Ancestors

Robert Humfrey

Robert Humfrey was a gentleman of Thaxted in Essex. Thaxted was a borough with its own mayor, and he held the office twice. Morant's history of Essex places him in it in the 1630s. He was also a justice of the peace, one of the unpaid county magistrates who heard minor cases and kept order. When he was buried at Thaxted on 1 January 1638/9, the clerk entered him as "Robert Humfrey twice mayor of the Borough."

He married three times. His first wife was Ann Holland, whom he married at Wimbish in 1600. She bore him two daughters at Thaxted. Ann was baptised on 21 September 1601 and Mary on 13 February 1602/3. Ann Holland was buried on 2 June 1603, four months after Mary's baptism.

By 1606 he had married again. His second wife was Rebecca, whose surname is not known. She bore John in 1606, Robert in 1608 and a daughter Rebecca in 1611. Rebecca herself was buried on 12 May 1613. The boy Robert was buried two years later, and the girl Rebecca apparently died young.

In 1618 he married Dorcas Bowtell at Lindsell. Their only child was baptised on 25 April 1620 as "Numanus," the Latin form of Newman. The name was evidently taken from Newman Leader, the vicar of the parish. The baby was buried on 14 June, seven weeks later.

His elder daughter Ann married Thomas Clayton, son of Thomas and Grace Clayton, at Thaxted on 28 October 1623. Mary married Andrew Warner of Hatfield Broad Oak there on 5 October 1624. The Thaxted register calls the bridegroom "Andrew Warner of Hatfield Magna." In 1633 Andrew and Mary went to New England with their children.

He made his will on 20 October, in a year the surviving copy leaves out. The editor who printed it in 1950 reckoned it as 1637. He left his wife Dorcas household goods. To his son John he left all the land he had recently bought in Thaxted parish near Boyton. The land was charged with small legacies to his daughter Ann and her nine children, Thomas, John, Robert, Francis, Humphrey, Ann, Grace, Mary and Elleanor, "and to his daughter Mary if she comes to demand it." There were legacies to servants and friends and to his own sister Joan. John was executor, with Thomas Clayton, his son-in-law, to act if John refused. One of the witnesses was Mary Bowtell, who shared his third wife's surname.

The will was proved at Braintree on 4 February 1638/9, in the Commissary Court of London for Essex and Hertfordshire. That was the church court that proved wills for that part of Essex. Dorcas was buried the next day, about a month after her husband.

Where he came from is not known. The 1950 article that printed his will proposes him as the second son of William Humphrey of Friars Manor in Little Sampford, who died in 1592. That William had sons William, Robert, John, Samuel and Anthony, and daughters Joan, Mary and Ellen. The link is the name and the sister Joan, nothing more, and the journal's editor called the article's further identifications clues. A Robert Humfrey also married Alice Taylor at Thaxted in 1593. The same article could not tell whether that was this man.

If Robert Humfrey is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Robert Humfrey (d. 1638)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/robert-humfrey-1638-eabe03.