will matching two people related in the same way to the pedigree family is a remarkable coincidence again. I could check in the parish registers for Braithwaites to see if there is a local family like that.
All in all, still several possibilities to consider. One angle might be to carefully compile the burial records in the Crosthwaite registers and see if I can establish other Humphreys in the parish in the 1560s. (Not as fathers of new babies – the registers begin in 1562 and the first Humphrey Williamson as a father is in 1590.) Any further wills of early Williamsons in the area. Get sight of the sale record of New Hall and see if it has any overlooked detail.
If you are interested in this line I'll be very pleased indeed to hear from you. Email me at deletethis.ianwilliamson161@gmail.com but delete everything up to and including the first dot, leaving just my name and number @ service provider. Please do not delete the automatically-generated subject line, so that I know your email is not spam. You can add more to the subject if you like but if you delete what appears I may not read your mail.