George Lawton of Cranfield
George Lawton lived at Cranfield in Bedfordshire. He married Isbell Smith there on 13 November 1605, and eight of his children were baptized in the parish between 1607 and 1624. In order they were George, Sarah, Mary, Thomas, Isaac, Bennet, Nicholas and Elizabeth.
Cranfield in his day was a substantial parish of about a thousand people. It was one of the richest livings in the county, worth seventy three pounds. A living was the income that went with a parish church, and in 1605 most Bedfordshire parish priests were university graduates. The surname belonged to the county. Other Lawtons, also written Laughton, were baptizing children at Stevington between 1607 and 1617, and a Thomas Lawton was buried at Marston Moretaine in March 1624.
The 1949 compiler of the Lawton family identified his sons George and Thomas with the brothers George and Thomas Lawton of Portsmouth in Rhode Island. His own words are that the Cranfield records "appear to identify" the emigrants' parents. The case rests on the names and dates, and on the given name Isabel, which was uncommon in New England and turns up in the family there. No record calls the Portsmouth George a son of this George. The Cranfield register is not in the published indexes, so the marriage and baptisms rest on that book.
The brotherhood of the two immigrants is not in doubt. The Portsmouth town record of 25 January 1646 grants that George Lawton "shall have 40 acrs of lande nere his brother Thomas at the hunting swampe". Both signed the Portsmouth compact of 30 April 1639, by which the signers bound themselves into a civil body politic as subjects of King Charles. One account counts thirty one signers and another twenty nine, and sixteen of them made their marks. George wrote his own signature. Thomas signed with a T, and he used that mark all his life.
His birth, death, burial, parents and occupation are not known.
Children
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Cite: Heirology, "George Lawton of Cranfield", https://heirology.com/ancestors/george-lawton-of-cranfield-4093c1.