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Early Life
Thomas Gunton was born around 1610, given that his children were born starting from the 1630s. In terms of his parents, I believe these to be
Thomas Gunton a saymaker from
Sudbury, and possibly, his wife
Anne ___ (possibly Anne Lord or Anne Allen)
1.
Career
Thomas describes himself in his will as a 'Gentleman', but he mentions the master workman weavers that work for him, suggesting he ran a textile mill. This is consistent with his son-in-law
John Parish being a clothier, and his father being a saymaker.
Adding more weight to the likelihood that Thomas was a person of some importance, he may have been the major of Sudbury in 1652 (see
this PDF).
Family Life
Thomas appears to have married a cousin, called
Anne Gunton. The fact that she was a cousin is inferred from Thomas' will, which mentions his mother-in-law 'Anne Gunton'. Together, Thomas and Anne had the following children:
- Ann, who married Charles Andrews, a woolen draper in Sudbury; Ann must have been born in the early 1630s and was probably the eldest child
- Thomas, eldest and apparently only surviving son
- Mary
- Elizabeth
- Judith, who possibly married Thomas Buxton of Essex
- Sarah who married John Parish a clothier in Sudbury
With the possible exception of daughter
Ann, the rest of the children must have been born after 1631 as they were not yet of age (>21) by 1652 when Thomas wrote his will.
There is one marriage record of the right time period for some of the name Thomas Gunton, but this shows him marrying one Anne Little, in 1633, at
Sudbury St Gregory. Perhaps this Anne is the same person as Anne Gunton, and was a widow from a previous marriage to a Mr ___ Little?
Death
Thomas's will is dated 20
th of May 1652 and was proved on the 15
th of February 1653/4, so he would have died most likely in 1653 or early 1654.
Thomas' will was instrumental in determining the relationships in the
Gunton family. In it, he mentions
inter alia:
- His wife Anne Gunton and her mother Anne Gunton. Hence I deduce that his wife was a cousin
- His daughter Ann who married Charles Andrews. This relationship is important because Ann and Charles' son Oliver Andrews is mentioned in the will of Thomas Parish (the son-in-law of Thomas Gunton of this page).
- His sister Elizabeth Martyn; she is important because she is mentioned in other Gunton wills (e.g. of Anne Gunton, the mother of Elizabeth and Thomas of this page)
- Other daughters Mary, Elizabeth, Judith and Sarah (who I believe to be the Sarah Gunton who married John Parish) and son Thomas, all of whom must have been born after 1633 because they were not of age in 1654 at the time of this will. To Mary and Elizabeth, Thomas left his property called Bullmer Meadow in Ballingdon. This is important because John Parish left the same property to his third wife Elizabeth, having presumably inherited it from his second wife Sarah Gunton.
- Brother William Gunton
- Sister Anne, married to Robert Gardiner
- Brother in law Robert Hazell; he may be important because John Parish mentions, in his own will, conveyances from the Gunton family to Jeremy Hazell and his daughter Elizabeth, who married John Pannell
- "Loving brothers" Thomas Hall and Thomas Buxton. The latter seems to have been a defendant in Gunton v Parish
Siam / Sayme Hall
In his will, Thomas gives the property of
Saymehall to his only son Thomas. The same property was the subject of a few legal cases (
Parish v Gunton 1691 and
Parish v Gunton 1693) in the 1690s, with the defendant being William Gunton, possibly the brother of Thomas, who was his executor. Plaintiffs included John Parish (Thomas's son-in-law), Judith Buxton (his daughter) and Oliver Andrews (his grandson).
Siam Hall was
a property of the Alston family but appears to have been sold, at least in part, to Thomas Gunton in 1648 and the sale completed in 1654. Note that Charles Andrews (the son-in-law of Thomas) married a Mary Alston in 1674, presumably after the death of his first wife (and Thomas' daughter) Ann Gunton.
Footnotes
[1] I used the following evidence to determine Thomas' parents:
- In his will, Thomas page refers to his sister Elizabeth Martyn, the wife of Thomas Martyn
- In the separate wills of the people I believe to be Thomas' parents, i.e. Thomas Gunton senior, saymaker, and his wife Anne (nee Allen?), reference is made to their daughter Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Martyn.
- Thomas mentions other siblings: brother William and sister Anne, whose names also match the names of children of Thomas Gunton senior, saymaker, according to his will
The one confounding issue is that the will of the person I believe to be Thomas' mother - Anne (nee Allen?) - mentions her 'cousin' Ann Andrews, wife of Charles Andrews of Sudbury. As we see below, Ann Andrews was the
daughter of Thomas, and so would have been the
grand-daughter of Anne, not her cousin. In some mitigation, the term 'cousin' was used somewhat differently in the past and one of the
meanings is simply 'relative'. Indeed Thomas Gunton of this page refers to Thomas Martyn (in reality, his nephew, son of his sister Elizabeth) as his 'cousin'.
Another possibility, which I am currently more weighted towards, is that Anne (nee Allen) was the
step-mother of Thomas; this is suggested by the fact that she doesn't mention a son called Thomas in her will at all. She also fails to mention William, Thomas's brother. In such a case, Ann Andrews would have been Anne's (nee Allen?)
step-grand-daughter and so perhaps why she is referred to as 'cousin'.
Abt 1610 - Abt 1654 (~ 44 years)
(Age ~ 78 years)