Some wills have been transcribed in full, whereas others are a paraphrased transcription. If they are paraphrased, they contain the names of all those mentioned in the will, with the gist of what they were (or were not!) bequeathed, but to find the full details, such as the names of property, requests as to how they were to be buried etc., please contact the relevant archive.
Wills:
- Kendall, Elizabeth, widow of Elmstead, 1748
- Kendall, William, yeoman of Elmstead, 1742
- Kenerley, James, yeoman of St Osyth, 1713
- Kenerley, Jane, widow of St Osyth, 1717
Kendall, Elizabeth, of Elmstead, widow, 1748
Three children William, Elizabeth and Robert
Executor: eldest son, William
Witnesses: Francis Tennant, Thomas Simons, Mary Barnard
Written 23 March 1743/4, probate 27 Feb 1747/8
ERO
Kendall, William of Elmstead, yeoman, 1742
Wife [unnamed] and her three children William, Elizabeth and Robert (under 21)
Daughter Mirabella, by former wife, now married to Benjamin Champin of Great Bentley, carpenter
Executor: brother-in-law Bartholomew Canham
Witnesses: Sarah Wiles x, William Cary
Written 26 May 1741, probate 29 April 1742
ERO
Kenerley, James, yeoman of St Osyth, 1713
- Kinsman James Beeston of Crue in Barthomley parish, Cheshire.
- Sarah Burging, sister of James Beeston.
- Mary wife of Edward Loaton of Alsager.
- Kinswomen Elizabeth Hamnet, Sarah Galley, Sarah Stringer, Hannah Henbary.
- Cousin Mary Hollings.
- Joseph Pever of Warham, Cheshire, and Samuel Pever, his brother.
- Children of cousin Sarah Stringer by her husband Dean.
- Son-in-law William Whitacre: to pay the legacies in Cheshire.
- James Whitacre, son of son-in-law William Whitacre.
- Jane now wife of Abraham Clarke.
- Randoll Whitacre.
- George Grice of St Osyth: copyhold in Mill Street, St Osyth.
- James Grice and Isaac Grice.
- Elizabeth wife of Thomas Parsey.
- Poor of St Osyth.
- Dairyman Thomas Robinson.
- Wife Jane Kenerley.
- Son-in-law John Whitacre.
- His landlady which wes the Little How living at Kelvedon her late husband named Web.
Executors: sons-in-law John Whitacre and William Whitacre.
Witnesses: Joseph Hill, Richard Comar, Joseph Robinson, Matt. Robinson.
Written 4 Dec 1711, probate 20 May 1713.
ERO
Transcriber’s notes: there are a surprising number of people who moved from Cheshire to north-east Essex in the late 1600s. James Kenerley was from Barthomley, Cheshire, and married his first wife in the neighbouring parish of Sandbach in 1666. He was then married to a Margaret in around 1675, and had five children in Barthomley, the last in 1682, before having moved to St Osyth in 1685. According to British History Online, there’s a memorial slab on the floor of St Osyth’s parish church for James’s wife Margaret (who died in 1690) and their son Isaac, who died in 1705 aged 25 – the only one of James and Margaret’s six children to survive childhood.
James then married Jane Whittaker in 1691. She was born Jane Shaw in Nantwich, Cheshire, in 1640, and married to John Whittakers of Sandbach in Barthomley in 1663. They had eight children. Their last child, Elizabeth, was baptised in Sandbach in 1681, then by 1685, the family were living in Moze, where John died. I can’t find his burial, but there’s a PCC admon from 1685 for him, and Jane, his widow, was his administrator.
Also in Beaumont-cum-Moze at the time was Margery and Robert Hackney. Margery was John’s sister, half-sister, or step-sister – I’m not entirely sure which. His father, William of Sandbach (died 1669) didn’t mention a daughter Margery in his will, but Anne Whittaker, his widow, did – and stated she was the wife of Robert Hackney of Sandbach. I wonder if Anne was his second wife. Margery died in 1684, and Robert remarried.
And another Cheshire name in Beaumont-cum-Moze in the late 1600s was Randall Wheelock – there are people in Sandbach with that surname and it was the name of a hamlet within the parish, until it became a parish in its own right in 1840. “Randall” is a very popular name in Cheshire in the 1500s and 1600s – in fact, John Whittaker’s grandfather was named Randle Whittaker, and his brother bore the same name; as we can see from James Kenerley’s will, John named one of his sons after him. A William and Anne Whittaker lived in Beaumont-cum-Moze then, too, and I would imagine they came down from Cheshire with everyone else in the early 1680s. Other “Cheshire men”, according to the parish register, were Thomas Darlington, who died in 1684, and the Doncastles – Ottewell (died 1693) and Robert (died 1701). In fact, Ottewell died in St Osyth, and Robert in Great Clacton, but both chose to be buried in Beaumont-cum-Moze. We also have the Phythians, who lived in St Osyth, but again, chose Beaumont-cum-Moze for their last resting places.
What caused this move away from Cheshire to Essex, and the small parish of Beaumont-cum-Moze specifically, for so many people? The fact is, though, that without it, I wouldn’t have existed, as William Whitacre, the “son-in-law” mentioned in James Kenerley’s will, was my 9 x gt-grandfather. Could the move have something to do with the “Glorious Revolution” and William of Orange?
Kenerley, Jane, widow of St Osyth, 1717
- son John Whittaker
- son Randall Whittaker
- son William Whittaker
- granddaughter Jane, daughter of son William Whittaker
- daughter Mary Theoball
- daughter Jane Norris
- daughter Elizabeth Cole: her two children, Thomas and Elizabeth, by her husband Parsey.
- godson Ralph Shaw
- “loving friend” Ann Phithian, widow
Executor: son Randall Whittaker. son William Whittaker to assist.
Witnesses: Uriah Clark, Mary Ardley x, Jam. Minter
Written 23 Aug 1717, probate 17 Oct 1717.
ERO
Transcriber’s notes: see above re Jane being part of a large move of people from Cheshire to north-east Essex in the late 1600s.
Jane was the daughter of Hugh Shaw and Ellen Brereton, who lived in Hassell, in Sandbach parish. She had a brother, Richard Shaw, who may have been Ralph Shaw’s father. Her sister, Elizabeth, married Thomas Latham, and her sister Martha married William Leversage of Wheelock. Martha died young, leaving two sons, William and John, who remained in Cheshire.
Jane married John Whittaker in Barthomley parish in 1663, and had eight children, all born in Sandbach. Their last child, Elizabeth, was baptised in Sandbach in 1681, then the family moved to Essex, along with many other people from Cheshire (for reasons I don’t understand!). John died in about 1685: I can’t find his burial, but he had a PCC admon, with Jane as the administrix.
She married James Kenerley, a “Cheshire man” who had moved at the same time, so they were evidently in the same circle. She was his third wife.
I assume that Anne Phitian, widow, was Anne Copland before she married Hugh Phythian. They married in Nantwich in 1666 – he was from Brereton, immediately north of Sandbach, and Anne was from Biddulph, a few miles east in Staffordshire. They had at least four children – the last of their children born in Cheshire was Thomas, in 1675, then their next child was born in Beaumont-cum-Moze in 1678. This predates the other Cheshire families converging on the same parish, so were the Phythians in the vanguard? Mrs Anne Phithian died two years after her friend Jane, and was buried in Great Clacton. Hugh and Anne’s son Thomas, married three times; his first two wives were from the Causton family: Elizabeth, daughter of John Causton and Mary Rolfe, and Mary, daughter of Philip Causton of Great Yeldham. Mary was the widow of Gibson Lander at the time of her married to Thomas.