William Gerard (1611 - 1681)

Born 3 Apr 1611 in Bryn, Ashton in Makerfield, Lancashire, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 7 Apr 1681 at age 70 in WinWick, Lancashire, England

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Michelle Hartley [send private message]

Spelling Variations Gerard, Gerrard, Garard, Garrard

Biography

Sir William Gerard was a member of the aristocracy in England.

William Gerard was born in England.

This profile is part of the Gerard Name Study.

William was born in 1611 and was a Baronet and was the son of Sir Thomas Gerrard ll and Frances Molyneux. He passed away about 1681. He was 19 years old when his father died, and 26 years old at the inquisition held in 1637. He expended a large estate in the reign of King Charles I and lost considerable property by sequestration. (The State seized property as a means of enforcing a degree for the payment of money from these Catholic families.) He was buried April 7, 1681. Sir William married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Cuthbert and Alice Clifton, Knight of Lytham and Westby. He had four sons, all of whom attended an English Jesuit School, St. Omer's College, at Saint Omer in Spanish Flanders, founded in 1593. (Flanders is now Vlaanderen, Belgium.) The school was forced to move to Bruges, Austria in the Netherlands in 1762 because of attacks on the Jesuits in France. (St. Omer's was then on French Territory.) Boys with a view to entering the priesthood attended St. Omer's and a large proportion of them actually did become priests. William's sons attended St. Omer's as follows

• William 1650-54
• Cuthbert 1656-62
• John 1658-52 or later
• Thomas, who became a priest, 1660-62 and died in 1682.

Sources

• The Peerage
• The Visitation of the County Palatine of Lancaster, Made in the Year 1664-5 pg 116