Category Archives: Crew

Q is for quires and questions

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in A to Z 2019, Crew, Durham, religion

≈ 3 Comments

A “Quire” is the area of a Christian church, more often referred to as the chancel, where the choir assembles.

Thirty years ago we visited Durham Cathedral. We were very impressed by its magnificent stained glass, old and modern, the shrine to St Cuthbert, and also the tomb of the Venerable Bede, father of English history. The Norman architecture has survived largely intact. The stone columns were awe inspiring. Durham Cathedral was a place we remember fondly and are keen to revisit.

The quire stalls and other woodwork in Durham Cathedral date from the mid-seventeenth century. The Cathedral, badly damaged in the Civil War, was rebuilt by Bishop John Cosin (bishop from 1660 – 1672). Cosin was responsible for a unique style of church woodwork, described as a sumptuous fusion of gothic and contemporary Jacobean forms.

Just after Easter when we were travelling in 1989 we were interested to read newspaper reports of the controversial theological views of the then Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins (1925 – 2016). Jenkins is remembered for raising doubts about the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus. When we were driving in Scotland we saw a sign outside a Church of Scotland quoting the Apostles’ Creed “I believe in…the resurrection of the body”, which appeared to be a reference to the unorthodox theology of the Bishop of Durham.

We joked that the fortified position of Durham Cathedral high on the peninsula and surrounded on three sides by a river meant that the Bishop, well separated from the rest of the Christian community, would not need to be particularly circumspect in his questioning of fundamental Christian beliefs. One of Jenkins’s obituaries was entitled “David Jenkins: the bishop who didn’t believe in the Bible”.

Durham, ca. 1795

Durham, ca. 1795, unknown artist, eighteenth century, , Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

 

My tenth great uncle Nathaniel Crew (1633 – 1721), who succeeded John Cosins, was Bishop of Durham from 1674 to 1721, one of the longest serving bishops in the history of the Church of England. Like the twentieth century Bishop Jenkins, Nathaniel Crew was more than a little unorthodox. He is said to have owed his rapid promotion to the Duke of York (later James II), whose favour he had gained by secretly encouraging the duke’s Roman Catholic interests at a time, not long after the English Civil War, when the political role of the Church was being fiercely argued. James II was overthrown by the Revolution of 1688, the bloodless Glorious Revolution. Crew was not included in the general pardon of 1690 but was allowed to keep his see.

Nathaniel Crew portrait

Nathaniel Crew in about 1680 by an unknown artist. Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Temperance Crew nee Bray (abt 1580 – 1619)

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Bray, Crew, grave, lawyer, Northamptonshire, Parliament, portrait

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My 11th great grandmother was Temperance Crew nee Bray (abt 1580 – 1619). She was the wife of Sir Thomas Crew (1564 – 1634), a lawyer and politician. His entry in the History of Parliament online mentions his marriage to her, noting that she was the daughter of Reynold Bray of Steane and a kinswoman of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, Gilbert Talbot (1552 – 1616). Temperance, her father who died in 1583, and her and Thomas’s son John, are also mentioned in her husband’s entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Temperance was the fourth of five daughters of Sir Reginald (or Reynold) Bray (c. 1550 – 1583) and his wife Anne Bray nee Vaux (c. 1550 – 1619). She was baptised on 6 November 1580 at Hinton in the Hedges, Northamptonshire.

Reginald Bray died in October 1583 and was buried at Hinton in the Hedges on 18 October 1583. Reginald was aged about 44.

An inquisition post mortem was held (Esc. 26 Eliz. n. 119.) This was a local enquiry into the lands of a deceased person, held to discover what income and rights were due to the crown. Information from this inquisition was used to produce a family tree by George Baker in his 1822 book History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton (page 685).

Bray Crewe tree from History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire

Reginald had one son, William, who died in his father’s lifetime aged about 7. Reginald had five daughters who were his coheirs:

  • Mary, aged 14 in 1583 thus born about 1569. On 16 August 1586 at Eaton Bray, Bedfordshire,  she married Sir William Sandys (c 1562 – 1641) of Fladbury, Worcestershire. She appears to have died by 1597 about which time  Sir William Sandys married secondly to Margaret Culpepper. She appears not to have had children.
  • Anne, aged 10 in 1583 thus born about 1573; she was later the wife of John Sotherton (1562 – 1631), a judge and later a Baron of the Exchequer. John Sotherton married two more times and had two sons and a number of daughters – it is not certain if Anne was the mother of these children. Anne had died by 1602.
  • Alice, aged 6 in 1583 thus born about 1577. In 1592 she married Nicholas Eveleigh, a lawyer. Nicholas Eveleigh died aged 56 in 1618 when the Chagford Stannary Courthouse collapsed killing him, two of his clerks and seven others, also leaving a further 17 injured. She secondly married Elize (Ellis) Hele, a lawyer and philanthropist who died in 1635. The trust from his will was used to found a number of schools including Pympton Grammar School. Alice died on 20 June 1635, it would seem she had no children. She and her second husband are buried at Exeter Cathedral but there is a monument to both of her husbands at Bovey Tracey Church.
  • Temperance, aged 3 in 1583 (see below)
  • Margery, age 2 in 1583 thus born about 1581. She married Francis Ingoldsby of Boughton and they had a son John.

BoveyTraceyChurch_Devon_Chancel

The chancel of Bovey Tracey Church, Devon looking eastward. On the left (north) side , the monument with effigy of Nicholas Eveleigh (d.1618); on the south side the monument with effigy of Elize Hele (d.1635), who married Eveleigh’s widow Alice Bray. Photograph by Wikimedia commons user Lobsterthermidor [CC BY-SA 3.0], retrieved from Wikimedia Commons


NicholasEveleigh_Died1618_BoveyTraceyChurch_Devon

Effigy in Bovey Tracey Church, Devon, of Nicholas Eveleigh (d.1618) of Parke in the parish of Bovey Tracey. Photograph from Wikimedia Commons by user Lobsterthermidor [CC BY-SA 3.0]


Monument_ElizeHele_BoveyTraceyChurch_Devon_Panorama

Monument to Elize Hele in Bovey Tracy Church, Devon. Below his effigy are the kneeling effigies of his two wives, facing each other in prayer, behind the left one kneels his young son. Photograph from Wikimedia Commons by user Lobsterthermidor [CC BY-SA 3.0]

In 1596 Temperance married Thomas Crew (1665 – 1634). Temperance was a kinswoman of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury (1552 – 1616). Thomas Crew was in the service of the Earl. Thomas had been educated at Shrewsbury School and the Inns of Court.

Thomas Crew was first elected to Parliament in 1604 representing Lichfield.

Temperance and Thomas had nine children:

Kedleston Curzon geograph-4665806-by-David-Dixon

Memorial to Sir John Curzon, All Saints’ Church, South Transept, Kedleston Photograph from Geograph.org.uk

  • Temperance Crew (abt 1609 – 1634)
    • Temperance married John Browne (c 1608 – 1691) and died without having children. She is memorialised at Steane. In June 1660 Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that he went to visit Mrs Browne. The 2000 edition published by University of California Press has annotated  that Mrs Browne was Elizabeth, second wife of John Browne, Clerk of the Parliaments: his first wife (d. 1634) was Temperance Crew, aunt of Montagu’s wife.
  • Silence Crew (abt 1611 – 1651)
    • Silence married Sir Robert Parkhurst (1603 – 1651) of Pyrford, Surrey, Member of Parliament. They had one son.
  • Salathiel Crew (1612 – 1686)
    • Attended Lincoln College, Oxford, matriculated 25 November 1631. Was a soldier. In 1641 there was a Certificate of residence showing Salathiel Crew (or the variant surname: Crewe) to be liable for taxation in Northamptonshire, and not in the half-hundred of Newport, Buckinghamshire, the previous area of tax liability. Salathiell Crew was appointed sherif of Rutland in 1652. Salathiel Crew was buried at Hinton in the Hedges. His will mentions his brother Thomas and two granddaughters, Isabella and Elizabeth. I have found no record of Salathiel’s marriage, children or military career other than the mention of militis in Oxford University Alumni.
  • Prudence Crew (1615 – 1641)
    • Prudence Crewe died unmarried in 1641. She left a will probated 10 June 1641.

Temperance Crewe died in 1619.

Sir Thomas rebuilt the chapel of St Peter at Steane in memory of his wife who was buried there and an altar Tomb bears her figure and that of Sir Thomas dressed in his Sergeants robes.On a tablet is this inscription:

“Temperans Crewe, the wife of Thomas Crewe, esq. And one of the daughters and coheirs of Reginald Bray, esq. By his wife Anne, his wife, daughter of Thomas Lord Vaux, died in the year of our Lord 25 October, 1619, in the year 38 of her age, and now restith from her labours, and hir works follow hir:
A daughter of Abraham here doth lye
Returned to her dust
Whole life was hid in Christ with God
In whom was all her trust
Who wifely wrought while it was day
And in hir spirit did watch and pray
To heare God’s word attentive was her care
Hir humble hart was full of holy feare
Hir hande which had good blood in every vaine
Yet was not dayntye nor did disdayne
Salve to applye to Lazarus fore
And was inlarged to the poore
Lyke God’s Angells she honor’d those
That taught his word and did his will disclose
And persons vile her hart abhor’d
But reverenst such as fear’d the Lord
A true Temperans in deed and name
Now gone to heaven from whence she came
Who with her lott was well contented
Who lived desired and dyed lamented.
Premissa non amissa, discessa non mortua
Conjux casta, parens foelix, matrona pudica,
Sara vivo, mundo Martha, Maria deo.”
[Having never lost, went out without having died, = Not lost, but gone before
A chaste wife, a happy parent, a modest lady,
A living Sara, a worldly Martha, Maria of god.]

Photographs of the chapel and the monument can be seen by clicking the links below:

Thomas Crew served as speaker of the House of Commons from 1623 – 1625. Thomas Crew was knighted in 1623.

To the end of his life Sir Thomas Crew continued to practice law.

Crew Thomas

Portrait of Sir Thomas Crewe, Speaker 1623 – 1625. Given by his descendant Ralph Cartwright, Esq. 1805. In the collection of the UK Parliament (catalogue number WOA 2702) Crew displeased James 1 by upholding the liberties of Parliament as ‘matters of inheritance, not of grace’ but later said by the King to be the ‘ablest Speaker known for years’.

Crewe died on 1 Feb. 1634, aged 68, and was buried with his wife under the  marble effigy in the chapel he had built at Steane. His funeral sermon praised the quickness of his wit, the firmness of his memory, and the readiness of his expression. He was said to be one who ‘set the stamp of religion on all his courses, in his whole conversation’, ‘a man exceeding conscionable’, ‘a marvellous great encourager of honest, laborious, religious ministers’, ‘the poor man’s lawyer’, and ‘a great lover of his country’.

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Samuel Pepys and the Crew family

16 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Crew, Wright

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The diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was well connected; conversely, many people were and are connected to him.  Pepys to me was the first cousin once removed of the husband of my 10th great aunt, Jemima Crew (1625-1674), daughter of John Crew (1598-1679) and Jemima Crew née Waldegrave (died 1675), my 10th great grandparents.

 

Samuel_Pepys

Samuel Pepys portrait by John Hayls 1666. The portrait now hangs in the UK National Portrait Gallery

 

Jemima Crew the daughter married Edward Montagu, later 1st Earl of Sandwich, (1625-1672). Montagu’s mother was Paulina Pepys (1581-1638), sister of Samuel Pepys grandfather, Thomas Pepys (died 1606).

In 1654-5 Samuel Pepys entered the household of his first cousin once removed Edward Montagu, who became his benefactor and patron. In his diaries Pepys often mentions Edward Montagu and members of the Montagu family, including my tenth great grandparents and ninth great grandmother Anne Wright nee Crew (1637-1708).

Pepys Montagu Crew Wright tree

On 22 May 1661 Pepys noted that Anne Wright sang songs to the harpsichord with her sister Jemima Montagu. On 20 November he described Lady Wright as “a witty but very conceited woman and proud”.  On 3 December 1661 Anne Wright dined with her sister Jemima Montagu. Pepys joined them and found the conversation was “about the great happiness that my Lady Wright says there is in being in the fashion and in variety of fashions, in scorn of others that are not so, as citizens’ wives and country gentlewomen”. On 9 December he again met Anne Wright: “dinner to the Wardrobe [Royal Wardrobe]; where my Lady Wright was, who did talk much upon the worth and the desert of gallantry; and that there was none fit to be courtiers, but such as have been abroad and know fashions. Which I endeavoured to oppose; and was troubled to hear her talk so, though she be a very wise and discreet lady in other things.”

In July 1665 Pepys stayed with Lady Wright at her house Dagenham in Surrey when seeking to arrange the marriage of Jemima Montagu to Philip Cartaret. On 16 July he said he “walked in the gallery an hour or two, it being a most noble and pretty house that ever, for the bigness, I saw.” On 17 July the party, including Anne Wright, played billiards. During the visit on 16 July there was effort made to let the young couple get to know each other, however proprietaries had to be observed so they were left in a room with the door open. “… and lastly my Lady Crew come out, and left the young people together. And a little pretty daughter of my Lady Wright’s most innocently come out afterward, and shut the door to, as if she had done it, poor child, by inspiration; which made us without, have good sport to laugh at.” The child was probably Anne Wright who would have been about seven years old – she later married Edmund Pye and was my 8th great grandmother.

On 17 January 1666 Pepys visited Dagenham again. “Lady Wright was very kind”, he wrote. Of her mother, he observed that she was “the same weake silly lady as ever, asking such saintly questions.”

There are at least 20 mentions of my ninth great grandmother in Pepys’s published diaries. From Pepys I have learned she could sing, play cards, and play billiards. She saw her family quite often, was very interested in fashion, and deplored the what she regarded as a lack of proper gallantry in men’s behaviour.

Sir Henry Wright (1637-1664), my ninth great grandfather, husband of Anne Wright nee Crew, is mentioned by Pepys at least 16 times. On 10 December 1663, “…calling at Wotton’s, my shoemaker’s, today, he tells me that Sir H. Wright is dying”. A couple of months later, on 5 February 1664, Wright passed away.

In the nearly ten years he kept his diary, Pepys spent much time with the family of his patron Edward Montagu. He often dined with John Crew, father-in-law of Edward; John Crew is mentioned at least  141 times. In 1665 Pepys helped to arrange the marriage of Edward’s daughter Jemima to Philip Cartaret.

I am delighted to have learned more about my forebears through Pepys observations.

Resource: A most useful website on the Diary of Sir Samuel Pepys: https://www.pepysdiary.com/about/

Related Post: Burke’s family records can be wrong

Burke’s family records can be wrong

14 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Crew, genealogical records, Mainwaring, Pye, will

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Edward Mainwaring ad Jemima Pye

Double portait of Edward Mainwaring and Jemima Pye by Michael Dahl. The portrait hangs in the front hall of Whitmore Hall. Image from the book by Christine Mainwaring: From 1066 to Waltzing Matilda page 71

Many family historians rely on published pedigrees such as John Burke‘s 1833 Genealogical and Heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland. Unfortunately sometimes Burke got it wrong.

My Mainwaring forebears are included in Burke’s 1833 family records, a genealogy of the junior houses of British nobility, which records family origins, surnames, events, and locations of about 300 British families; some are accompanied by coats of arms. The records have been digitised and indexed by Ancestry.com. The incorrect relationships are included in at least 28 public family trees on ancestry.com, presumably based on Burke’s error.

The entry for my seventh great grandparents reads:

Edward Mainwaring, of Whitmore Hall, bapt. 25 Aug. 1681, m. 1st Jemima Pye, second dau. of Edmund Pye, of Farringdon, Berks (see Burke’s Landed Gentry), by Anne , his wife, dau. of Lord Crewe, of Stene, and by her, who was buried 22 August 1721, had issue, …

When I started to look at the text of the marriage settlement for Edward and Jemima I became a little confused. Burke’s has combined mother and daughter into one person: Jemima was the daughter of Anne Rider formerly Pye nee Wright (c 1660-1731) and granddaughter of Anne Wright nee Crew (1637-1707); Jemima was thus the great granddaughter of Lord Crewe of Stene, 1st Baron Crewe.

The settlement was dated 15 March 1708 and was between four groups of people:

  • Edward Mainwaring of Whitmore, only son and heir of Edward Mainwaring deceased by Bridgett his wife, of the first part;
  • The Right Honourable and Right Reverend Nathaniel Lord Crewe, Baron of Stene, and Bishop of Durham, Henry Pye of Faringdon Co. Berks Esquire and John Conyers of Walthamstowe Co. Essex Esquire, Executors of the will of Dame Anne Wright of Dagenham, of the second part,
  • Anne Rider late wife of Edmund Pye Esquire of Faringdon and Jemima Pye, the daughter of the said Anne Rider and Edmund Pye of the third part, and
  • the Honourable Edward Cartaret of the Middle Temple and Carew Hervey, alias Mildmay, of the fourth part.

Dame Anne Wright of Dagenham was the daughter of Lord Crewe of Stene. She was the sister of the Right Honourable and Right Reverend Nathaniel Lord Crewe, Baron of Stene, and Bishop of Durham. She died in 1707 and her will was proved on 24 March 1708. [The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 508]

Anne Crew, born about 1637, married Henry Wright on 23 March 1658. Wright was a physician, son of Laurence (Lawrence) Wright, also a physician, at one time physician to Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Laurence Wright died in 1658. Shortly afterwards, on 10 April 1658, Cromwell made Laurence’s son Henry a baronet. This honour was disallowed – it didn’t seem Wright – when the monarchy was restored in May 1660, but on 11 June 1660 Henry Wright was AGAIN created a baronet by King Charles II. Henry and Anne Wright had two children, Anne and Henry (1662-1681). Henry junior died unmarried and on his death the baronetcy became extinct.

Anne Wright, the daughter, married Edmund Pye on 4 March 1678/9 at St Giles in the Fields. Pye was a medical doctor, the son and heir of Sir Robert Pye of Faringdon, Berkshire. Edmund Pye was born in 1656 and died about 1703 of smallpox at Knotting, Oxfordshire. His wife Anne remarried, to William Rider or Ryder. She died in 1731. [Edmund Pye’s will probated 3 January 1704 PCC Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 480. Anne Rider’s will probated 2 March 1731 PCC Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 650]

Crewe Wright Pye tree

 

Edward Cartaret was Jemima Pye’s second cousin. He was youngest of four children. His mother died at the time of his birth. Edward’s father, Philip Cartaret, was killed in the Battle of Soleby when he was six months old, along with his maternal grandfather, Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. Edward Cartaret, together with Carew Harvey, were provided for in the marriage settlement of Edward Mainwaring and Jemima Pye in the case of failure of male issue of the marriage.

Battle of Solebay

The Burning of the ‘Royal James’ at the Battle of Solebay, 28 May 1672. Painting by Willem van de Velde the Younger. Edward Montagu and Philip Cartaret were on board the ‘Royal James’ which was attacked by fire ships. Image retrieved through Wikipedia.

While I understand the family connection of Edward Cartaret, I am not sure how Carew Harvey alias Mildmay is related. He was a neighbour of Anne Rider formerly Pye nee Wright in Essex and was appointed Sheriff of Essex in 1712. Perhaps her estate of Dagnams was encumbered in some way to him.

I have not been able to find out much about William Rider. When Anne Rider formerly Pye nee Wright made her will in 1722 she described herself as the wife of William Rider and left him an annuity of one hundred pounds per year during his lifetime. She bequeathed one thousand pounds to her grand daughter Jemima Mainwaring as promised her son in law Edward Mainwaring. There were other bequests but her residuary legatee was her much esteemed friend and relation Edward Carteret, that is her first cousin once removed.

William Rider / Ryder and his wife Anne were involved in several court cases.

Plaintiffs: Jemima Pye, Mary Pye, John Pye, Penelope Pye and Isabella Pye.

Defendants: William Ryder, Anne Ryder his wife, [unknown] Pye and others.

Subject: personal estate of the deceased Edmund Pye of St Margaret, Westminster, Middlesex, Bedfordshire.

Plaintiffs: Emery Argus and another.

Defendants: William Ryder, Anne Ryder his wife, [unknown] Pye and others.

Subject: property in Westminster and Grafton, Middlesex and Oxfordshire.

Plaintiffs: Anne Rider (wife of William Rider, esq of Knotting, Bedfordshire, and formerly widow and sole executrix of Edmund Pye, esq deceased late of Knotting, Robert Packer, esq) and Henry Pye, esq of Faringdon, Berkshire (eldest son and heir of said Edmund Pye and Anne Pye).

Defendants: William Rider, esq, Edward Carteret, Carew Hervey alias Carew Mildmay, Thomas Watford senior and Thomas Watford junior

Plaintiffs: William Rider, esq of Knotting, Bedfordshire and Ann Rider his wife (late widow and executrix of Edmund Pye, esq deceased, late of Farrington, Berkshire).

Defendants: Edward Carteret, esq, Thomas Watford senior, Thomas Watford junior and Carew Harvey alias Carew Mildmay.

Plaintiffs: Ann Rider (wife of William Ryder, a defendant, by Robert Parker, esq) and Edmund Pye, esq.

Defendants: William Rider, esq and others.

William Rider was also involved in several other court cases.

Although John Burke’s genealogy made a small error in confusing the generations, overall it is a very useful source and a terrific starting point for tracing the family trees of the families he documented. The genealogies would have been painstakingly compiled and of course without the databases and digitised records we rely on today. As with anybody’s research, Burke’s genealogies need  to be verified against available documents which for this period include marriage settlements and wills. Perhaps also court cases.

Sources: