♂Stephen Porter

Stephen Porter (baptised 7 April 1558; died before 6 May 1581) was a young man of Wadhurst, Sussex, England, whose will, made in March 1581, is the only one of three brothers’ wills to name their mother, Agnes. He was the tenth great-grand-uncle of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the brother of Richard Porter, Roger’s tenth great-grandfather.

Early life

Stephen was baptized at Frant, Sussex, on 7 April 1558, entered in the register as Steven, a child of John Porter; the will names his mother as Agnes. The register calls several of the couple’s children “of Begham”, its spelling of Bayham, the Sussex–Kent border estate where his brother Richard later worked as an ironmaster. By March 1581 he was living at Wadhurst, and his will names no wife or child.

The will

Stephen made his will in March 1581 and it was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury^W on 6 May 1581, so he died within those weeks, aged twenty-two or twenty-three. He gave ten shillings each to the poor of Wadhurst and of Mayfield, twenty pounds each to his brothers Robert and John, and to his brother George “my landes at Pevensey to holde to him and his heires for ever”. Nearly five years later George’s own will speaks of “my little marshe which I have in Pevensey which my brother Stephen Porter gave to me by his laste will”.

His brother Richard’s children were remembered by name. Mary, John, Thomas and Martha received ten shillings apiece, and “Jane Porter my neece” received twenty shillings. He left each of his “twoe sisters” a ring worth twenty shillings. One of them, probably Mary, was the wife of Thomas Aynscombe, whom she had married at Frant in 1571. Stephen left a nephew, Stephen Aynscombe, £5 18s 4d and the nephew’s brothers twenty shillings each, and gave “my brother Aynscombe tenne poundes to buye him a geldinge”. Two godchildren received spoons, one marked with the child’s name, and a number of other legatees received small sums.

He named his mother his sole executrix: “I make Agnes Porter my mother my executrixe”, leaving her his goods and cattle once the debts and legacies were paid. The witnesses were John Lever and John Batham, and Agnes proved the will in London through a proctor. She was still living when Richard made his will in 1584 and when George made his in 1585.

Notes

The family

The Frant register’s entry for Steven, a child of John Porter, supplies the baptism; the will itself does not name his father. Another brother, Thomas, is not mentioned in the will.

Spelling of the surname

The husband’s surname is spelled Aynscombe throughout the will, though its first capital could also be a D. The marriage of Mary Porter and Thomas Aynscombe at Frant on 2 July 1571 is the register entry that fits it. The day of the month is not settled here, and the surnames of some small legatees are unclear. Jane, singled out as “my neece” and named apart from Richard’s four children, may be Richard’s daughter of that name, baptized at Frant in 1577, but the will does not say so.