♂John Purefoy

John Purefoy was an English gentleman of Shirford, Warwickshire, in the fifteenth century. Through his son Nicholas he was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W. He was the fourteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Nicholas Purefoy.

Family

John was most likely a son of William Purefoy and his wife Margery, a daughter of Sir Robert Moton of Peckleton. He was the second son. His elder brother Philip married Isabel Brome, a daughter of John Brome of Baddesley, but they had no children, and when Philip died in 1466, John became his heir.

The name of John’s wife is not known. His son and heir Nicholas was also of Shirford. Nicholas married Alice Denton, probably the daughter of Philip’s widow Isabel by her second husband, John Denton of Wightam.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Nicholas, Nicholas’s son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, her daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down through Samuel’s son Stephen Dudley (1654–1735) to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), and the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

His parents and brother

The parents come from the Purefoy pedigree that John Nichols printed from Harleian MS 1049 in The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, vol. IV part 2 (1811), p. 599: “William Purefoy, of Shalston = Margery, daughter of sir Robert Moton, of Peckleton, knt.”, followed by “1. Philip Purefoy, died Sept. 16, 1466; buried at Badsley Clinton” and “2. John Purefoy”. The pedigree is laid out as a chart, and where each name hangs on it is not fully certain. James William Hawes, Edmond Hawes of Yarmouth, Massachusetts (1914), also says that Isabel Brome married first Philip Purefoy of Shirford and, “after his death in 1466”, John Denton.

His place in the family

The Buckinghamshire pedigree of “Purefoy, of Shaldestone”, recorded at the heraldic visitation^W of 1566 and printed by the Harleian Society (vol. 58, 1909, pp. 199–200), calls him “John Purefoy of Shirford, 2d son and heir to his brother”, leaves his wife’s name and her father’s blank, and sets Nicholas under him. It lists Philip as of Shirford and without children, his wife as Isabel, daughter of a Brown; the Oxfordshire visitation (Harleian Society, vol. 5, pp. 228–229) names her father as John Brome of Baddesley. The Buckinghamshire pedigree places John directly under a William Purefoy of Shirford of the reign of Richard II; Nichols’s longer pedigree has several Williams in succession, and this page follows Nichols.

His son’s marriage

The Oxfordshire visitation charts John Denton of Wightam married to “Isabell da. of John Brome of Baddesley”, noting Philip Purefoy as her first husband, with their children Anne, Thomas Denton of Caversfield and Alice, the wife of Nicholas Purefoy. The Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire pedigrees call Alice a daughter of “Tho. Denton” of Caversfield, who was more likely her brother.