♂Richard Porter

Richard Porter (buried 27 August 1584) was a Sussex ironmaster and gentleman of Bayham, on the Sussex–Kent border, who ran “my Iron workes” there and made his will five days before his burial, leaving a portion to a child not yet born. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his daughter Jane Porter (baptized 1577).

Family background

Richard was a son of John Porter “of Begham”, as the Frant register calls Bayham, and his wife Agnes, probably born Isted. Five of John’s children were baptized at Frant between 1557 and 1564, among them Richard’s brothers Stephen, Robert, Thomas and George. No baptism for Richard himself has been found there. The wills of Richard and two of his brothers name the rest of the family: brothers John, Robert, Thomas, Stephen and George, and two sisters, one of whom, Mary, married Thomas Aynscombe at Frant on 2 July 1571. Their mother was alive through all three wills, and Richard left her twenty shillings “to buy her a ringe”. His brother Stephen, of Wadhurst, died in 1581 with no wife or child named in his will, and remembered Richard’s children by name in his own will.

Marriage and family

Richard married Jane Whitfield at Worth, Sussex, on 13 July 1573; the register entry reads “Richard Porter and Jane Whytffeld weare maried”. She is said to have been a daughter of Robert Whitfield of Wadhurst, Sussex. The couple had seven children named in his will, and an eighth, Susanna, who was probably the child not yet born when he made it, was born about 1585, after his death. Six of the children were baptized at Frant between January 1575/76 and June 1583, the second of them Jane, on 8 April 1577. An elder daughter, Mary, was named first in his will but does not appear in the Frant baptisms. When he made the will a further child was expected.

After Richard’s death Jane married Edward Quinby, Esquire, of Titchfield in Hampshire. Her own will of 1618, proved in 1624, describes her as a widow and leaves legacies to four of her children and to her daughter Jane Hawes. Of the children, Jane married Edmond Hawes of Solihull, Warwickshire, a marriage that the 1619 Visitation of Kent records.

The ironworks and the will

On 22 August 1584 Richard made his will as “Richarde Porter of Begham in the Countye of Sussex beinge sicke in bodye”. He held leases of Bayham and of “the Landes woodes and workes there”, and the will shows that the works were ironworks. The Weald of Sussex and Kent was then England’s chief iron-making district. He left legacies to his hammer man and to “Baylie the Nayler at Wadhurst”, and arranged for the business to go on while his heir was a child: his brother Thomas Porter was to serve four or five years as “Clerk or Bailiff” of the works at twenty pounds a year, buying the iron made there at the market price.

His wife Jane received household goods, cattle, corn and two hundred pounds. Each daughter was to have two hundred pounds, the eldest at twenty-one or marriage, and so were the younger sons Thomas and Richard. The unborn child was to have two hundred pounds if a girl and three hundred if a boy. Thomas received lands in Brenchley that Richard had bought of Paule Knotte, and Thomas and Richard together the lease of a parsonage. The eldest son, John, was to have the Bayham leases and the works at twenty-one. Richard asked that his children “shalbe well and vertuouslye brought upp in learninge”, and left forty shillings each to the poor of Frant and Lamberhurst. His executors were his brother John Porter and “my brother Thomas Aynscombe”, his sister’s husband; the overseers were “my brother Thomas Whitefielde” and “my Uncle Isted”.

Richard was buried at Frant on 27 August 1584, entered in the register as “Richard Porter, gentleman at Bayham”. The index of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury gives the will’s probate as 5 September 1584.

Notes

No baptism of Susanna has been found in the Frant register; the child expected in August 1584 was probably she. Thomas Whitefield, called “brother” in the will, is not named in the wills of Richard’s brothers. In the usage of the time the word covered a brother-in-law, and the will does not say how he was related.

The Visitation of Kent, 1619

The Visitation of Kent 1619-1621 (Harleian Society vol. 42, 1898), p. 155, prints the Porter pedigree: “Richardus Porter de Bayham = Jana filia Rob’ti Whitfeild de Wadhurst”, with the children listed under them. It is a heraldic pedigree compiled from the family’s own report, so it is a secondary source, not a parish or probate record. An 1906 Hawes genealogy gives Jane’s father’s place as “Worth” in the same county; the Visitation and Waters’ Gleanings give Wadhurst. The Visitation’s list of the children ends with “Susanna”, and gives Jane’s marriage to “Edmundi Hawes de Solihull”.

The widow’s second marriage

Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, vol. 2, pp. 1436-7, prints the will of Edward Quinby of Allington, Hampshire, Esquire, made 3 February 1612 and proved on 28 February 1613/14 (PCC Lawe 18), which names his wife Jane. Waters’ note there infers that Jane Quinby was the widow of Richard Porter of Bayham. Jane Quinby’s own will, made 6 August 1618 at Titchfield, with a codicil of 25 June 1621 and proved on 17 June 1624 (PCC Byrde 115, PROB 11/144), leaves five pounds each to her children Richard Porter, Mary Godman, Susan Porter and John Porter, and twenty pounds to her daughter Jane Hawes. Mary is called Godman in the will and Goodman in the Visitation. Waters prints “grandchildren” for the four legacies, but the register copy of the will says “children”, as does the 1915 Quinby family history. That the widow of Edward Quinby is Richard’s widow is an inference from the names, not a statement in any one record.

Susanna

Susanna is the last child in the Visitation’s list, which omits Martha, and she is “Susan Porter” among the children named in her mother’s will. She is not named in the will of August 1584, which provides for one child yet unborn, and her birth year of about 1585 is an estimate.