Ancestors of Zachary William RUSHTON

Notes

393216. Richard de WAKELEG'-WAKELEYE-WAKELEY

Arms: Argent on a fess sable between three eagles displayed azure as many crescents of the field.
Translation: A white shield with three silver crescents on a black bar between three blue eagles displayed.
Coats of arms originated as motifs borne on the shields of knights in armour in order that they could be identified on the battlefield ~ These 'armorials' were formalized and recorded by herald from the 13th century onwards with crests and mottos later supplementing the arms. The language of heraldry is of great antiquity and it is from such ancient history that a decorative representation may be portrayed.
The WAKELY Blazon of Arms is recorded in Burke's General Armoury.
The surname WAKELY is a locational name for "one from Wakeley" in Hertfordshire meaning "soft or wet meadow".
Early Historical Example: Roger Wakeley, 1332, Subsidy Rolls.
David Linstead Heraldry - England

INTRODUCTORY NOTES ON WAKELY HISTORY
All the following text regarding 'The First Wakelys and Their Times: 1300-1500', the informative text, trees and maps regarding 'Wakelys off the Main Tree'/Other Wakelys'/The Wakely Area' and the notes on the generations included with the individual ancestors - down to Abraham Wakely 1733-1774 Yeoman of Burstock - is the work of Mr.J.R.Wakely of London SE27, He has made a long and serious study of the Wakelys and has lodged his work with both the Society of Genealogists in London and the Dorset County Records Office in Dorchester. it consists of Vol.l (1988) and Vo1.3 revisions and additions (1991) from which certain relevant portions have been extracted to compile this current history, adding it to the research done by D.R.Lennard for his wife Olive Kate Wakely, her siblings and paternal cousins - the descendants of the line of Wakelys coming down from the above named Abraham Wakely of Burstock.

THE FIRST WAKELYS AND THEIR TIMES : 1300-1500
Hertfordshire origins
In the British Library there is a List of the Knights who attended the Third Crusade at the end of the 12th Century under the leadership of King Richard Coeur de Lion. Among these was Sir Roger Wakely, the first recorded holder of the name.
Surname studies agree the name is derived from a small Hertfordshire manor, now subsumed in the Parish of Westmill which lies halfway between Stevenage and Bishops Stortford. Whether or not they were descended from Sir Roger himself, it is thought the Wakelys of Dorset, Richard and Roger, also came from this manor. Its history therefore is both a part of, and a beginning, for the family history that follows. Whether the Wakelys were of Saxon or Norman origins, it is quite possible that their marriages connected them with the original inhabitants of Wakeley.
The timing of the original foundation of the settlement cannot now be established. It may have been of Roman date - Roman Stane Street passes close by. There is a large tumulus which also suggests some ancient human settlement and the Historian of Westmill and others hold to the theory that this mound gave the seltlement its name.
'Wakeley' according to this interpretation is a composite word for the field (ley) of the funeral feast (wake) of some local chief i.e. the tumulus was his burial mound. Another interpretation says that the Old English 'waeccan' watcher- or to stay awake) and 'leah' (meadow or wet clearing in a woodland) describes the occupation of someone who was responsible for looking after a clearing, meadow or some other land that had possible social, religious or agricultural significance.
The fact that Wakeley still survives as a place name on modern maps is something of a miracle and is only possible in a deeply traditionalist culture. The settlement seems to have been deserted in the latter middle ages. The lands that once constituted the manor are now a single farm all that is left bearing the name Wakeley on Hertfordshire signposts.
The best information on the lands of the manor comes from the Domesday Book - where the name is spelled Wachelei. The manor was then equally divided into three holdings of forty acres. This unusual division pre-dated the Norman Conquest and some historians believe it indicated that the manor was split between three brothers. Whatever the precise status of the three holders in the time of Edward the Confessor, they were free to sell the lands and were themselves legally free.
They do not appear to have kept their title after the Norman Conquest:- The Saxon, Eddiva the Fair, on one holding was replaced by one Ralf, who held his land from the Count of Brittany. Aelfward, one of Earl Harold's men, lost out to Robert, who held a third of Wachelei along with two nearby holdings from the Count of Boulogne. Edric, one of Earl Aelfgar's men, lost his holding to Tetbald (Theobald) who held it with three other small estates from Hardouin de Scalers.
Each holding was self-sufficient. There was enough land for one plough; meadow enough for two oxen; and wood enough for fencing on each. The condition of the land had deteriorated on Ralf's portion: it had been worth twenty shillings under King Edward, and was only worth ten by Domesday. Robert's land kept its pre-Conquest value of five shillings. Tetbald - whose land had dropped from a pre-Conquest value of fifteen shillings to seven - had managed to get the value up to fifteen again.
These differences may owe something to the availability of labour. There were seven cottars on Tetbald's land who were doubtless made to work on restoring its value; nane are mentioned on Robert's holding - maybe his Saxon predecessor Aelfward had worked it with his family, or the servants had fled or been killed; on Ralf's portion there was one sokeman (essentially free) and one serf, so he like Robert, seemed to have had labour problems.
From one or more of these. Saxon or Norman, landowner or tenant, slave or free, the Wakelys quite probably descended.
The mid-fourteenth century gives the next picture of Wakeley/Wakelegh, perhaps forty or so years after the Wakely ancestor had gone to Dorset. The Lay Subsidy Roll (tax return) for 1341 shows that Wakeley had much of its land unploughed. Probably this resulted from the succession of murrains that had killed off livestock over the preceding years and the accompanying scourge of severe droughts. For a small settlement like Wakeley, these twin disasters were the beginning of the end: one hundred years later it had completely disappeared. However, advanced archaelogical techniques allow us to place it and to a certain extent we can describe it and its situation.
Wakeley seems to have been a small street village. The evidence for this is the house platforms that can clearly be seen along the south side of the route of the old track from Cherry Green in neighbouring Westmill. This is now a sunken way running through a field past one pond to another. The second pond must have been near the village centre as the mound which is all that remains of the church is beside it. As Hertfordshire was rich in timber, no stone foundations survive, and nothing can therefore be said about the layout of the houses, nor is there any clue as to where the three lords lived.
Wakeley began as a small place and evidently remained so until its final disappearance as a settlement. From the Domesday evidence the land was good - meadowland was rare and valuable in Hertfordshire. It fetched a price in the fourteenth century six times that of ordinary arable land. Someone who left before the murrains and droughts of the mid-fourteenth century and who had profited from the prosperity of the thirteenth century might have 'done all right'.
This judgement seems to fit with the three presumed fourteenth century emigrants to Dorset from the manor or village of Wakely:- Richard, the prosperous resident of Hawkchurch in West Dorset; his contemporary Roger of More Crichel in East Dorset - both having left well before the troubles of the fourth decade of the fourteenth century and, the third, John, perhaps one generation their junior, a rich London merchant who died in the third quarter of the century.
Given the size of Wakeley, and inheritance of manorial rights is known, it is probably correct to see these three presumed emigrants as either descendants of the one remaining Saxon freeman of the manor, or of a younger son of one of the lords who, like manorial officials often did, made a good thing out of managing the lord's business. The Wakelys were probably, therefore, in Hertfordshire more or less exactly what they were to emerge as in Dorset - Yeomen.
The first Wakelys of Dorset
Hawkchurch, the village where Richard de Wakelegh' <wakely-sheet-1.html> was established, and More Chrichel, where his contemporary Roger lived, were at opposite ends of Dorset county - Hawkchurch an the Devon border, More Chrichel near the border with Hampshire.
Richard and Roger were both christian names introduced by the Normans, but that is not to say the two were necessarily of Norman origin. Most of their neighbours (or at least those rich enough to pay taxes) also had Norman names. It is possible that Richard and/or Roger were the descendants of the crusading knight of a century before - but no more probable than a similarly conjectural descent from King Richard Coeur de Lion of another Dorsetman - he was called Thomas Querdelyon!
We are not concerned with Roger from More Chrichel, however. There is no evidence to suggest he founded any surviving line, either in Dorset or elsewhere. It is quite probable that if he had a family it was wiped out by the Black Death which entered England by a Dorset port in the mid-fourteenth century.
It was in West Dorset that the Wakely newcomers put down roots; Richard of Hawkchurch was almost certainly the 'paterfamilias' of all Dorset Wakelys, and can surely be recorded as the forefather of the later Wakelys of Hawkchurch, who were settled not only in the same parish but in the same tithing of the parish where Richard lived.
Fourteenth century neighbours
The lords of the manors of Hawkchurch and Vynlegh were abbots from the parishes of Chardstock and Thorncombe - this would be significant later for the Wakely family. The main lords were also clerical, Chardstock was held by the Bishop of Salisbury, most of Thorncombe was controlled by the Abbot of Forde. Only Holditch manor or lordship in Thorncombe was known to have lay lords in medieval times. Local society therefore would more than likely be dominated by manorial officials and richer farmers, both having similar origins, with the officials very likely to become rich farmers given the opportunities inherent in their jobs.
Subsidy rolls do not show which taxpayers were also manorial officials, some undoubtedly would have been, but the names on the rolls do give us some idea of the origins and occupations of those featured. Some like Richard de Wakelegh' were newcomers: Dennis de Elleworth; Humphrey de Brammesleigh; Roger de Haukmore; Richard de Colemore; Ralph de Borcombe; Thomas and Henry de Cochesete and Alica Toteriches. Others presumably lived in particular surroundings; John atte Moure from marshy ground to the south; Humphrey atte Doune on hilly land to the north east; Robert atte Watsre from the banks of the Axe in the valley; Thomas atte Wode reclaiming land from the scattered woodlands. One, Thomas atte Brouk,stands out significantly - by the fifteenth century the Brook family were lords of Holditch in Thorncombe, and at the end of the sixteenth had acquired the manor of Hawkchurch.
Other names showed physical characteristics. Mr. Bairde (superior beard), le Fransch (Foreign extraction), le Fissher and le Marlere (occupatianal) the first being self-explanatary, the second from marl a mixture of clay sail and carbonate of Lime which is found at various depths below the soil and was highly valued as a fertiliser. Marling a field was a major investment yielding rich dividends.
Only three personal names which appeared in the 1327 and 1332 subsidy rolls re-appear 200 years later for the tithing of Phillyholme in the 1525 subsidy roll. Wakely, Colmer (de Colemore) and Davy: probably from the rich Edith Davis of 1327. There were forty names in the 1525 subsidy return (almost exactly the number in 1527) and the lack of continuity suggests that some of the original names had become occupational. There were Tailors, Webbers, Clerks and Turners in the 1525 roll and other changes may have resulted because the poor of 1327 had become the rich of 1525 and vice versa. In other cases, lack of continuity was brought about by the families concerned about becoming extinct in the male line.
For the Wakelys the opportunities included the possibility of marriage with local heiresses. Such names as Humphrey de Brammesleigh may have disappeared, their genes however may have survived in the Wakelys.
Fourteenth century life
The century opened just as an expanding population was reaching the point where opportunities for expanding food production were being exhausted. During previous decades new lands were cultivated by clearing woodland, reclaiming marshland and wasteland. However, without natural fertility much of this new land was soon exhausted. As arable farming expanded it precluded a parallel expansion of livestock farming with its essential by-product - manure. Crops on marginal land rapidly dropped. To add to this inevitable decline, a series of appalling harvests in the second decade of the fourteenth century was followed in the third decade by a run of epidemics that decimated the cattle and sheep population.
Twenty years later, midway in the century, the human population suffered a direct blow - the Black Death, a plague unprecedented in its ferocity and the speed at which it spread. It had entered England via the Dorset ports in 1348; within weeks it was eating into the neighbouring counties of Devon and Somerset; by the end of the year it had reached London.
This was the first of three outbreaks and it affected mainly the adult population. The second, thirteen years later, was given the special name 'murtalite des enfants' - children being particularly affected as they had not built up resistance in the previous epidemic. The third main wave of Black Death occurred in 1369 and by the end of the century it was suggested that two thirds of the population had died.
The decline in the working agricultural population reinforced other pressures leading to the freeing of the market in land. Those persons who had survived the Black Death had more opportunity for securing more land, of better quality. The economic privileges of the main landowners grew less, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 (though rapidly defused) won its main immediate objective, the removal of the very unpopular poll tax and the landlord class were unable to enforce laws imposed to control wages.
Efficient farmers (the Wakely's included) grew prosperous, building up their holdings. Still occupying the same place in the social hierarchy below vallets, esquiers, chivalers and seigneurs - they nevertheless began to become employers and achieved greater social standing.
The Hundred Years war, starting like the Black Death halfway through the century also helped. Absent knights, made hungry for cash due to wartime taxation willingly leased their lands and relaxed feudal abligations. Conscrjpted soldiers and sailors, who never returned, left their lands available for those who stayed at home.
Richard de Wakelegh' <wakely-sheet-1.html> and his immediate (unnamed) descendants, working hard. investing prudently, and begetting healthy heirs, would have been typical of those who seized the opportunities of the age so outweighing the hazards. Reasonably it can be assumed that the next century (even with its great lack of local history records) saw the continuation of the Wakely occupation in the prosperous tithing of Phillyholme.
A lost century
In the fifteenth century the surname Wakely makes a near-complete disappearance from records and maps. The exceptions are all in London where John Wakeley or Wakele, vintner, citizen, alderman and sheriff of London died about 1407 (will proved). He was probably the son of John of 'All Hallows the Great' in the City (his will proved thirty years earlier). A third John, son of John the sheriff, died in 1409, his estate managed by Ferdinando Wakely. Their wills, now preserved in the London Guildhall give no clues to their origins or location of properties. The first John may have been a young man from Dorset making his way in trade while his elder brother stayed at home building up his farming and wool interests, or he might, like Richard, have been a migrant from Hertfordshire.
The fifteenth century left one only with historic generalisations. It can rightly be described as one of the greatest creative periods for English architecture and music but was singularly poor in chronicles and informative records. The great series of monastic chronicles which shed so much light on the earlier centuries were replaced in the 1400's by crude and credulous popular histories. In local terms, where manorial records do not survive (unhappily the norm rather than the exception) one can only check the dry details of property transactions recorded in the agreements known as 'feet of fines' and the equally boring details of properties in which the King had an interest. These were recorded in the 'inquisitiones post mortem' - inquests after the death of tenants-in-chief who were protecting the properly interest of the crown. Both these sources would be silent in terms of Wakelys as they were almost certainly tenants of monasteries or were holding lands from intermediate lords.
Now we come to the beginning of the sixteenth century when for the family historian things start to get easier. Parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials, records of wills, monumental inscriptions and publications of local directories etc, were all becoming available. The introduction of census records in the beginning of the 19th century was an invaluable aid in guiding the searcher back to counties and parishes and bringing to light members of families unknown previously. On each of the individual sheets regarding ancestors in the following Wakely history, as much other information regarding the relevant generations has been included but it must be stressed - nothing can be guaranteed!
WAKELYS OFF THE MAIN TREE
It is impossible to tell what branches spread from the main Wakely bole in northwest Dorset during the genealogical 'black hole' that covers the latter part of the fourteenth century and the whole of the fifteenth. It has been speculated that the merchant Wakelys of London might have been newcomers from Dorset seeking to make their fortunes and reasonably we can assume that these London Wakelys were ancestors of the Wakelys found in Kent in the seventeenth century registers.
However, from the beginning of the sixteenth century, it is possible to start making educated guesses of relationships with contemporary Wakelys and by the end of that century to connect several other Wakely families with same certainty.
The trees that follow cover:
The Wakelys of Whitchurch Canonicorum (the elder line) and branches at Chideock, Bridport and Swanage.
The Wakelys of Hartland and Morwenstow (north west Devon on the northern border of Cornwall).
The Wakelys of Honiton in eastern Devon.
The Wakelys of Whitchurch Canonicorum
The Wakelys of Whitchurch separate into two branches; those retaining a connection with Whitchurch and its neighbour Chideock; those moving east first to Bridport, then to Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck. Many wills, backed up by very full parish registers and other evidence enables one to eliminate them completely from the direct ancestry of this history.
New names of Walter and Osmund appear but it is noticeable that the old Wakely family names of Thomas, John and William still keep their end up.
Like the Hawkchurch Wakelys, the family on the Whitchurch side, in time, covered quite a social range. Some owned large estates, trying to prove their right to bear arms. Some, although remaining Yeomen, were given the courtesy title of gentleman; others married into gentry families. Some became coastal traders, blacksmiths; one from the rich side became an apothecary.
Even though some of the landed side acquired properties very close to their remote cousins in Stoke Abbot, they did not live on them and can be clearly differentiated from the Stoke Abbot branch
The Wakelys of Hartland and Morwenstow
This branch of the Wakelys of Hawkchurch separates from the main tree about 1600, starting with Sylvester Rockett alias Wakely. 'Rockett" comes from a transliteration in Chard parish register where often 'o's in writing of the period narrow to a point where they look like 'Cs.
Sylvester's descendant's names make it practically certain he was the son of William Wakely alias Rockett of Whitestaunton (will proved 1624). The tree shows that Sylvester was still living in his home area when he married. The fact that his marriage took place in Chard is a further indication that Robert Rockett alias Wakely (of Chard at death) in the main tree, was the father of both Hawkchurch and Whitestaunton branches.
The move to Hartland, at the furthest end of Devon from Dorset, connects with the theory that the Rocketts had strong trading interests. In the times of Sylvester, Hartland was more important as a trading town than neighbouring Bideford. Difficult to credit now because the quay which history reports as bustling with ships has long since been washed away by the fierce seas swirling below Hartland's steep cliffs. A twentieth century guidebook describes it as 'the most sparsely populated farming area of the West Country, a great cul-de-sac of an 18,000 acre parish'.
Morwenstow, now in Cornwall, was where Sylvester's grandson settled. It has been described as 'the lonely farthest north of England's farthest south'. Like Hartland it was obviously rich at one time - its Norman church is beautifully decorated, and the local manor house of Tonacombe, surviving now as much as it did in Sylvester's day, shows that the local lords were prosperous.
The tree does not give all the details of the considerable race of Wakelys founded by Sylvester but it does show enough to be able to eliminate the branch from the direct ancestry of the Stoke Abbot line. Usefully, it is a typical bit of evidence to show the devotion to traditional names in a family - Sylvester and his father William are repeated often and it is likely that Peter was the name of Sylvester's father-in-law.
A much larger version of the Morwenstow branch of Wakelys is lodged in the Library of the Society of Genealogists in London.
The Wakelys of Honiton
It is not clear why a branch of the Wakely family developed in Honiton. The fact is that three of the recorded Wakelys in the parish preserved the Rockett name. This makes it fairly certain that Honiton Wakelys are descended from the Wakelys of Hawkchurch.
William and John were the names used by the Honiton Wakelys, suggesting strongly that, like the Wakelys of Hartland and Morwenstow, they derived from William of Whitestaunton, and in this case, from his son John the miller of Phillyholme. As negative evidence there is the fact that no other trace of John's descendants can be found.
Geographically the move was not a great one. Honiton is approximately twelve miles from Hawkchurch - two miles from neighbouring Axminster, and then ten more miles by what is now and was then in the seventeenth century an important main road to Exeter and beyond to Plymouth.
Therefore there may have been a trading reason for the move. Another hypothesis is possible however. Wakelys had established themselves in Thornecombe by the seventeenth century. The proprietor of the ancient Abbey of Ford was the most important landowner there and since the last Abbot founded almshouses at Honiton it may indicate there was an estate connection on which the Wakelys built.
OTHER WAKELYS
West Country
Three short lived Wakely branches, not covered in the main tree, whose bases were in the reach of the original Hawkchurch home are ...
(a) Isle Brewers, north of Chard. For a brief period in the seventeenth century references are found in the name of William. These may wall be another offshoot of the William of Whitestaunton branch.
(b) Dartmouth in Devon. Another seventeenth 'sighting' not necessarily connected with the family in this history. The only evidence for that is the use of the name Edward across two generations - a secondary name of the Hawkchurch Wakelys. Perhaps more significant is the sharing of the unusual girl's christian name 'Wllmot' with the Honiton branch. In any event, the Wakelys did not establish at Dartmouth for very long, two generations saw their time out there. Interestingly however the wheel turned a full circle when Reuben William Wakely born in Southsea married Emma Jane Elliott on Sunday 29th January 1882 at Dittisham near Dartmouth. Reuben was the paternal great uncle of the recipients of this history and was a seaman based on HMS Brittania at Dartmouth College.
(c) Exeter. Partly on the use of names it is guessed that they may have derived from the Wakelys of Bideford. Also both towns were important trading centres in the eighteenth century when mention of Exeter Wakelys are concentrated and Bideford ones decline. Wills from the Exeter branch might have given some clue but unfortunately these were destroyed in the 1939-1945 war.
Elsewhere in England
The Wakelys of London of the fourteenth and fifteenth may have been of Dorset origin. The only evidence is from the Dorset visitations which show a family of London merchants marrying the heiress of one John Wakely and almost immediately afterwards setting themselves up among the gentry of Dorset.
Possibly the London Wakelys were the founders of another county line in Kent. They emerge in the seventeenth century, achieving 'county' status by the end of the eighteenth century and probably the ancestors of the Wakelys of Rainham. These achieved distinction in this century in the medical world and became baronets.
The main alternative to London and Dorset would have been Shropshire. Wakely references in Shropshire do not survive as early as those for Dorset but a Wakely family of substance was there from the sixteenth century. They were found in Early Chancery Proceedings covering the years 1500-1515. Like the Dorset Wakelys they started prosperous and stayed long. The Shropshire Wakelys might have derived from those of the Dorset borders as wool. trade routes connected the two counties. Or again, they might have been descended from another emigrant from the Wakeley manor in Hertfordshire. What is certain is that any connection with the Dorset Wakelys is very distant indeed.
Gloucestershire also had a branch but further research shows it lasted only through the seventeenth century. The main christian name used there was Leonard. One of the most likely conclusions is that a commercial family based in the great trading centre of Bristol had used whatever profits it had earned to purchase property in the Gloucestershire wool country. Equally it might have been an offshoot of the Wakelys to the north in Shropshire. Once more, no plausible connection can be made with the Wakelys of Dorset.
Finally it is clear from information from the descendants of the Wakely of the Isle of Wight that their line stemmed from Whitchurch.
The Wakelys of Ireland
For the Wakelys of Ireland a plausible connection can be established that their genealogical history starts in Devon; the names of Devon/Dorset Wakelys were used; and that the founder of the Irish Wakelys appears on their pages of history just as he disappears from the records of Hawkchurch.
It is very likely that the founder of this line was John Wakely the son of Thomas, Lord Wakely of Wakely Hall, Devon. This line perhaps more than any other has direct ancestry to Richard de Wakeleg' recorded in the subsidy rolls of 1327 and 1332. The contemporaries of John lived in Hawkchurch (at that time in Dorset, but now in Devon) and were in the process of acquiring lands at Thorncombe (then in Devon, now in Dorset). Just when he left they were in Colyton so the point of origin may be significant. Although the actual location of Wakely Hall is not known it is thought very likely to be found in the parish of Hawkchurch.
The fact that John was a merchant as well as a soldier also plausibly explains why he moved from the busy wool trading area an the Dorset/Devon borders to the new opportunities being opened up in Ireland.
John was granted lands in Navan in 1547 and as mentioned above the Irish Wakelys were extremely faithful to the names John and Thomas in the first nine generations the Wakelys of Navan and then of the Ballyburly estate counted four Johns and five Thomases among the nine eldest sons who inherited.
The Library of the Society of Genealogists has a second Wakely History lodged with them which contains a very interesting collection of facts and records of letters etc. a few of which have been extracted below.
1. John Wakely is described by an inscription upon a monument in the Parish Church of Ballyburley as the 'captain of 100 horse and 100 foot in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign'.
2. John Wakely's Arms are sculptured in stone over the doorway of the Parish Church of Ballyburley and described in heraldic terms as;
'Gu, a chevron between three crosslets. arg. on a chief of the last a stags head caboshed of the first'.
The interesting connection with the Dorset Wakelys is the fact that a stag was the emblem on the seal of John Rockett alias Wakely of Holditch.
3. Entry in the Calender of the patent and close rolls of Chancery in Ireland, signed at Kilmainham Dec 15 1550 details his large holdings;
'Letter of Lord Deputy and Council directing John Wakely to have a lease for 21 years of the lands of Ballybyrle, the Eskermore, Ballycollgen, Richardston, Ballynlea, Ballybaken, Ballyworen, the Rathe, Dromkit, and Ballygowen, Beallacorre, Ballenoren, the Neweton, Clennemeane, Colker, Klronarne, the Loaghe, Klonerell, Kyloshell, Kloremore and Kylloyne in the county of O'Ffalley and to have a survey thereof made before sealing of the lease'.
4. According to an Old Pedigree John Wakely married Ann the 2nd daughter of Sir Oliver Plunkett probably between 1547 and 1557;
'John Wakely of Navan, and Oliver Nugent had a patent of lands in Meath and dated 20th June 1547. Ditto in louth and Meath, Fiant for lease 19th Sept. 1550. Ditto for lands in Kings Co, including Ballyburly, Faint 15th Feb 1550 John Wakely married Ann second daughter of Sir Oliver Plunkett. Knt.'
It is believed this marriage resulted in 4 sons. John died circa 1571.
The family pedigree is recorded in 19th cent. editions of Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland. No attempt is made to cover it in this history.
THE WAKELY AREA
The Wakelys are first found in Dorset in the tithing of Phillyholme, the southern half of the parish of Hawkchurch. The first known inherited lands were in that tithing and for five hundred and fifty years direct Wakely ancestors lived and worked within five miles of this early base. Until the mid-eighteenth century their brides came from within the same tightly drawn radius.
These lands are mentioned throughout the trees and individual sheets of the ancestors in this history.
It is suggested that the first known Wakely lands at Chackridge may well have been the lands Richard de Wakleg' came to at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
Chackridge - the original Wakely base?
Wakelys possessed the Chackridge lands by the end of the 16th century and were labelled as heredilaments. They were not freehold - by this time the tenure was by leasehold. Probably the Wakelys, Like many yeomen of the 16th century, converted a copyhold estate in Chackridge (i.e. one held by custom of the manor, and subject to the jurisdiction of a manor court) to a leasehold one - specifying like 17th century leases that no suit of court would be owed.
Chackridge itself was once an independent lordship - in early documents, it is the 'Lordship of" Chekeridge' - there are later references to it as 'a freehold estate and reputed manor'.
The original Wakely interest in it is unknown but what is known is that John Rockett alias Wakely's will (1620) makes a point of entailing the Chackridge lands on his grandchildren, while making no provision for later lands. That these lands were Wakelys may be inferred from a run of seventeenth century deeds dealing with the lands - John's son Thomas is careful in these deeds to sign himself Wakely alias Rockett while in other land deads he signs as Rockett alias Wakely. The seal he uses on these deeds - featuring a trippant stag - is distinct from the Rockett seal on the same documents - featuring a coat of arms with three swords. These are evidence that the lands in question were Wakely not Rockett inheritances.
The lands which are on high land south of Hawkchurch village comprised some one hundred and forty acres - roughly the area of the two farms of Chackridge that survive today. They became two farms in the Wakely's days, John and Thomas the two oldest grandsons of John Rocket alias Wakely having one each. As one property they were probably the whole of Chackridge lordship.
Richard de Wakeleg's standing as one of the top subsidy payers in the parish of Hawkchurch in 1327 shows that the lands may well have been the source of his wealth. For this reason his descendants stayed put for the succeeding three centuries.
Today, their softly rolling, well-drained fields are still unspoiled and command panoramic views over the Axe Valley into Devon - one can understand the Wakely unwillingness to move.
The tithing of Phillyholme was in the southern half of Hawkchurch Parish.
Wakelys possessed lands in Chackridge and certainly owned West Lears and Herridges Farms and parts of Hewood.
They appear to have had property (? inherited from Wolmington family) in Tytherleigh and it was here in 1700 that Isaac Wakely from Stoke Abbott died after being attacked at Hawkchurch by a man from that parish and was buried at Chardstock.
Job, William and Moses Wakely farmed at Weycroft in the early 1800s. They were ancestors of the line of Wakelys down to Mr.J.R.Wakely of London SE27.
Axminster and Marshwood were the first known Rockett centres - being conveniently placed on the main roads inland from Lyme Regis.
After a, period in the Hawkchurch/Thorncombe area the Wakelys moved to Stoke Abbott and farmed in Mosterton.
Abraham Wakely Yeoman of Burstock was lessee of Stockham Estate and Laverstoke Farm and it was here that our Thomas Wakely <wakely-sheet-17.html> was born and became joint beneficiary with his mother Catherine. It appears he also took over the farm of his cousin Abraham at Mosterton some time after 1773.
The site of the old Church graveyard of the Chapel of Ease of Mosterton can still be seen from the road up from Mosterton to South Perrott - now overgrown and abandoned but with one of the firs planted by Mr John Wakely (a grandson) to surround the small burying ground still standing. These were planted after the old church was taken down in 1832.

393217. Mrs. Alice WAKELEYE

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.

395328. John ADAMS

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8WT2-JQ

395329. Jane RANNELEGH

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8WT2-KW

395330. John STEBBING

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> GR23-KL

402912. Thomas READE

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 9HKN-9D

402913. Anne HOO

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 9HKN-BK

402914. George STONHOUSE

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> QFR9-K6

402915. Mrs. STONHOUSE

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.

402928. James KENDALL

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8JDK-HJ

402929. Elizabeth MILES

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8JDK-JP

NOTE: End of Line (CHK) (TT)

402930. Mr. BRAYNE

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mr.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> W97X-NK

402931. Mrs. BRAYNE

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> W97X-PQ

403008. Simon Atte STONE

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8QHX-R5

403009. Mrs. Elizabeth STONE

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 55JS-CC

403040. Thomas John ROGERS Jr.

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 9FP1-31

per History of MF Planters by L.C. Hills
buried where died
He was a man of influence, but of small means

per Marlyn Lewis

BIRTH: 1462 or 1435

403041. Catharine de COURTENAY

per History of MF Planters by L.C. Hills
8th gen. in direct line from Edward I, King of England
Gibson says "House of Courtney is one of the most illustrious
races among the English nobility"

per Marlyn Lewis

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8VKT-08

per History of MF Planters by L.C. Hills
8th gen. in direct line from Edward I, King of England Gibson says "House of
Courtney is one of the most illustrious races among the English nobility"

403042. Sir. Henry WYATT Knight

Name Suffix:<NSFX> Knight
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> GGCZ-LN

per History of MF Planters by L.C. Hills
was quite prominent at the Courts of Henry VII and VIII.
The Sir Thomas Wyatt who led the uprising against the marriage of
Queen Mary to Philip of Spain, and paid the penalty by losing
his head, was a nephew.

403043. Mrs. Henry WYATT

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> GGCZ-MT

404224. Thomas READE

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 1RGP-9MF

404225. Mrs. READE

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.

404226. Thomas HOO

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 9HKN-CQ

404227. Ms. NEWMAN

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Ms.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 9HKN-DW

404256. Francis KENDALL

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8JDK-QQ

404257. Mrs. Mary KENDALL

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8JDK-RW

NOTE: End Of Line

404352. Henry KENDALL

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8JDK-ZX

404353. Mrs. Elizabeth KENDALL

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 8JDL-03

NOTE: End Of Line

404864. John Atte STONE

Invalid endowment temple code: KG.

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 55JS-DJ
Invalid endowment temple code: KG.

404865. Mrs. John STONE

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 55JS-FP

404928. Sir. Thomas ROGERS Gent

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> GGCZ-JB
The History of the Rogers of Wiltshire, Somerset & Devon, England
Please contact me, Elizabeth at My email address <mailto:elizgh@btinternet.com>
This line of ROGERS lasted for a little over two hundred years, from the earliest proven connection with young Thomas in 1454 to the final Henry in 1672.
We can only guess at the earlier than 1454 connections. . What is certain is that Thomas ROGERS of Bristol, was admitted to Lincoln`s Inn , London, on the Sunday before Lent , 1454 at the same time as Walter Hungerford. This was not the great Walter Lord Hungerford, who had amassed estates in Wiltshire, Somerset , Berkshire and elsewhere and who died in 1449, but possibly a grandson. And it may have been the Hungerfords who chose and paid for Thomas to accompany Walter . Pupil lawyers might have been between 14 and 16 years old giving Thomas a possible date of birth around 1438. The Hungerfords were hugely important landowners and allied to the Lancastrian cause of Henry Vl as was most of the West Country. At the time of Thomas`s admission, there was another Thomas ROGERS in Bristol, who was a burgess, then Sheriff in 1455, and Mayor in 1459. In 1458 Wm Canturbury of Bristol granted to Nicholas Poyntz of Acton , Philip Mede and Thomas ROGERS of Bristol, four houses in Redcliffe Street. Perhaps this Thomas was the father of Thomas of Lincoln`s Inn and rich enough to buy his son a place at the earliest of the Inns of Court, or a man in a position to be of local use to the Hungerfords.
England in 1454 was ruled by the holy Henry Vl , king from childhood and son of the great Henry V of Agincourt fame . As a child he had had the Dukes of Beaufort and Gloucester as his guardians ; when he came of age, he married Margaret of Anjou and had a son Edward. However the King was a weak man and his Queen was much the stronger of the two. The King`s interests were his two major foundations Eton College and King`s College Cambridge But in 1454, as Thomas ROGERS entered Lincoln`s Inn, the King had been declared insane and Richard Duke of York stepped into the vacuum creating the division which became the Wars of the Roses, York versus Lancaster . The King was quite unable to control either the Yorkists or his own Lancastrian supporters , and his Queen Margaret with his young son Edward , fought for his cause and in his place . When he recovered from this breakdown , the King became a recluse and was deposed in 1461 ,when Edward lV of the house of York and brother to the treasonable George of Clarence and the regicide Richard lll, was crowned King. Plots followed battles and more plots and Henry Vl was finally reinstated, but only as a puppet king, until his murder and that of his son Edward in 1471, by Edward lV who finally secured the throne for the Yorkists following the battle of Tewkesbury. Thomas ROGERS progressed up the ladder of the law , and around the late 1450s married Cecily the daughter and co-heiress of William Bessils of Bradford on Avon. The Bessils were not important or landed but they did have a small estate in Bradford which on the death of William Bessils was divided between his two daughters. It was a step up for Thomas . By Cecily he had two sons William born circa 1459 and John b c 1463 . And sometime in the 1460s Thomas secured the reversion of Collyngborne Valence, Wilts after the deaths of the childless John and Joan Lewknor , which in turn reverted to Thomas`s son William . He was also JP for Wilts from 1461 - 78
By 1478, Thomas had been appointed Serjeant at Law by the Yorkist Edward lV . This is the year which also saw the execution in the Tower of George Duke of Clarence who had plotted and changed sides once too often. It seems unlikely that Thomas , a Lincoln`s Inn lawyer was involved as the appointment to Serjeant at Law was notable evidence of royal favour.
It is not known when Cecily died, but Thomas`s second marriage can only have taken place after the 31st May 1471 . Catherine Courtenay was one of four daughters of Sir Philip Courtenay and Elizabeth dau of Walter Hungerford. She was married to Sir St Clare Pomeroy ,son and heir of Henry de la Pomeroy, on whom Henry had settled the manor of Stockleigh Pomeroy. It is worth noting that the Pomeroys had Stockleigh Pomeroy from the time of Edward lll. It had descended from Henry Pomeroy to his son Henry , to his son Thomas, his son Edward, and then to his son Henry , who was the father of St Clare ,Richard and Thomas Pomeroy. Henry Pomeroy , in the Visitations of Cornwall as " of Tregony " granted the manor to St Clare and his wife Catherine , the reversion belonging first to their heirs and then to Richard and his heirs, by charter dated 27 Sept 2 Ed lV , 1462, and it is likely that it was granted on or around the time of the marriage of St Clare Pomeroy to Catherine Courtenay . But Sir St Clare died on 31 May 1471 without issue and as a result of action in the decisive battle of Tewkesbury on 4th May 1471. His estate devolved on his next brother Richard Pomeroy who was aged 30 or more in 1471, so from that Sir St Clare was probably in his mid 30s ; although Catherine his widow was still seised of it until her death in 1514 by which time Richard Pomeroy was also dead, and it came to his son Edward Pomeroy.
Perhaps the younger Walter Hungerford, Thomas ROGERS fellow pupil at Lincoln`s Inn put forward the idea of Thomas, the low born but successful lawyer marrying Catherine the daughter of his uncle and aunt Sir Philip Courtenay and Elizabeth Hungerford. Catherine had three sisters , Anne married Thomas Grenfield/ Grenville in 1447, Elizabeth married James Luttrell of Dunster in 1451, Philippa married Sir Thomas Fulford of Fulford. This last Sir Thomas Fulford was the son of Elizabeth Bossom of Bossoms Hele and Sir Baldwin Fulford, and Elizabeth when widowed became the first wife of Sir William Huddesfield , Attorney General to Edward lV, who later became the third husband of Catherine Courtenay. All these were a tight knit group of Devon gentry linked by close family relationships , the law and close to the new Yorkist court .
Perhaps Catherine was able to chose Thomas ROGERS the lawyer for her second husband, as no doubt Sir St Clare Pomeroy had been chosen by her parents for her first husband . He was clearly a successful man, in the royal eye , and might well have gone higher in the law
The marriage though short lived was successful and Catherine had a son George ROGERS born circa 1476 , he was said to be 30 years or more when his mother died in 1514, and Thomas himself was appointed Serjeant at Law in 1478 . But Thomas died in the same year and for the second time Catherine was a widow , this time with a small son and two step sons. However the latter were in Bradford on Avon and William ROGERS had come into both the Bradford part of his mother`s Bessils estate and the reversion of the Collyingbourne Valence estate. John the younger son was a pupil lawyer , so their father Thomas though not having amassed much property during his working life, which presumes he was an honest lawyer, had managed to give his first two sons a start in life. And had he lived no doubt would have provided for George ROGERS to a greater extent than the reversion of Collyingborne Valence . Thomas ROGERS had two IPMs one in Wiltshire dated 2 Nov 1478 held at Bradford by John Boteler ,escheator, said that Thomas ROGERS on the day he died, held of the Abbess of Shaftesbury , two messuages, one toft with appurtenances in Bradford and Trotte in socage for rent of 12d per annum, value £4 per annum. They also say that Hugh Pagenham esquire was seised of the manor of Smalbroke with appurtenances and by deed granted the said manor to Thomas ROGERS and his son William ROGERS for ever by virtue of which they are seised. William the son survives and the manor is held of Henry Duke of Buckingham by what service they did not know, value £18 per annum. Thomas ROGERS held no other lands or tenements in this county. He died on 5 October last and William ROGERS his son and heir , aged 20 years on the morrow of the feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord last past before the date of this inquisition.
The Somerset IPM is dated 31 Oct 18 Ed lV and was held at Holewale by Richard Morton , escheator, and says that Thomas ROGERS held no lands or tenements of the king when he died, but was seised of one messuage , 40 acres of land , 100 acres of pasture with appurtenances in Frome, held of William Leversege, but they do not know by what service, value £4 per annum. And William ROGERS his son and heir is aged 22 years or more. This earlier IPM gives the date of his death as 3rd October .
A year later in 1479 the Calendar of Patent Rolls records that on 12th Oct at Westminster a Licence for 20s paid in the hanaper, for William ROGERS , son and heir of Thomas ROGERS, late one of the King`s serjeants at law , to grant the reversion of the manor of Colyngbourne Valence co Wilts held in chief, on the death of Joan , late the wife of John Leukenore, knight ( Sir John was another of those who lost his life at the battle of Tewkesbury along with Sir St Clare Pomeroy ) who holds it for life, and the manor with the exception of an acre of land in it , to William Huddesfield and Katherine his wife for their lives with remainder to his brother, George ROGERS and the heirs male of his body. Colyingborne was a large manor divided into various villages or hamlets, C Valence , C Kingston, C Abbotts, C Southampton, and with Burhampton , Affeton and Boscombe all in the county of Wilts was granted on the 8th July 1469 ( so prior to Thomas`s marriage to Catherine Courtenay) at Westminster by John Hampton and Philip Chard , containing 20 messuage, 16 tofts, 800 acres of land , 100 acres of meadow, 400 acres of pasture , 10 marks rent, and a rent of a pair of gilt spurs and a pound of cumin, held in chief, with the exception of 100 acres of wood, parcel of the manor, to John Leukenore and Joan his wife for life with remainder to Thomas ROGER and William ROGER his son , and the heirs of Thomas , and to grant the said 100 acres of wood held in chief as parcel of the manor, to the said Thomas and William and heirs of Thomas . Licence of £6 paid into the hanaper .
From this we can assume that Catherine Courtenay, the widow of Thomas ROGERS , must have remarried Sir William Huddesfield, less than a year after the death of her husband , and perhaps it was he who altered the reversion from William ROGERS to George ROGERS , to William ROGERS to Wm and Katherine Huddesfield and then on to George ROGERS. Presumably they held the reversion during George`s minority. This is a substantial property and far exceeds the small estate held by William the eldest of Thomas`s son in Bradford . And perhaps Thomas had purchased this in the aftermath of Tewkesbury and as a favoured lawyer of Edward lV ..

Catherine and William Huddesfield remained married until his death in 1499 and had a daughter Elizabeth. The Huddesfield family came from Honiton , and coincidentally Sir William was another pupil at Lincoln`s Inn and in time became , like Thomas ROGERS, a Serjeant at Law. He was also Recorder of Exeter , and Justice of Oyer and Terminer and became Attorney General to Edward lV . He married firstly the widow of Sir Baldwin Fulford, who had been Elizabeth Bossom, and had a daughter Katherine by her who married Sir Edmund Carew of Mohuns Ottery in the parish of Luppitt, close by both Dittisham where the Bossoms had an estate and Honiton the estate of the Huddesfields. By Catherine Courtenay , William had another daughter Elizabeth who in turn married Anthony Poyntz of Iron Acton who was the descendant of the Nicholas Poyntz of Acton who was granted together with Philip Mede and Thomas ROGERS of Bristol , 4 houses in Redcliffe Street.
At the time of his death on 20th March 1499, the Huddesfields appeared to be living in Bridport . William`s will ``written in myne owne hand the 8th June 1497 and of the reign of King Henry Vll, the xii `` was, unusually, written in English . He gave the priest at Bridport 6s 8d and 13s 4d to the parish church there , the same amount was given to the church at Dittisham and he remembered his first wife by leaving the same to the priory and convent at Clerkenwell ` to pray for the soul of me and Elizabeth late my wife ` who was buried there before the high altar. From this it may be assumed that the Huddesfields used Clerkenwell for their London base and kept Bridport as their retirement base which is close to the border with Devon and therefore close to their estates at Honiton and Dittisham. It is also close to Luppitt where his daughter Katherine was married to Sir Edmund Carew , who was killed at the siege of Therouenne in 1513, she died in 1499 and her will is proved at Lambeth. Sir William Huddesfield left his dau Elizabeth, by Catherine Courtenay , a thousand marks which was a huge sum of money, but which may have been equal to his married daughter Katherine`s dowry. He left a good deal of silver to Katherine Carew for her use after the death of his wife Catherine and he returned his wife`s dowry to her " which my wife brought to me she knoweth well where it is I never spend a penny thereof I will she have it to her owne use and behove to the intent that she may peruse it at her pleasure (on) her owne son George ROGERS whom I intended if I might have lived to have presented him to honour as my owne childe god knoweth " . He also left her his manor of Shillingford for life, and asked for an honest priest at Shillingford or Bridport to sing and pray for the souls of me and Elizabeth late my wife and of William and Alice Huddesfield "my fadder and moder ". He made Catherine his wife and Elizabeth his daughter by her , executors of his will with Robert Alder "my old servant ". His will was proved at Lambeth in 6th July 1499 and he was buried at Shillingford .
Catherine his widow was still living at Bridport in 1511 where she wrote her will . She mentioned nothing of the Pomeroys or the Huddesfields or the Carews . She willed that her body be buried in the church of Grey Friars in Exeter before St Francis and beside the high altar, and she pays seven marks a year for seven years for a friar to say mass daily for her. She gave her gown of black velvet to the warden of the Grey Friars , presumably to pay for these masses. She gave her written mass book , a valuable gift, to the churchwardens of Bradford " to pray for the soul of me and Thomas ROGERS sometyme my husband and serjeant at the law. I will that there be a stone laid upon him my said husband at Bradford. I will that my daughter Elizabeth Poyntz have all such stuff as remaineth at my place at Brittport..... I give and bequeath to William ROGERS of Bradford aforesaid , gentleman, son to the said Thomas a standing cup of silver and gilt with a cover with dragon wings and to his brother John ROGERS a flat cup of silver white with cover of my own arms.....I give and bequeath to Katherine one of the daughters of George ROGERS my son 20 marks in money...the residue to George ROGERS my son and Edward ROGERS son and heir apparant to the said George and Elizabeth ROGERS daughter to the same George whom I order and make my executors. " Her will was proved in London in 1514, and far from being buried in Grey Friars in Exeter ,she too is buried in Shillingford as the brass on the tomb of both Sir William and Catherine shows . It is particularly noticeable that the tomb of Thomas ROGERS at Bradford went without a marker stone for 33 years, and interesting that he as a senior law officer was buried so anonymously .
On the north side of the chancel of Shillingford church over a plain high tomb is the brass of Sir William and Catherine and their children , he wears armour under a tabard which bears the arms of Huddesfield. She kneels behind him and on her robe are the arms of Courtenay. Behind her is George her son by Thomas ROGERS, and following the two daughters Elizabeth Poyntz and Katherine Carew. In the south chancel window were shields of arms, Courtenay impaling Hungerford for Catherine`s mother, Carew impaling Huddesfield, for Katherine Carew nee Huddesfield, Huddesfield impaling Bossom , for the first wife of Sir William , Elizabeth Bossom later Fulford, and quarterly 1st and 4th Huddesfield with 2nd Courtenay and 3rd Fulford . From this it seems unlikely that Thomas ROGERS was granted a coat of arms, nor seemed to have used one. The important surname for Sir William was Courtenay .. The manor of Shillingford with Faryngdon and Widecombe, were held by Catherine from Sir William until her death , they had been granted by charter in 1481, so a little time after her marriage to Sir William Huddesfield, by her brother Peter , Bishop of Exeter, Walter Courtenay, esq, another brother, and two Robert Mortons one a clerk , who jointly were seised of Shillingford and St Mary Steps Exeter, with the advowsons, and in reversion to William Montagu who was nephew to Sir William Huddesfield , William Fulford, nephew to Catherine , the bishop and Walter Courtenay, and then George ROGERS. By a further charter of 1492 the same was granted to Catherine with remainders to her daughter Elizabeth and Sir William`s daughter Katherine, and following the deaths of both Catherine Huddesfield and Katherine Carew , the manors remaindered to Elizabeth Poyntz.
Before we leave the 15th C , Elizabeth Poyntz had children by her husband and they continued to be a notable Gloucestershire family , and the Carews produced many interesting sons including George who was standing on the bridge of the ill fated Mary Rose as it sank into the Solent in front of Henry Vlll. Catherine and Thomas ROGERS son George who was born between 1472 and 1478 married an unknown Elizabeth . No record has been found of her surname , so from that we can assume that she was of low birth. He and Elizabeth had three children, Edward , Elizabeth and Katherine, all mentioned in their Courtenay grandmother`s will . Nothing more is known of Elizabeth ROGERS, the daughter , maybe she died young after the death of her grandmother Catherine who makes her her executrix ; Katherine married a Christopher Kirton of Pilton, and nothing more is known of her. However the two other sons of Thomas ROGERS the Serjeant at Law prospered in a modest way , and married into small local landed gentry families, and achieved entries in the Visitations of both Somerset and Kent.

George ROGERS was described in the Visitations of Somerset as of "Lopit" and his wife Elizabeth remained surname-less, but their son Edward born circa 1498 achieved a great deal. George ROGERS appeared only once in documents apart from the wills of his mother and stepfather and the reversion licence, and that was in the will of John Witdecombe dated 1527 when George was already dead. He willed " also I will William Courtenay , knight , Nicholas Wadham , knight, Philip Champeron, esq, Baldwin Mallet, esq, Edward ROGERS, Henry Thornton and Henry Rogers being feoffees with George ROGERS, esq and John Skilling , nowe dede of my manor of Witdecombe ...in the parish of Martock, by my dede indented Dec 13th 13 Henry Vlll,. ( 1521) being now seased of a parcel therof as appeareth by my dede indented dated 10 Dec the same year, of covenants and agreements made between the said George ROGERS of the one part and me the said John Witdecombe of the other to the use of me the said John Witdecombe for the term of my life and after my decease to the use of William Witdecombe and Elizabeth his wife ." George ROGERS was described of Lamport ( Langport ) in his will of 1524 , but he willed that his body to be buried at Thruxton and the priest was given money and was a witness. This is a short will as if written urgently , his body was to be buried at Thruxton and all his possessions go to his son Edward. His IPM in Wilts gave only Collyngborne Valence as his sole holding and this descended to Edward ROGERS his son .
By conjecture only , the Thruxton connection was through the marriage of Edward ROGERS to Mary dau of Sir John Lisle . From a portrait which once hung at Woburn , Edward was aged 59 in 1557, so he was born probably before the death of his step grandfather Sir William Huddesfield, and certainly in the life time of Catherine Courtenay who despite his tender years makes him an executor of her will with his father George and sister . The Lisles were of Thruxton in Hampshire and George ROGERS in his will asked to be buried in the chantry at Thruxton , which in fact was not finished until circa 1527, but the only plausible reason why George was so far from home might be that he was attending the wedding of his son Edward at Thruxton when he died . No further mention was found of his wife Elizabeth . And of his two daughters Katherine Kirton of Pilton may be the connection that Edward ROGERS had all his life with the village, but again of Elizabeth no mention.
Bindoff, in his History of Parliament has Edward born c 1498, son of George ROGERS of Langport and Elizabeth ......., married by 1528, Mary dau and co heiress of Sir John Lisle of the Isle of Wight, ? 3 daus, succeeded father 9 Sept 1524 , knighted ( at the Coronation of Edward Vl ) 22 Feb 1547. He goes on to say that Edward was given livery by the Marquess of Exeter in 1525 which means he was in service to the Courtenays. However not all went well . The country was , as always, a Catholic one, and certainly Edward had married into an important Catholic family the Lisles, so when the 95 theses were pinned to the Castle door by Martin Luther in Wittenburg, in 1517 , it caused a considerable stir around Europe. Many people were unhappy with the way the Catholic church was run, its huge wealth and land holdings, and when the Bible was printed in German , suddenly religion was available to all and not just the priests. Edward was perhaps in a dilemma, married into a Catholic family but believing in the Lutheran principles , whatever, he and his step-cousin George Carew , who later became Archeacon of Totnes in 1534 and Canon of Exeter in 1535 , with Andrew Flamanck , had to leave the country for France in 1526. But their troubles blew over and Edward was given a pardon by the King in April 1527 . In this pardon he is described as Edward ROGERS of Martock and Langport , alias of London, alias of Powderham , Devon.

From this point his life seems secure and he had become an esquire of the body to the King in 1534, and had a licence to import wine in the same year ; he was also appointed bailiff of Hammes and Sangatte in France from 1534 - 1540 He had already acquired an interest in Cannington by the time of the dissolution in 1536, and by 1539 the now Protestant King Henry as head of the newly formed Church of England , had granted to Edward the nunnery, the rectory and advowson, the manor , and the lands that went with the former priory . Edward and his family converted the priory into a substantial home centred on a first floor hall with other principal rooms in the central and western ranges of buildings. Around the same time he acquired the reversion of Buckland Abbey and its lands. By 1540 he was also JP for Dorset and Somerset, but this too was the year he quarrelled with Thomas Seymour ; the Seymours were very powerful as the brothers of the late Queen Jane Seymour and were appointed guardians of their nephew later to become Edward Vl , and Edward ROGERS had to enter a large amount of money as a pledge to keep the peace .
Through his association with the Russells , in particular another up and coming young man, Sir John Russell the first Baron Russell, Edward became MP for Tavistock in 1547, but following the death of Henry Vlll in same year, his career at court stalled with the Seymours in the ascendancy as Protector and guardian of the young King. But with the Protector`s fall in 1549 , Edward became at least temporarily one of the four principal gentlemen of the bedchamber to the King. In 1549 the Prayer book rebellion mainly focussed on the West country but Edward appears to have had no involvement . Then suddenly in Jan 1550 he was jailed in the Tower at the same time as the Earls of Arundel and Southampton are dismissed from the King`s Council, but once again he survived and was reinstated by June 1550.
He became MP for Somerset in 1553 , and when the young King was dying, Edward as one of his council, signed the succession to the throne in favour of Lady Jane Grey as did John Russell , Earl of Bedford. How Edward ROGERS survived this can only be explained by his loyalty to the Protestant faith and the late King. In Catholic Queen Mary`s first Parliament , Edward sat for Somerset again , elected by the Protestant freeholders . But his patience ran out with the prospect of Queen Mary`s marriage to King Philip of Spain, which would have brought England under the control both of Spain and the Pope . Edward as a fierce and pioneering Protestant would have been totally opposed and it is not surprising to find his name among the conspiritors. Sir Thomas Wyatt had many supporters and elected Edward Courtenay as the leader for Devonshire. This Courtenay was the only son of the Marquess of Exeter who had given livery to Edward ROGERS back in 1525 , and Edward ROGERS would have known the son from childhood, and would have given him his loyalty. Edward Courtenay had a childhood mainly spent in the Tower of London with his imprisoned parents, from the age of 12 in 1539 to 1553 he was an innocent prisoner . Because he was a grandson of Edward lV, he had been put forward as a possible husband to Queen Mary and part of the charge levelled against him after the Wyatt rebellion was that he aspired to the hand of the Protestant Princess Elizabeth who was intended to take the throne in place of her sister Mary who would be overthrown had the rebellion been successful.
Other conspirators were Sir Peter Carew who was a grandson of Katherine Carew the daughter of Sir William Huddesfield ; Sir Nicholas Throckmorton who married Ann Carew, and whose son Thomas Throckmorton married Edward ROGERS daughter ; William Winter who was of the same family as Edward ROGERS` daughter in law . This conspiracy failed and again Edward was lucky to survive, he does not appear to have been tried with the others despite spending a year in the Tower of London and having his property confiscated . He was released in January 1555 with Gawain Carew , another grandson of Edmund and Katherine Carew By July 1555 he had been pardoned on payment of £1,000 to keep the peace , again , and a further £700 for his goods already seized and was then freed of all bonds and penalties . In the last years of Catholic Queen Mary and perhaps grateful for his life, Edward went into exile again in France .
By 1558 and the accession of Queen Elizabeth , he was recommended by an old friend , relative and fellow conspirator , Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for the position of comptroller of the household, and after a short period as vice chamberlain became Comptroller after Sir Thomas Parry who had been with the Queen since her childhood. John Russell , Earl of Bedford had also held the post of Comptroller between 1537 and 1539. He remained in post and a Privy Councillor until his death in 1567.
Interestingly in 1565 he presents an indenture in which he asks Edward Lord Hertford, son of the disgraced Protector Somerset , " his vearie frende " to sell to him a pasture known as Meades Hayes in Pilton together with the tenant Robert Sergeant younger son of Robert Sergeant , who was a menial servant of Edward ROGERS, but who was a villein regardant which means that he was tied to that bit of land , to have and to hold the said close to the said villein and his children for ever ...and once this was granted Edward would grant the said Robert Sergeant his freedom . Edward ROGERS will is dated 21st April 1560 and was proved in London on 21 May 1567. He leaves his " son" Thomas Throckmorton a short gown of damask, and his wife,( Edward`s daughter Jane ) a diamond ring, the lesser of the two ; to his "son" Thomas Harman (married to Edward`s daughter Anne ) a short gown of taffeta and to his "son" John Chettel (married to Edward`s daughter Mary ) a night gown of black taffeta ; to his cousin Henry ROGERS ( son of William ROGERS of Bradford on Avon ) a night gown of cloth furred with fox ; to his " sister Katherine Kirton 3 kyne and one jugge of silver , being at Pilton, and the which I was wont to drink in there To Elizabeth Chamberlayne otherwise Clasie , one gilte bolle being silver , all gilte, with a cover, 2 kyne, 2 oxen , one bull and one ring with a diamond . To John Coker £10 , one standing cup with a cover of silver, which is at Pilton, and one of my geldings with saddle etc. John Clasie the younger, my servant, £20 Edward Chettell son of John Chettel £20 ." And the rest to his only son and executor George ROGERS. Although he fails to call Elizabeth Chamberlayne otherwise Clasie his sister, it is noticeable that he leaves her the same if not more than he leaves his sister Katherine Kirton . Whilst that is not proof it is certainly worth noting .
Edward ROGERS` IPM taken in Somerset on 2 Oct 1568 before John Harrison escheator, said that Edward was seised of the crown, of the house and site of the Priory of Cannington and estates in fee tail , and that the King had granted the manor of Rodwey Fitzpayne to him ; and that he was seised of the manor of Collingborne and Ore in Wiltshire and in the chapel of Pyddell Waldeston in Dorset, and in diverse tithes of the chapel and certain lands etc in Calcott in the parish of Cryckeland in Wilts , and lands in Hurtley Somerset ; and in consideration of the jointure of Jane wife of George ROGERS dau of Edmund Winter , esq decd and the dau and heir apparent of Eleanor Winter her mother, by deed of feoffment of Edward ROGERS of 16 March 1 Ed Vl , 1547 ( and perhaps the date of the marriage of George ROGERS and Jane Winter ) to the said George and Jane his wife and the heirs male of their bodies ; and Edward was also seised of the manor of Cote , Somerset, and various lands in Cote , Martock , Stapleton, Wytcombe etc ; and also Buckland and various lands around Buckland Michaelchurch and North Petherton. Out of this last Edward granted to Elizabeth Chamberleyne , wife of William Chamberlayne an annuity of £10 for the term of her life . All the lands etc devolved on to George ROGERS, Edward `s only son and heir . Again it is interesting to see the singling out of Elizabeth Chamberlayne for an annuity which tends to reinforce the idea that she was in fact Edward`s sister .
George ROGERS the second who was born perhaps circa 1525 -28, was knighted in 1574 and appeared to have lived a modest life without public office . His will was dated 1581 and proved in London in 1582. His eldest son Edward received the manors of West Pennard and Kingsbury and Cannington, and to his son William he left his lands which he purchased of his cousin Anthony ROGERS, son of William of Bradford on Avon, and lands in Wimborne St Mary in Dorset.. Cousin Anthony ROGERS of Bradford left a will just a year before George, dated 1580 and proved 1581. He had two daughters Ann Bysshe, and Dorothy Hall, but his estate devolved onto his brothers Richard and Ambrose, both of whom according to the Visitation of Somerset 1623 died without issue . . He left his cousin Sir George ROGERS , the cupboard etc in " my orriall".
Sir George`s son Edward ROGERS of Cannington died in 1627 and left four sons Sir Francis, George , Edward and Henry ; his widow Catherine died just 10 years later in 1637 and left her second son as executor all her plate with the residue going to her two younger sons Edward and Henry . Now the sons fall one after the other. Sir Francis ROGERS only son Hugh, predeceased his uncle Henry in 1653 , and the estate is shifted from one brother to another . George ROGERS in 1638 , left everything to his nephew Hugh and if he died , as he did without heirs, to his two brothers Edward and Henry. Edward died in 1639 and left everything including the lands bequeathed to him by his brother George to his brother Henry . Henry ROGERS died unmarried in 1672 and the estates of Cannington etc reverted to the Crown who in turn gave them to the Cliffords. Henry left sufficient money for the rebuilding of a London church most needed after the great fire of London.
Of the second son of Thomas ROGERS , serjeant at law , John who became a lawyer , from Cliffords Inn, in Sutton Valence in Kent , living in 1514 , his line too becomes extinct before 1672 although he was never in the line of reversion for any of the property in Bradford on Avon or Collyngborne Valence . He had a son Ralph who in turn was the father of Richard ROGERS who became Suffragan Bishop of Dover , he was born circa 1532 and like his cousin Edward he too had to seek sanctuary in France during the reign of Queen Mary ; his sister Catherine married as her second husband the only son of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer ; by his wife Ann he had several children named for members of her family Fogge Rogers , Goldwell Rogers and Francis who was Rector of St Margaret`s Canterbury. Richard himself died in May 1597 and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral .
Devon is the county for the next part of the ROGERS family tree . The village of Luppitt is both the site of Mohuns Ottery the home of the Carews, and also may be translated as Lopit where George ROGERS , son of Thomas and father of Sir Edward, came from. The two evidences for the latter are the Dictionary of National Biography but the editor of this may have simply taken "of Lopit" from the Visitation of Somerset of 1623. Bindoff in his History of Parliament, follows the IPM and will of George ROGERS and says he is of Langport in Somerset. Certainly no evidence has been found of the Carews leasing or granting any land in the village of Luppitt to George ROGERS. But it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he rented or tenanted some land whilst his step sister Katherine was married to Edmund Carew. By conjecture, with Sir William and Catherine Huddesfield of necessity in London in the early part of George`s life, it should have been a good opportunity for George to start a career , marry well , come to the notice of the King etc. However he seems to have spent most of his adult life away from London in Martock and Langport , and this part of Somerset is where his daughter Katherine married Christopher Kirton and where Sir Edward visited often .
There is , however , a line of ROGERS in Luppitt from the mid 1500s and it may simply be a coincidence that they share a reasonably common surname .

References : PRO -C140 /65 ; Prof Michael Hicks , Who`s Who in Medieval England ; PRO -C 142/148 fol 28 ; Somerset Studies Library ; Somerset Wills ; Dictionary of National Biography ; Bindoff , History of Parliament ; Cal of Patent Rolls 9 & 19 Edward lV ; VCH Wiltshire ; VCH Somerset ; Prince`s Devon Worthies ;Rogers-Courtenay-Huddesfield ,Arch Papers 1902 by W H Hamilton Rogers ; Visitations of Devon , Cornwall, Somerset, Wiltshire ; portrait of Sir Ed Rogers courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery , London ; coram/church/history(Thruxton) ; C IPM Series ll, vol 30 (14) (57); PCC 4 Holders ; PCC 37 Horne ; Camden Series ,John Benet`s Chronicle & Warkworth`s Chronicle ; Alumni Oxon 1500-1715 ; Admissions to Lincoln`s Inn ; Bristol RO @pro a2a P/StT/D/1 35 H Vl, D/23 8 H Vl . D/64 36 H Vl , D/66 38 H Vl ;

THE ROGERS OF THE OTTER VALLEY
Please contact me, Elizabeth at My email address <mailto:elizgh@btinternet.com>
Devon is approximately 60 miles across and 70 miles in length with the great mass of Dartmoor in the middle , so the county is almost completely square , its western and eastern boundaries are Cornwall and Somerset and Dorset, and its northern and southern boundaries are the Bristol and English Channels. You are therefore never more than an hour, even with Devon`s winding roads, from the sea. The sea brings trade in the shape of coastal and fishing vessels, emi- and immi-grants , food for the table , work of all types and prosperity . Most Devon families who lived by the sea were never rich but neither were they workhouse poor . And when the fashion for the health giving properties of the sea and sea bathing started in the early 19th C , new businesses developed, particularly in villages along the warm Lyme Bay coast line.

Budleigh Salterton is an old fishing and salt making hamlet but developed its present identity as a seaside resort at the end of the 1700s and the first terraces of elegant Georgian houses appear in the early 1800s . But the parish church of St Peter`s was not consecrated until 1893 and so all baptisms marriages and burials had to take place in East Budleigh although a non-conformist chapel did open in 1812 and a chapel of ease in 1813.

The first of the Budleigh Salterton Rogers to be within living memory was James Rogers, fisherman . He is in the 1851 census living at Cliff Terrace , with his wife Mary a tailoress, and their children John , William , James , Thomas and Isabella . All are born in Salterton . Later census show later children , beyond Isabella to Harry and Mark . John his eldest son was John Richard and born in Salterton in 1843 and also a fisherman, who married Margaret Wood Evans dau of Thomas Glover of Appledore in 1868 , and this marriage links the two families from North and East Devon together . James` second son William also a fisherman born 1846 married Ann Melinda Sedgemore in 1874 the dau of another fisherman , James Sedgemore .Of James and Mary`s other children , Isabella , the second of that name the first having died aged 3, died unmarried in 1919 aged 73 , and beyond Thomas came Harry b 1852 and Mark b 1857, and the last named became a gardener, all the others making their living from the sea . Harry`s obituary in the Exmouth Journal 1936 says ` The death of Mr Henry Rogers who passed away at the Den , (means) that Salterton has lost one of its oldest inhabitants .......(he) followed the calling of a fisherman .......he was the son of the late Mr James Rogers .......and was the last surviving member of one of Salterton`s oldest families ........during the Great War he was appointed Captain of the Salterton beach by the Board of Fisheries ...........his grandfather served in the Navy during the Napoleonic wars and although he had his right arm shot off in battle , he was retained in the service for seven years ." James Rogers b 1818 the fisherman and main progenitor of the early Rogers family of fishermen of Salterton , died in 1908 at the remarkable age of 90 and is buried in the Baptist cemetary in Salterton with his wife Mary who predeceased him by 30 years . She was Mary Down and they married in Exeter in 1841 . She was a dress maker living in St David`s Hill, and her parents were Richard and Melony Down. . Richard was a mariner with some interest in property in Seaton , they are deforciants in a concord of 1809 of some considerable land 15 acres in all. By 1810 Richard is described as a mariner of Budleigh Salterton in a lease of a close of pasture land called Knowles which may be in Salterton . In 1797 the will of George Hook shipwright of Beer, mentions his nephew Richard Down to whom he leaves two dwelling houses , it seems that Richard Down`s mother Betty is a sister to George Hook . And in 1806 there is a deed of partition to convey the lands in Seaton formerly of George Hook, shipwright , to James Townsend of Honiton , gent , the other parties being George Hook , of Beer , shipwright and Richard Down of East Budleigh , mariner . James` father and Harry`s remarkable grandfather was John Rogers , also a fisherman when not in the Navy , was bapt East Budleigh in 1774 , and buried there in 1836. He married Elizabeth Grey at East Budleigh in 1799 , she outlived him by many years and is buried there in 1862 . She lived to be in the 1841 census and is recorded as 55 and Ind living in Chapel St with her married son James and his wife Mary, though clearly the enumerator of the census has been kind and allowed her at least a 5 - 10 yr age reduction . With them is Henry Rogers aged 18 and Thomas Rogers aged 9 . These last two seem not to be Elizabeth`s children ........if she was married in 1799 then she would have been born c 1775 - 1780 although her baptism has yet to be discovered , so to have a child b 1832 is stretching the bounds of credibility, so Thomas aged 9 may well have been her grandson the son of William and Mary Rogers of Exeter, carpenter and millwright , who don`t appear to have any other children than Anna b c 1832 , or the one of her late husband`s cousins , the same may apply to Henry also living with Elizabeth and James and Mary in the 1841 at Chapel St, he was b c 1823 and is likely also to be the son of William and Mary of Exeter . The one armed John Rogers, navy man and fisherman was bapt in East Budleigh in 1774 and married in 1799, Elizabeth Grey . He lived until 1836 and she lived on until 1862 . John was brother to Joseph Rogers also a fisherman, bapt East Budleigh 1772 , who married Mary Webber in East Budleigh in 1793. He died young in 1817 aged 45 and she died in 1831 . They had 9 children , four sons and five daughters, of whom the eldest Joseph died aged 25 having just married Mary Green the same year , Elizabeth who was 23 when she died in 1823 , Sarah who was 26 when she died in 1832, Susan who died as an infant , John bapt 1817 the last child has not been traced nor has Robert b 1808 but neither appear in the 1841 or 1851 census for Devon so may also have died as children . Of the remaining three , Hannah married Robert Friend , Maria lived unmarried into her 60s and Thomas married Elizabeth Pope in 1836 in Exeter , and was living in Broadclist in 1851 with two children though there may well have been others . John and Joseph`s other brother was Thomas bapt East Budleigh 1768 who married Sarah Lugg in 1791, and who died in 1821, again its not clear if he and Sarah had children , none are recorded in East Budleigh ; their sisters were Mary bapt 1764 who married Charles Palmer in 1784 , and Elizabeth bapt 1766 who married Joshua Crispin in 1790 . These five Rogers , John the one armed Navy man, Joseph the fisherman , Thomas , Mary and Elizabeth were the children of Joseph Rogers and first wife Elizabeth Dyer. Joseph was a fisherman and churchwarden of East Budleigh bapt in 1734 and he lived to be 84 dying in East Budleigh in 1818 . Elizabeth is buried in 1779, and in 1781 Joseph married again , a widow Sarah Skinner whose maiden name was Weeks . She and Joseph had a daughter Sarah who was bapt in East Budleigh in 1782 and who died in 1830 .

Joseph had an elder brother also named Joseph who died as an infant in 1732/3, and a younger brother Nicholas bapt and buried 1736 /1739 also in East Budleigh . Joseph`s parents were Joseph Rogers , a sailor or mariner, of Upottery who was born c 1703 , this is assuming that he was around 25 yrs old at his marriage . He left a will dated 1745 which sadly did not survive the bombing of the Exeter archives in 1943 , and he married Arabella dau of Richard and Catherine Sweetland , of East Budleigh, baptised there in Jan 1696 , they were married by licence in Honiton in March 1728/9 this licence describes Joseph as a sailor of Upottery . Arabella is buried at East Budleigh in 1759 . The fact that she was approximately 33 at the time of her marriage, may explain why the couple only had three children in all and only one of those survived to adulthood . Sadly from this point backward the lines of ascent are largely conjectural as the parish registers for Upottery , Membury and Luppitt are missing up to the 18th C and the Bishops Transcripts for the 17th C are very incomplete . However with sons Joseph and Nicholas , the first Joseph b c 1703 may be the son of Nicholas and Anne Rogers . Here and backward in time, the naming patterns change completely and this is most unusual but it seems certain that the Rogers family of East Budleigh cease to be recorded in that parish`s registers around 1730 . By coincidence the parish registers of Otterton have Rogers recorded from the mid 1500s to the beginning of the 1700s . However Joseph b c 1703 who married Arabella Sweetland of East Budleigh is certainly the progenitor of the East Budleigh and Salterton families . This couple had Joseph bapt East Budleigh 1734, who must have died as an infant ; a further Joseph bapt East Budleigh in 1736 and a Nicholas bapt East Budleigh 1738 who may be the same Nicholas described as an infant of Newton Poppleford buried East Budleigh 1742 . From this it is clear that the family were moving down from Upottery to Honiton to Newton Poppleford to East Budleigh down to Salterton from the 1600s to the 20th Century . In fact they follow the route of the river Otter from its beginnings in the Blackdown Hills to its estuary in Lyme Bay and out into the English Channel ..

Nicholas and Anne Rogers of Upottery have a number of children bapt in both Luppitt and Upottery but in both cases the registers only survive from the 1705 and 1710, and the Bishops Transcripts are very patchy . However in 1696 Christopher son of Nicholas is bapt in Luppitt , in 1700 John son of Nicholas is baptised , in 1704 Sarah dau of Nicholas of Upottery is buried , Nicholas and Perriam sons of Nicholas of Upottery are buried at Luppitt in 1712 and 1713 , and Nicholas Rogers of Upottery is buried in Luppitt in 1719 and there is a will for him in the Index of Devon Consistory Court wills , which had it survived would have revealed the links between the families . There is a Nicholas Rogers senior, husbandman, of Upottery in 1720 who being unable through sickness to keep up his holdings of a cottage , orchard and garden at Furley Common , hands them back to the overseers and churchwardens .. And a John Peck is apprenticed to Ann Rogers widow in 1742 for the farm she how lives in , which may be Nicholas`s widow Anne . In Upottery itself there are a further three baptisms , that of Sarah bapt 1704 who was buried at Luppitt, and Thomas in 1705 and Nathaniel in 1707 . So Nicholas and Anne appear to have had 9 children altogether , and Anne died in 1743 the date of her will , which again has been lost . ( Somewhere along the line there is another William Rogers of Membury whose son Nathaniel with his wife Joan Harvey married Membury 1773 , and children William aged 3 ½ , Francis aged 2, and Nathaniel aged 1 are removed from Membury in 1778, to Axminster . In 1798 Nathaniel son of William born in Membury brought up by his father who rented an estate at £20 pa , was apprenticed to Wm Summers of Stockland in Dorset cordwainer for 7 yrs , aged 13, but who after a dispute with his master over clothing , a new indenture was drawn up and whilst Nathaniel was with Mr Summers his father moved to Chard but Nathaniel never lived with him there , so settlement is granted at Membury. There are two marriages in Stockland of a Nicholas in 1702 and William in 1713 ) From Nicholas and Anne backwards , it is all guess work . Assuming they were married in 1695 , an approximate date of birth would be 1670 . Nicholas`s parents could be any of the following . William and Ellen Rogers of Luppitt have a daughter Susanna bapt Luppitt 1667 . William and Mary Rogers of Membury have a daughter Mary bapt 1673 . Richard and Dorothy Rogers of Membury have four children bapt William in 1669, Jean 1672, John 1676 and Nicholas in 1681 . There is a Perriam Rogers whose will is dated 1692 who must have some connection with the family , who has three children bapt at Luppitt and Upottery, Abigail in 1634, Sarah in 1648 and Nicholas in 1651 . This Nicholas has children bapt and buried in Luppitt , Isaac buried in 1683, Joshua bapt in 1683 and Samuel in 1685 . With such a dearth of wills and early parish registers it really is not possible to make accurate family links

There is a much earlier Joseph of Luppitt whose will is dated 1670 ; an earlier William Rogers the son of William Rogers of Membury who was bapt 1575 and became parish Clerk of Membury and is buried there in 1644 ; he may well be the father or grandfather of Nicholas Rogers who married Jane ?, who was also the parish Clerk of Membury in 1689. There is the remarkable Robert Rogers son of Nicholas Rogers of Luppitt, b c 1606, who entered New Hall Inn of Oxford University BA 1626, MA 1629 of whom nothing further is known , though he may be the father of Sylas bapt Honiton 1627, Elizabeth 1629 and Tabitha bapt 1631 . This Robert`s father Nicholas may well be the churchwarden of Luppitt in 1622 and warden of Sharcombe also in 1622, mentioned in the lay subsidy of 1624 of Luppitt . And which branch of the Rogers family can claim the Monmouth rebel who escaped capture , Christopher Rogers of 1685 , who must have been about 30 at the time of the rebellion so born circa 1655 , who may also be the father of another Christopher bapt Luppitt in 1696, and five others bapt between 1683 and 1699. Perhaps most remarkable of all is the miller of Luppitt, Robert Rogers who organised a petition to the then Lord Chancellor Christopher Hatton in 1591 demanding a change in the tithes charged to villagers by the Rev Walter Knott the then vicar of Luppitt . This Robert may well be the son of Christopher Rogers and Joan ? , whose will was proved in 1588 , in which Robert is executor and in which another son Nicholas brother to Robert is named . This Nicholas maybe the above named churchwarden of Luppitt of 1622 .

Earlier still at the local court of Peter Carew of 1550/2 there are two jurors at the court which was held annually to decide the tenancies and occupancies of land, and to settle any disputes arising in the parish by the lord of the manor in this case the current Carew of Mohuns Ottery. One juror is Christopher Rogers and the other is either Edward or Edmund , and these two who would have been at least 21 yrs old and tenants before becoming jurors at the court leet or court baron, would have been born c 1525 . Using Christopher as a starting point b c 1525 , a local official with sufficient tenancies to be listed in the lay subsidy of 1581/2 , to leave a will dated 1588, who married Joan ?Eames in Exeter in 1564 , and later Ellen mentioned in the 1588 will, whose sons Robert who perhaps became the miller of Luppitt petitioning for tithe relief in 1591 , and Nicholas ,another official and churchwarden of Luppitt, again mentioned in the lay subsidy to Robert the Oxford university graduate of 1629 , who must have been the son of either Robert or Nicholas , and was William , parish clerk of Membury their brother , to Nicholas the later parish clerk of Membury in 1689 was he the brother of Christopher the Monmouth rebel of 1685 and Luppitt ? So where does our Nicholas b c 1655 fit in , clearly somewhere in amongst these , with his grandson Joseph also a churchwarden in the late 1700s of East Budleigh . The family tree annexed on these pages therefore only starts at Nicholas and Anne Rogers as it seems most likely they are the parents of Joseph born circa 1703 . The earlier generations are linked by broken lines to indicate that there is no proof of relationships.
Please contact me, Elizabeth at My email address <mailto:elizgh@btinternet.com>

per History of MF Planters by L.C. Hills
born in a Furnezux mansion
married 1st abt 1433/34, had son Thomas
married 2nd late in life

per Marlyn Lewis

THE ROGERS OF THE OTTER VALLEY
Please contact me, Elizabeth at My email address <mailto:elizgh@btinternet.com>
Devon is approximately 60 miles across and 70 miles in length with the great mass of Dartmoor in the middle , so the county is almost completely square , its western and eastern boundaries are Cornwall and Somerset and Dorset, and its northern and southern boundaries are the Bristol and English Channels. You are therefore never more than an hour, even with Devon`s winding roads, from the sea. The sea brings trade in the shape of coastal and fishing vessels, emi- and immi-grants , food for the table , work of all types and prosperity . Most Devon families who lived by the sea were never rich but neither were they workhouse poor . And when the fashion for the health giving properties of the sea and sea bathing started in the early 19th C , new businesses developed, particularly in villages along the warm Lyme Bay coast line.

Budleigh Salterton is an old fishing and salt making hamlet but developed its present identity as a seaside resort at the end of the 1700s and the first terraces of elegant Georgian houses appear in the early 1800s . But the parish church of St Peter`s was not consecrated until 1893 and so all baptisms marriages and burials had to take place in East Budleigh although a non-conformist chapel did open in 1812 and a chapel of ease in 1813.

The first of the Budleigh Salterton Rogers to be within living memory was James Rogers, fisherman . He is in the 1851 census living at Cliff Terrace , with his wife Mary a tailoress, and their children John , William , James , Thomas and Isabella . All are born in Salterton . Later census show later children , beyond Isabella to Harry and Mark . John his eldest son was John Richard and born in Salterton in 1843 and also a fisherman, who married Margaret Wood Evans dau of Thomas Glover of Appledore in 1868 , and this marriage links the two families from North and East Devon together . James` second son William also a fisherman born 1846 married Ann Melinda Sedgemore in 1874 the dau of another fisherman , James Sedgemore .Of James and Mary`s other children , Isabella , the second of that name the first having died aged 3, died unmarried in 1919 aged 73 , and beyond Thomas came Harry b 1852 and Mark b 1857, and the last named became a gardener, all the others making their living from the sea . Harry`s obituary in the Exmouth Journal 1936 says ` The death of Mr Henry Rogers who passed away at the Den , (means) that Salterton has lost one of its oldest inhabitants .......(he) followed the calling of a fisherman .......he was the son of the late Mr James Rogers .......and was the last surviving member of one of Salterton`s oldest families ........during the Great War he was appointed Captain of the Salterton beach by the Board of Fisheries ...........his grandfather served in the Navy during the Napoleonic wars and although he had his right arm shot off in battle , he was retained in the service for seven years ." James Rogers b 1818 the fisherman and main progenitor of the early Rogers family of fishermen of Salterton , died in 1908 at the remarkable age of 90 and is buried in the Baptist cemetary in Salterton with his wife Mary who predeceased him by 30 years . She was Mary Down and they married in Exeter in 1841 . She was a dress maker living in St David`s Hill, and her parents were Richard and Melony Down. . Richard was a mariner with some interest in property in Seaton , they are deforciants in a concord of 1809 of some considerable land 15 acres in all. By 1810 Richard is described as a mariner of Budleigh Salterton in a lease of a close of pasture land called Knowles which may be in Salterton . In 1797 the will of George Hook shipwright of Beer, mentions his nephew Richard Down to whom he leaves two dwelling houses , it seems that Richard Down`s mother Betty is a sister to George Hook . And in 1806 there is a deed of partition to convey the lands in Seaton formerly of George Hook, shipwright , to James Townsend of Honiton , gent , the other parties being George Hook , of Beer , shipwright and Richard Down of East Budleigh , mariner . James` father and Harry`s remarkable grandfather was John Rogers , also a fisherman when not in the Navy , was bapt East Budleigh in 1774 , and buried there in 1836. He married Elizabeth Grey at East Budleigh in 1799 , she outlived him by many years and is buried there in 1862 . She lived to be in the 1841 census and is recorded as 55 and Ind living in Chapel St with her married son James and his wife Mary, though clearly the enumerator of the census has been kind and allowed her at least a 5 - 10 yr age reduction . With them is Henry Rogers aged 18 and Thomas Rogers aged 9 . These last two seem not to be Elizabeth`s children ........if she was married in 1799 then she would have been born c 1775 - 1780 although her baptism has yet to be discovered , so to have a child b 1832 is stretching the bounds of credibility, so Thomas aged 9 may well have been her grandson the son of William and Mary Rogers of Exeter, carpenter and millwright , who don`t appear to have any other children than Anna b c 1832 , or the one of her late husband`s cousins , the same may apply to Henry also living with Elizabeth and James and Mary in the 1841 at Chapel St, he was b c 1823 and is likely also to be the son of William and Mary of Exeter . The one armed John Rogers, navy man and fisherman was bapt in East Budleigh in 1774 and married in 1799, Elizabeth Grey . He lived until 1836 and she lived on until 1862 . John was brother to Joseph Rogers also a fisherman, bapt East Budleigh 1772 , who married Mary Webber in East Budleigh in 1793. He died young in 1817 aged 45 and she died in 1831 . They had 9 children , four sons and five daughters, of whom the eldest Joseph died aged 25 having just married Mary Green the same year , Elizabeth who was 23 when she died in 1823 , Sarah who was 26 when she died in 1832, Susan who died as an infant , John bapt 1817 the last child has not been traced nor has Robert b 1808 but neither appear in the 1841 or 1851 census for Devon so may also have died as children . Of the remaining three , Hannah married Robert Friend , Maria lived unmarried into her 60s and Thomas married Elizabeth Pope in 1836 in Exeter , and was living in Broadclist in 1851 with two children though there may well have been others . John and Joseph`s other brother was Thomas bapt East Budleigh 1768 who married Sarah Lugg in 1791, and who died in 1821, again its not clear if he and Sarah had children , none are recorded in East Budleigh ; their sisters were Mary bapt 1764 who married Charles Palmer in 1784 , and Elizabeth bapt 1766 who married Joshua Crispin in 1790 . These five Rogers , John the one armed Navy man, Joseph the fisherman , Thomas , Mary and Elizabeth were the children of Joseph Rogers and first wife Elizabeth Dyer. Joseph was a fisherman and churchwarden of East Budleigh bapt in 1734 and he lived to be 84 dying in East Budleigh in 1818 . Elizabeth is buried in 1779, and in 1781 Joseph married again , a widow Sarah Skinner whose maiden name was Weeks . She and Joseph had a daughter Sarah who was bapt in East Budleigh in 1782 and who died in 1830 .

Joseph had an elder brother also named Joseph who died as an infant in 1732/3, and a younger brother Nicholas bapt and buried 1736 /1739 also in East Budleigh . Joseph`s parents were Joseph Rogers , a sailor or mariner, of Upottery who was born c 1703 , this is assuming that he was around 25 yrs old at his marriage . He left a will dated 1745 which sadly did not survive the bombing of the Exeter archives in 1943 , and he married Arabella dau of Richard and Catherine Sweetland , of East Budleigh, baptised there in Jan 1696 , they were married by licence in Honiton in March 1728/9 this licence describes Joseph as a sailor of Upottery . Arabella is buried at East Budleigh in 1759 . The fact that she was approximately 33 at the time of her marriage, may explain why the couple only had three children in all and only one of those survived to adulthood . Sadly from this point backward the lines of ascent are largely conjectural as the parish registers for Upottery , Membury and Luppitt are missing up to the 18th C and the Bishops Transcripts for the 17th C are very incomplete . However with sons Joseph and Nicholas , the first Joseph b c 1703 may be the son of Nicholas and Anne Rogers . Here and backward in time, the naming patterns change completely and this is most unusual but it seems certain that the Rogers family of East Budleigh cease to be recorded in that parish`s registers around 1730 . By coincidence the parish registers of Otterton have Rogers recorded from the mid 1500s to the beginning of the 1700s . However Joseph b c 1703 who married Arabella Sweetland of East Budleigh is certainly the progenitor of the East Budleigh and Salterton families . This couple had Joseph bapt East Budleigh 1734, who must have died as an infant ; a further Joseph bapt East Budleigh in 1736 and a Nicholas bapt East Budleigh 1738 who may be the same Nicholas described as an infant of Newton Poppleford buried East Budleigh 1742 . From this it is clear that the family were moving down from Upottery to Honiton to Newton Poppleford to East Budleigh down to Salterton from the 1600s to the 20th Century . In fact they follow the route of the river Otter from its beginnings in the Blackdown Hills to its estuary in Lyme Bay and out into the English Channel ..

Nicholas and Anne Rogers of Upottery have a number of children bapt in both Luppitt and Upottery but in both cases the registers only survive from the 1705 and 1710, and the Bishops Transcripts are very patchy . However in 1696 Christopher son of Nicholas is bapt in Luppitt , in 1700 John son of Nicholas is baptised , in 1704 Sarah dau of Nicholas of Upottery is buried , Nicholas and Perriam sons of Nicholas of Upottery are buried at Luppitt in 1712 and 1713 , and Nicholas Rogers of Upottery is buried in Luppitt in 1719 and there is a will for him in the Index of Devon Consistory Court wills , which had it survived would have revealed the links between the families . There is a Nicholas Rogers senior, husbandman, of Upottery in 1720 who being unable through sickness to keep up his holdings of a cottage , orchard and garden at Furley Common , hands them back to the overseers and churchwardens .. And a John Peck is apprenticed to Ann Rogers widow in 1742 for the farm she how lives in , which may be Nicholas`s widow Anne . In Upottery itself there are a further three baptisms , that of Sarah bapt 1704 who was buried at Luppitt, and Thomas in 1705 and Nathaniel in 1707 . So Nicholas and Anne appear to have had 9 children altogether , and Anne died in 1743 the date of her will , which again has been lost . ( Somewhere along the line there is another William Rogers of Membury whose son Nathaniel with his wife Joan Harvey married Membury 1773 , and children William aged 3 ½ , Francis aged 2, and Nathaniel aged 1 are removed from Membury in 1778, to Axminster . In 1798 Nathaniel son of William born in Membury brought up by his father who rented an estate at £20 pa , was apprenticed to Wm Summers of Stockland in Dorset cordwainer for 7 yrs , aged 13, but who after a dispute with his master over clothing , a new indenture was drawn up and whilst Nathaniel was with Mr Summers his father moved to Chard but Nathaniel never lived with him there , so settlement is granted at Membury. There are two marriages in Stockland of a Nicholas in 1702 and William in 1713 ) From Nicholas and Anne backwards , it is all guess work . Assuming they were married in 1695 , an approximate date of birth would be 1670 . Nicholas`s parents could be any of the following . William and Ellen Rogers of Luppitt have a daughter Susanna bapt Luppitt 1667 . William and Mary Rogers of Membury have a daughter Mary bapt 1673 . Richard and Dorothy Rogers of Membury have four children bapt William in 1669, Jean 1672, John 1676 and Nicholas in 1681 . There is a Perriam Rogers whose will is dated 1692 who must have some connection with the family , who has three children bapt at Luppitt and Upottery, Abigail in 1634, Sarah in 1648 and Nicholas in 1651 . This Nicholas has children bapt and buried in Luppitt , Isaac buried in 1683, Joshua bapt in 1683 and Samuel in 1685 . With such a dearth of wills and early parish registers it really is not possible to make accurate family links

There is a much earlier Joseph of Luppitt whose will is dated 1670 ; an earlier William Rogers the son of William Rogers of Membury who was bapt 1575 and became parish Clerk of Membury and is buried there in 1644 ; he may well be the father or grandfather of Nicholas Rogers who married Jane ?, who was also the parish Clerk of Membury in 1689. There is the remarkable Robert Rogers son of Nicholas Rogers of Luppitt, b c 1606, who entered New Hall Inn of Oxford University BA 1626, MA 1629 of whom nothing further is known , though he may be the father of Sylas bapt Honiton 1627, Elizabeth 1629 and Tabitha bapt 1631 . This Robert`s father Nicholas may well be the churchwarden of Luppitt in 1622 and warden of Sharcombe also in 1622, mentioned in the lay subsidy of 1624 of Luppitt . And which branch of the Rogers family can claim the Monmouth rebel who escaped capture , Christopher Rogers of 1685 , who must have been about 30 at the time of the rebellion so born circa 1655 , who may also be the father of another Christopher bapt Luppitt in 1696, and five others bapt between 1683 and 1699. Perhaps most remarkable of all is the miller of Luppitt, Robert Rogers who organised a petition to the then Lord Chancellor Christopher Hatton in 1591 demanding a change in the tithes charged to villagers by the Rev Walter Knott the then vicar of Luppitt . This Robert may well be the son of Christopher Rogers and Joan ? , whose will was proved in 1588 , in which Robert is executor and in which another son Nicholas brother to Robert is named . This Nicholas maybe the above named churchwarden of Luppitt of 1622 .

404929. Mrs. ROGERS

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Mrs.