Griffiths Holy Orders

The World of Reverend John Storr, 1576-1662
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-3-7597-3797-7
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 94 Seiten

Reverend John Storr M.A., my 8th great grandfather, was the Vicar of Appleton-le-Street Parish in Yorkshire's North Riding from 1606 to 1662. He was ordained in 1600, while Queen Elizabeth was still on the throne and, despite opposing the Puritan faction, managed to hold onto his cure until the Restoration of Charles II, until his death at an advanced age. Besides a sketch of John Storr's life, the reader will find in these pages much additional material about the religious and social environment in which he and his descendants lived. He will also make the acquaintance of some of John's more colourful contemporaries.

Andrew Griffiths, who lives near Darmstadt in Germany, has been researching his ancestors for many years.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Griffiths, Andrew

Leseproben

Hutton Buscel
The village and parish of Hutton Buscel lies six miles from Scarborough on the road to Pickering. It was named after a Norman lord, Reginald Buscel, and is pronounced, and sometime spelled, “Bushel”. The parish is only half a mile wide, sandwiched between Wykeham and Ayton, but it stretches three miles north (towards the moors) and two miles south of the road. A descendant of the Hutton Buscel Storrs, who was born in 1832, wrote “the Storrs of our branch are very tall, with fair hair, blue eyes, and oval faces”, which could hint at Danish forebears. They were a respectable yeoman family, comfortably off, but not particularly wealthy. In 1558, a Robert Storr bought a house with lands in the hamlets of Newton, Preston and Hutton Buscel from the Marshall family of Pickering, and Robert and Thomas Storr – presumably his sons – extended the property with further purchases in the same area, in 1586 and 1594. Thomas was also connected with two Causes7 before the Consistory Court of York in 1594 and 1596 (in one case, he was the defendant in an action for slander). He (or another family member of the same name) also served regularly as a jury member at Quarter Sessions between 1608 and 1622, when he was sometimes styled “Yeoman of Ayton”. A Thomas Storr junior was involved in another property deal there in 1608. Three children, who touch on our story, were born there to a Thomas Storr (not necessarily all three to the same father): Thomas (1597), John (1599) and James (1611). It is very difficult to sort the Hutton Buscel Storrs into families and genetic lines, deriving in part from the confusion surrounding the Civil Wars (1642-1651) and Cromwell’s Commonwealth (1649-1660) and corresponding gaps in the parish records. In the rest of this section I will try and organise the known facts and draw some reasonable conclusions, but the hasty reader may skip it with a good conscience and pass to the next chapter. Reconstructing the family tree of the Hutton Buscel Storrs is like doing a really tough jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box. Plenty of isolated facts about the family have been collected, but putting them in a logical framework that accounts for all the facts without violating Occam’s Razor8 is next to impossible, so I will present the facts first and then attempt to devise a “Grand Unified Theory” that accounts for them, without claiming that this is the only possible solution. Among the earliest facts are the following purchases of houses and land in the Hutton Buscel area (Feet of Fines9 records). 1558 Robert Storr purchased a messuage10 with land in Newton, Preston and Hutton Buscel from the Marshall family 1586 Robert Storr & William Kethe purchased 2 messuages and a cottage with lands in Hutton Buscel and Preston from the Eure family 1593 Thomas Storr with Thos Battye and William Clarke purchased 3 messuages with lands in Hutton, Preston, Wykeham, and Newton from Richard Marshall Newton and Preston seem to have been farming hamlets in the distant past, which have since disappeared, leaving traces in the form of tracts of land named Newton Fields and Preston Fields, stretching northwards from the villages of Hutton Buscel and West Ayton. Wykeham Fields borders Preston Fields on the west, but is located in the neighbouring parish. And, from the Hull History Centre Archives: 1603 A conveyance from Roberte Welburne of Muston to Thomas
Johnson of Muston and John Storre of Huton Bushell, yeomen Somewhat later, another purchase is made: 1608 Thomas Storr junior purchased a messuage, lands and rent in Preston, Newton and Hutton Buscel from William Clarke If instead of “messuage with land” we read “farm”, then a pattern emerges of individual husbandmen11 seeking to establish themselves as yeoman farmers, cultivating their own land, but all within a fairly small compass. Any attempt to reconcile the Storrs into a single family will have to consider the Robert Storr, who made the initial purchase, as the patriarch, born perhaps around 1525. The thirty-year gap between the first and the second purchase probably indicates that the two Roberts were father and son. In several cases, members of the Storr family are described as being “of Preston” or “of Newton” (also of “Ayton” and “West Ayton” in the neighbouring parish), and the inheritance of property is an important factor to consider in this family reconstruction project. Another issue, which is rather specific to this family, is the recurring one of sons who were sent to Cambridge to study for Holy Orders. There were four of these that we know of: ~ Rev. John Storr of our title, born ca. 1576, Vicar of Old Malton and Appleton-le-Street ~ Rev. Thomas Storr, born ca 1597, Curate of St Leonards and Vicar of Fylingdales ~ Rev. John Storr, born ca. 1599, Vicar of Helperthorpe and Rillington ~ Rev. William Storr, born 1675, Vicar of Worlaby in Lincolnshire. Traditionally, one would expect the oldest son to inherit the land and a younger son to join the clergy. I have tried to work this principle into my Grand Unified Theory of the Storr family. The registers of Hutton Buscel church reach back to 1572 for baptisms and 1598 for marriages, which ought to be an enormous help in such a project. Unfortunately, the records seem to pose more questions than they answer and there are significant gaps, especially during the Civil War and the early part of the Interregnum. What we do know from the parish registers is that there were three Storr families in the 1570s and 80s headed by Robert, John and Francis Storr, all of whom were having children in the same period and might therefore reasonably be assumed to be sons of the progenitor Robert Storr. The difficulty is that in the following years, thirteen baby Storrs were born to fathers called Thomas (mothers are not named in this register) and closer analysis shows that there must have been three different Thomas Storrs having children between 1580 and 1611. From 1612 until 1653, there is a complete absence of Storr baptisms in the parish and, after that, the earlier surfeit of Thomases is replaced by multiple John Storrs. Three different John Storrs were assessed for Hearth Tax in Hutton Buscel in 1673, for example. More facts come from Wills, in particular those of Thomas Storr and John Storr who died in 1615 and 1660 respectively. There is also an Inquisitione Post Mortem12 for another John Storr, who died in 1630. These tell us something about the heirs and their property, but nothing about the parentage of the deceased persons. For one piece of the puzzle, we have an excellent witness in the form of a William Storr, whose father Robert left Hutton Buscel in 1674 to lease a large property called Scalm Park near Selby, south of the City of York. William kept a diary filled with fascinating information about his family and about Scalm Park in general.13 Among many other things, he gave a detailed account of his pedigree, starting with his grandparents. A Thomas Storr was involved in two Causes before the ecclesiastical courts in 1594 and 1596 (one case of slander and another involving tithes). These provide one or two details of family history (e.g. that Thomas’ mother is called Elizabeth) and property (“Preston Fields”). Having listed the main sources, it’s time to take the plunge and attempt a family reconstruction. The land purchases and baptism events in the 16th century suggest that Robert Storr had at least four sons: Thomas, Robert, John and Francis, as shown in the following chart. Their exact dates of birth are unknown. The names of their children shown in the boxes are derived from the parish register. Taking Thomas first, who was born about 1548, we can link him to another Thomas Storr “junior”, who acquired a messuage in 1608 from William Clarke. He had been one of Thomas Storr senior’s partners in the earlier purchase in 1586. Thomas junior died in 1615 leaving a Will, in which he left legacies to his sons John and Thomas and daughters Mary and Alice (who were not yet of full age), and divided his property in Preston between his sons John and Thomas. However Thomas, the younger brother, chose not to become a farmer like his brother. He went to Cambridge and became Curate of St Leonard’s, New Malton in 1630. In 1630, an Inquisitione Post Mortem was conducted after the decease of John Storr of Newton. This John had lands in Preston and Wykeham as well as Newton, and his son and heir was another John. The only one we know of that bought land in all these places was Thomas (born about 1548), so this John must have been the beneficiary under Thomas Storr’s Will of 1615. He was presumably only 31 years old when he died, perhaps from illness or an accident, which would explain the absence of a Will. His son was only 10 years old, which would have been the reason for the investigation. Recalling the Robert Storr that left Hutton Buscel for Scalm in 1674, we know from his son’s diary that Robert’s father John was the second of three brothers, the other two being William and James. These can be identified as sons of a Thomas, who were baptised in 1605 and 1611 (we will encounter James Storr again when he...