Wikitree/Ancestry Correspondence with Paul Hitchings 26/5-3/6 2019 Summary
email: p.hitchings@gmail.com
See also Bosherston Parish Registers
Elizabeth, daughter of Rees Hitchings, married Isaac Lloyd of Trevallen at Bosherston on 3 November 1778.
Elizabeth Hitchings (of St.Geo, Hanover Sq) who married Walter Perrott (of St.Jas, Westminster) at St.Geo, 27 December 1777, was Elizabeth, daughter of George Hitchings (1717-88) of Newton in Bosherston and his wife Jane (maiden name unknown to me). George’s will dated 4 December 1787 and proved 31 October 1788, contains the provision “I give and bequeath unto my grandson George Perrot the son of my deceased daughter Elizabeth the wife of George Perrot the sum of fifty pounds”. A later provision in the will provides that this grandson is also to share equally with the testator’s daughters Mary and Martha in a sum of £500. Judging from his trembled signature the testator was in weak condition when he made the will and the misnaming of George Perrot’s father was probably the result of confused mind or speech.
Birthdates
I don’t know if there is a Wikitree convention of assuming a 30-year interval between generations when birthdates are not available, but this creates gaps which are too large in the present context. I think suggested birthdates should be: Lewis Hitchings c1585 William Hitchings c1610 (died c1672) John Hitchings c1635 (died 1690) John Hitchings c1660 (died 1734). This is consistent with general indications that it was the practice of Pembrokeshire farming families of the period to marry young. Your present estimate of Lewis, born c1610, and his grandson John, born c1630, certainly deserves adjustment!
Sources
The Bosherston parish register is only the source for stated baptismal and burial dates and tenure of churchwardenship: it is not a source (as currently shown) for any information concerning Lewis and William Hitchings. [1] The wills for which you give dates are the source for my identification of children not recorded in the surviving parish register. Three of these wills do not show up in the NLW catalogue but are summarised in the Francis Green Genealogical Collection (FG) at the County Record Office in Haverfordwest (CRO): I’ll give the references for these below.
Lewis Hitchings: The 1655 settlement is summarised in notes from the Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls contained in FG Vol.24, p151. His widow’s will is from FG Vol.14, p134.
William Hitchings: His first wife is named in the 1655 settlement (above). His will is from FG Vol.15, p187. The identity of his second wife is established by the will of John Freeman of St.Twynnells, dated and proved 1698 (at NLW), and the marriages of their daughters Lucy and Margaret are recorded in papers concerning the Allen family held at CRO (ref DX/57/3 and DX/57/9). The latter show Frances Allen to have been sister of Howell Allen of Steynton, shipwright, but I don’t know the name of her father; the transactions recorded in these papers imply she was dead by June 1709.
John Hitchings (died 1690): His will is summarised in FG Vol.15, p312.
John Hitchings (died 1734): His sale of Southrow is from the will of John Freeman (above). His chief rent is recorded in a Lease and Tenancy List of the Stackpole Estate, 1723 (of which I have an old transcript, lacking a source reference).
George Hitchings (1717-87): The detail concerning his deposition in 1770 Exchequer proceedings is from E134/11/466 at the National Archives.
Editorial adjustments
In several instances you say that spouse, parent or siblings are “unknown” but the notes or links to the related entries name these people.
The notes in the entry for George (1716-87) read rather strangely for someone who has not been party to our exchanges. I suggest you amend the second sentence of the first paragraph to read “The Bosherston parish register records his burial on 25 November 1787 which is inconsistent with the date of his will (4 December 1787). I suggest you also relocate the final chunk of the first paragraph (commencing “The share in £500...”) to become the end of the second paragraph.
I notice you give baptismal/burial/probate dates as dates of birth and death. Perhaps this is a Wikitree convention.
George Hitchings Perrott
You say that “In 1797 he enlisted in the Castlemartin Yeoman Cavalry under Lord Cawdor”. This goes a little further than his obituary notice in the Cardiff Times of 23 October 1858 which states that he “served in the cavalry under Lord Cawdor”. Cawdor’s troop of Castlemartin Yeoman Cavalry was originally raised from his friends and tenants in July 1794, very much by invitation rather than enlistment. I have a copy of the return listing these 50 men - three of whom were named Hitchings (one being John Hitchings - probably Perrott’s uncle, though there are other possibilities). For the most part they were men of substance, in their middle years - not young blades - and the troop that turned out in 1797 will have been almost identical in membership to that recorded three years earlier. I very much doubt GHP would have been among their number. In later years there were three Castlemartin troops, membership was more broadly based, and “enlistment” might then have been an apposite term.
When Cawdor received instructions to march north to engage the French he and his troop had already, by coincidence, assembled in Pembroke to attend a funeral. They were joined at Pembroke Ferry by the Pembrokeshire Volunteers, an infantry unit (120 in number) under the command of James Ackland of Llanion (Pembroke). If GHP saw service in 1797 I think it very likely it would have been as a member of this unit (also formed in 1794) which served under Cawdor’s overall command. By 1797 GHP was most probably based in Pembroke so his membership of Ackland’s company would make geographical sense. Another possibility is that he was one of the many who flocked into Haverfordwest seeking involvement in the county’s defence, were quickly embodied as the Loyal Haverfordwest Volunteers, and (300-strong) marched to Fishguard (about a day after Cawdor’s main column). Of course, we shall never know for sure!
mistyped Martha Hitchings Harris’s date of death as 1829; it should read 1819.
Sent from my iPad
> On 29 May 2019, at 2:52 pm, XXXXX wrote: > > Thanks for keeping me abreast of this. > > I do not wish to become directly involved with Wikitree but you are welcome to adopt any or all of the following: > > Lewis Hitchings of Newton and Anceysdown in Bosherston and of Southrow in St.Twynnells, yeoman, was alive in 1655 when he settled the Bosherston properties on his son William; dead by 1660 when his widow contributed 4s.0d to the Royal Benevolence; married Elizabeth .... (her will dated 9 October 1667 was proved 7 November 1667); had sons William, George and John and a daughter (married .... Howell). > > His son William Hitchings of Newtown, Anceysdown and Southrow, yeoman, was taxed on two hearths in St.Twynnells, 1670; his will dated 20 November 1671 was proved 15 October 1673; he married (i) Eleanor Phelp and (ii) Frances Allen; had children George, John (died 1690), William, Lucy (married (i) John Freeman of Southrow, (ii) Griffith Summers of Haverfordwest) and Margaret (married Robert Codd of Haverfordwest). > > His son John Hitchings of Newton and Anceysdown in Bosherston, yeoman, died in 1690 (will dated 16 March 1689/90 proved 6 May 1690) married ..... and had children John, Lewis, George, William, Joseph, Lettice and Ann. > > His son John Hitchings of Newton, husbandman, was born c1660; he sold the fee simple of Southrow to John Freeman prior to 1698 and paid chief rent on his freehold of Newton in 1723; he was [like his son] churchwarden at Bosherston in 1731-2, and was buried at Bosherston on 23 April 1734; his will dated 7 October 1726 was proved 1 May 1734. He married (i) Elinor (buried 21 March 1724) and (ii), at St.Petrox, 25 June 1726, Elizabeth Morris of Bosherston. By (i) he had children John (bapt and buried 1684), Elizabeth (bapt 1686; married .... Jones), George (1692-1732), John and Ann (buried 1712). > > His son George Hitchings of Newton, was bapt. 21 September 1692, was churchwarden at Bosherston 1731-2 but died in office and was buried 4 March 1732; he married Mary Williams on 23 October 1715 (she was buried 10 September 1740); father of George Hitchings of Newton (1717-87) and John Hitchings (bapt 15 October 1719; of St.Michael’s, Pembroke; dead by 1779). > > His son George Hitchings of Newton, gent. (1717-87) was father of > John Hitchings of Newton (1742-1812) > Elizabeth Hitchings: married Perrott > Mary Hitchings (1747- ?) > Ann Hitchings (1749-66) > George Hitchings (1751-54) > Martha Hitchings (1754-1819) married (St. James, Bristol, 3 April 1785) Benjamin Harris of Summertown, Monkton (died 1829) > George Hitchings (1758-59) > Lettice Hitchings (1760-80) > Catherine Hitchings (1764-66). > > Baptismal and burial dates are from the Bosherston register unless otherwise stated. > > You may be amused by the circumstance that in 1632, when some “pirates” brought linen cloth to the coast of Pembrokeshire and sold it to local inhabitants, Sir James Perrott (as Deputy Vice-Admiral) seized both the cloth and two of those who had traded with the pirates - one was named Hitchings and he was subsequently released on the orders of Sir Thomas Cannon (see Calendar of State Papers, 1633).
And if GHP was still at Pembroke in 1801 he was surely George Parrott, Pembroke, who stood surety for Jeremiah Thomas, innkeeper, of Lamphey in 1802 (per Richard Rose’s Pembroke People, p372). P Sent from my iPad
On 27 May 2019 Thanks for the interesting details. I notice that familysearch.com records the birth of George Walter Perrott on 25 March 1800 and his baptism at Pembroke St.Michael on 22 January 1801. No parents are identified (though inspection of the register would doubtless reveal them) but to me he looks very much like the eldest son of GHP.
I omitted to give you Elizabeth’s baptismal date of 20 September 1744, but your other correspondent has already provided this in his comprehensive extracts from the Bosherston register. These extracts show George (Elizabeth’s father) as buried on 25 November 1787 - which is correct in terms of what the register says but is incompatible with the date of his will (4 December 1787). The register was not properly maintained for some years after the death of the Rector, Rev Jeremiah Philipps, in 1782, and entries during this period have to be treated with caution. George’s MI is severely weathered but may record his death date as 7 December 1787. In my previous note I gave the year of his death as 1788 on the basis that his will was not proved until October 1788 - but 1787 is probably to be preferred.
George was the child baptised on 9 February 1716/17; he served as churchwarden at Bosherston in 1740-42, 1745 and 1751; he was described as “gentleman, aged fifty-two or thereabouts” when deposed (as to good practices of husbandry in the county) in Exchequer proceedings, 1770; he was a Quarter Sessions juror in 1779; he had the freehold of Newton and the lease of Little Newton in Bosherston, of which his widow (variously Jone, Joan and Jane) was in occupation in 1791; she was buried on 30 May 1794; the couple had nine children. The share in £500 which George Perrott was to receive (as previously mentioned) was to come out of the residue of GH’s estate after his widow’s death but this residue was also charged with repayment of £220 due on a bond he had given to Admiral Sir George Pocock or his agent as security for arrears of rent owed by GH’s son John Hitchings on the tenement of Barnlake in Burton parish. I doubt George Perrott saw much more than the £50.
Elizabeth Hitchings (of St.Geo, Hanover Sq) who married Walter Perrott (of St.Jas, Westminster) at St.Geo, 27 December 1777, was Elizabeth, daughter of George Hitchings (1717-88) of Newton in Bosherston and his wife Jane (maiden name unknown to me). George’s will dated 4 December 1787 and proved 31 October 1788, contains the provision “I give and bequeath unto my grandson George Perrot the son of my deceased daughter Elizabeth the wife of George Perrot the sum of fifty pounds”. A later provision in the will provides that this grandson is also to share equally with the testator’s daughters Mary and Martha in a sum of £500. Judging from his trembled signature the testator was in weak condition when he made the will and the misnaming of George Perrot’s father was probably the result of confused mind or speech.
Name: George Perrott Sex: Male Daughter: Martha Perrott
Other information in the record of Charles Brock and Martha Perrott from England Marriages, 1538–1973 Name: Charles Brock
Birth Date: 1828 Age: 26 Spouse's Name: Martha Perrott
Spouse's Birth Date: 1825 Spouse's Age: 29 Event Date: 26 Jun 1854 Event Place: Bedminster, Somerset, England Father's Name: Charles Brock
Spouse's Father's Name: George Perrott