Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy

William Feake

Male Abt 1537 - 1595  (~ 58 years)


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  • Name William Feake 
    Born Abt 1537  Wighton, Norfolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died From 7 May 1595 to 19 May 1595  London, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried Saint Edmund the King Churchyard, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I4794  Petersen-de Lanskoy
    Last Modified 27 May 2021 

    Father James Feake,   b. Aft 1505, Wighton, Norfolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. From 23 Jan 1538/1539 to 18 Jul 1539, Wighton, Norfolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age < 32 years) 
    Mother Agnes Framyngham,   b. Bef 1509, of Colthorpp, Norfolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. of Wighton, Norfolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Married Aft 1528  of Wighton, Norfolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F2175  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Mary Wetherall,   b. Abt 1537, of St Mary Woolnoth, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 21 Aug 1619, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 82 years) 
    Married 12 Nov 1564  Woolnoth, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Children 
     1. Mary Feake,   b. Abt 1565, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Aft 1619, of London, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 55 years)
     2. William Feake,   b. Abt 1566, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Aft 1619, of London, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 54 years)
     3. James Feake,   b. 1567, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Bef 20 May 1625, St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch Haw, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age < 58 years)
     4. Thomas Feake,   b. Aft 1574, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Aft 1619, of London, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age > 45 years)
     5. John Feake,   b. Abt 1576, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. of Elstree, Hertfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location
     6. Edward Feake,   b. Abt 1578, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Aft 1654, of Lingfield, Surrey, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 77 years)
     7. Sarah Feake,   b. Abt 1580, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. London, England Find all individuals with events at this location
     8. Rebecca Feake,   b. Abt 1582, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. London, England Find all individuals with events at this location
    Last Modified 28 May 2021 
    Family ID F2172  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • RESEARCH_NOTES:
      1. "The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record," 86(1955):132-148, 209-221, "The Feake Family of Norfolk, London, and Colonial America," by George E. McCracken:
      "Midway across the north coast of Norfolk lies the Hundred of North Greenhoe and in it, about three miles south of the sea, the parish, sometime manor, of Wighton in which the Feake family, as early as 1435, is found numerously settled. That this family reached prominence only after certain of its sons migrated to London in the sixteenth century and there became prosperous goldsmiths is evident from the complete absence of the surname from the "Visitations of Norfolk in 1563, 1589, and 1613" (Harleian Society, vol. 32), the "Visitations of Norfolk in 1664" (ibid. vol. 81; Norfolk Record Society, vols. 4-5), and Walter Rye's great work, "Norwich Families" (Norwich, 1913). The London branch of the family is represented in the records of colonial America by Henry Feake of Lynn, Sandwich, and Flushing (no. 46); by Henry's second cousin, Lieutenant Robert Feake of Watertown, Dedham, and Greenwich (no. 49); by Robert's niece Judith, wife successively, of William Palmer, Jeffrey Ferris, and John Bowers (no. 87); and by Judith's brother, Captain Tobias Feake, R.N., of Flushing (no. 88).
      Since extensive and on the whole accurate accounts of the American careers of the three men were long ago printed by the late John J. Latting in "The Record," vol. II, beginning with page 12, we here turn our attention rather to the English ancestry of these four colonists which Mr. Latting was unable to identify, though he gathered some useful material on the subject.
      The wills, parish registers, and other ancillary sources normally used for such a study as this, have in the present instance been augmented by framework derived from the following seventeenth-century pedigrees, none of which is at all complete, though they fit together with a minimum of inconsistency: (a) a pedigree made in 1623 for Edward Feake, son of William and grandson of James Feake of Wighton, published by Joseph Jackson Howard, ed., "Visitacon of Surry Made A° 1623, by Samuel Thompson, Windsor Herauld, and Augustyne Vincent, Rougcroix (London, no date), p.7; (b) the same pedigree with additions dating from 1667 taken from Harleian MS 1430, fol. 50, printed in the Surrey Archaeological Collections 6:310 f.; (c) a pedigree made in 1634 for John Feake, son of John, grandson of Simon, and great-grandson of the aforesaid James Feake of Wighton, contained in the Visitation of London in 1634 (Harleian Society 15:268); (d) a version of the preceding, dated 1664, taken by Mr. Latting from Harleian MS 1096, fol. 119, and, so far as we are aware, now in print only in "The Record,"11:13; (e) a partial pedigree continuing the two preceding, to be found in the "Visitation of Staffordshire 1663-4" (Staffordshire Record Society 5:126 f.); and (f) a variant of the last included in Gregory King's Staffordshire Pedigrees 1680-1700" (Harleian Society 63:85). See also John Ross Delafield, "Delafield the Family History" (privately printed, 1945), 2:540-6, appendix 16 on Feake; and Charles E. Banks, Manuscripts in the Rare Book Room, Library of Congress, folio vol. DG, p. 433. Considerable information has been generously made available by Messrs. John Insley Coddington and Clarence Almon Torrey; from the latter, especially, many items discovered by Colonel Banks but not included in the volume cited above...
      William Feake, fifth son of James Feake of Wighton (no. 7) by wife Agnes, appears in the will of his father in 1539 as youngest of five brothers. According to General Delafield, he later presented to the Goldsmiths' Company a silver-gilt cup of which an illustration appears in Delafield (2:491). The cup was melted down in 1663, its cover in 1665, and the whole then remade with the Feake arms and those of his wife's family, the Wetheralls. On this cup are said to be annulets which indicate that William was a fifth son, thereby confirming the evidence from the will. The goldsmith appears also as son of James in both 1623 and 1664 pedigrees, though in the latter instance, as printed, he is definitely called the eldest, Simon and Robert being younger, and the other brothers omitted. This is doubtless an editor's error, derived from the fact that the empty space to the left of Simon's family was utilized for William. The wills of both William and his wife state that he was born at Wighton.
      At an early age he removed to London where he must have been apprenticed to some goldsmith. Neither in the list of apprentices obtained by Mr. Torrey nor in Sir Ambrose Heal's list of goldsmiths before 1800 (op. cit. 150) do we find the name of the goldsmith to whom he was apprenticed but the latter says there was a William Feake, goldsmith of London, whose will was probated in 1620. The year of probate is quite wrong, derived from litigation in his wife's estate in that year. Mr. Torrey found at least four of his apprentices named Feake: there must have been many others with different names, and it is still possible that the archives of the Goldsmiths' Company may contain other data about William. In any case, he must have amassed a considerable fortune before he died in May 1595, resident of the Parish of St. Edmund the King, Lombard Street. Both he and his son James are wrongly called grocers in the 1623 pedigree as printed.
      William Feake married, at the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, on Nov. 12, 1564, Mary Wetherall of London. The 1623 pedigree gives her father's occupation as aurifaber but does not give his first name. Research into her ancestry is not complete but it is probable that she was a daughter of Thomas Wetherall, citizen and goldsmith of London, buried at the same church on April 27, 1554. His will, probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury: (I More), has been read by Delafield who says it mentions wife Margaret and alludes to children not named. The registers of St. Mary Woolnoth contain no reference to Mary Wetherall's baptism but show the following entries of the children of Thomas and Margaret Wetherall:
      i. Richard, bap. Nov. 19, 1540, bur. Nov. 30, 1540.
      ii. Henry, bur. Dec. 11, 1541.
      iii. Thomas, bur. Oct. 18, 1543.
      iv. Christopher, bap. Feb. 25, 1542/3.
      v. Thomas, bap. April 12, 1548, probably the citizen and homer of London, d. 1572, will probated [PCC:3 Peter (not examined)].
      vi. Christian, bap. April 14, 1551, bur. Oct. 4, 1563.
      To these we should add the marriage on July 16, 1554, of Margaret Wetherall to William Ynchorem [Ingraham?]. Margaret may have been another daughter but, as there are no Ynchorem baptisms in this register, and the date of marriage follows hard after the burial of Thomas, we think it more probable that this was a second marriage of his widow.
      In any case it would seem clear that our Mary was too old to have been, as Colonel Banks appears to have thought possible, the daughter of John Wetherhill of London, goldsmith, whose will dated May 17, 1578, probated June 18, 1578 (PCC:27 Langley) directs burial in the same church, in which also testator's child [Thomasyn, buried July 18, 1571] and brother [Thomas] already lie buried. John's wife was named Elizabeth, probably the Elizabeth Wetherhill of the same parish whose will was probated in 1585 [PCC:26 Brudenell; not examined]. They had a daughter Leah, wife of Humphrey Streate, married Sept. 23, 1577, and also other children: John (buried Nov. 9, 1590), Philip, Sarah, Anne the elder, Mary, Martha, Christian, Margaret (baptised Dec. 17, 1559, married Robert Molesworth, haberdasher, of same parish, Dec. 18, 1582, by license dated Dec. I I, 1582), Elizabeth, Susan (baptised April 30, 1562), Rebecca (married, Sept. 27, 1585, Thomas Child, of same parish), Rachel (baptised Sept. 12, 1564), and Anne the younger (baptised Nov. 16, 1567, married in double wedding with sister Margaret, by license dated same day, Thomas Lodge, of St. Osith, co. Surrey, gent.).
      The Wetherall arms on the silver-gilt cup are: Argent two lions passant guardant sable, on a chief of the second three covered cups or, and are stated in Burke's "Encyclopaedia" of Heraldry to have been borne by a Lincolnshire family of the same name. He does not identify the family further and no success has been had in locating them. No Wetheralls appear in any of the Lincolnshire Visitations.
      The Feake arms on the same cup are: Sable a fesse dancetté or, in chief three fleurs-de-lis argent; Crest: out of a coronet or demi-ostrich with wings spread argent holding in the beak a horse's shoe. These arms also appear in the 1623 pedigree as borne by William's son Edward and in the 1634 pedigree as borne by William's great-nephew John Feake of London, goldsmith (no. 45). They are also the same as those recently registered with the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (see New England Historical and Genealogical Register 107:269) as those of William's grandson, Lieutenant Robert Feake (no. 49). We do not know whether the arms were actually granted first to William or to one of his relatives and then used on the cup when it was remade seventy years after his death.
      William's will was dated May 7, 1595, probated May 19, 1595 (PCC:34 Scott; abstracted in "New England Historical and Genealogical Register," Henry F. Waters [faded print] in Delafield 2:544). The date of probate is wrongly given as May 18, 1582, by Henry Wilder Foote, "Robert Feke, Colonial Portrait Painter" (Cambridge, Mass., 1930) p.18. Burial is directed in the Church of St. Edmund the King, "where I am a parishioner, at my pew door." This parish is unfortunately one of those for which the registers have not survived.
      To twenty poor men of the poorest of my Company of Goldsmiths, 20 gowns of 20s a piece and 12d a piece for their dinner; to ten other poor men gowns of like price and 12d a piece for their dinner. To every of my brethren's children now in London & every of my men & women servants a cloak or gown.
      My goods &c. (after debts paid and funerals discharged) into three parts "according to the ancient and laudable use & custom of the City of London," one part to beloved wife Mary; second part unto and amongst Thomas, John, Edward, Sarah, and Rebecca, my children, minors; third part I reserve unto myself to be disposed of &c.
      To poor prisoners in seven prisons, the hospitals, poor and towardly scholars in Cambridge, the Goldsmiths' Company &c. A house for six poor men or women at Wighton in Norfolk where I was born. Poor goldsmiths' widows; the Governors of Bridewell.
      To James, Parnell, Mary, Margaret, Judith, and Anne, children of my brother James Feake, deceased, £10 each.
      I have heretofore given to some of the children of my brother Edmond [sic] Feake £10 a piece. I do now give to every of his other children (saving Anne Feake now dwelling with me), £10 a piece. To the same Anne £16, besides the £4 I have in my hands and received to her use of the gift and bequest of her mother's brother. I have already given to some of my sister Jygg's children 40s a piece. I now give 40s to every of her other children. I have heretofore given to some of the children of my brother John Angell 40s. I do now give the like sum to every of his other children. I have heretofore given to some of the children of my brother William Angell 40s. I do now give the like sum to every of his other children. [Note that the Jygg and Angell relatives receive only one-fifth as much as the other nieces and nephews, one of the evidences that they enjoyed only a half or step relationship with testator.]
      £3/6/8 to every of the children of my brother Simon Feake to whom I have not already given the like sum.
      To my son James Feake £300, he entering into bond to my executrix to pay unto my son William and Mary his wife, during their lives and the life of the longer liver, 10s weekly. To son-in-law Thomas Barneham and Mary his wife, £200. I hold for divers years yet to come, by virtue of two several leases, one from the Goldsmiths' Company and the other from Mr. Younge, grocer, all my now dwelling house in Lumbard Street and three tenements in Birchen Lane. To wife Mary a life interest and remainder to son James Feake.
      The wife is to keep and maintain son Thomas at his learning & study in the University [of Cambridge] until he reaches the age of thirty. Son John is to be apprenticed to some honest merchant and to have £100. Son-in-law Thomas Barneham standeth bound to pay son Edward £200 at aet. 21 and son James likewise is bound to pay son John the same sum at aet. 21.
      Residue to wife Mary, sole executrix. She gets a messuage in Lumbard Street called or known by the name of the Sign of Noah, now in occupation of Noah Farmer, goldsmith, and my two tenements, divided into three, being in St. Swythens Lane, which I bought of Mr. Nicholas Herrick, for life; remainder to son Thomas, then to son William, then to son James, next to son John, next to son Edward, lastly to my daughters Mary, Sarah, Rebecca. [In this list Thomas comes first as a prospective clergyman; then the other sons in order of birth, followed by the daughters in order of birth.]
      As this will exhibits great wealth and great generosity not only to the relatives but to the poor and to charitable institutions, it is clear that in this man the Feake family attained its highest peak of prosperity.
      A commission dated May 20, 1625, was granted to Judith Feake, relict and administratrix of James Feake, deceased, while he lived executor of the will of Mary Feake, deceased, while she lived relict and executrix of William Freake [per Waters], likewise deceased, to administer the goods of said William according to the tenor of his will not fully administered by the said Mary Feake, his relict. The said Judith had died by June 1626 when Francis Dowse took administration of the estate (PCC: Administration Account Book f. 87-4), and in December 1634 Alice Dixon, daughter of William's son James, succeeded as administratrix, Robert Feake (her brother, no. 49) having renounced his right to serve in the preceding month. No light on the identity of this Francis Dowse is to be found in W.B.H. Dowse's "Lawrence Dowse of Legbourne" (Boston 1926), and this Francis was much too old to have been the Francis Dowse, with wife Katherine, discussed by John Insley Coddington ("The American Genealogist" 29:161-9).
      Mary, widow of William Feake, died Aug. 21, 1619 (1623 pedigree). She, widow, of London, late wife and executrix of William Feake, late citizen and goldsmith of London, deceased, made her own will March 9, 1618 sub Angliae, probated Aug. 23, 1619 (PCC: 97 Parker; abstracted in "New England Historical and Genealogical Register" 47:5 15-18; Waters, op. cit. 789-91; also abstracted in Delafield 2:544). Burial is directed in the "church of St. Edmund the King near the place where my husband lieth buried."
      To every of my sons and daughters and their wives and husbands and every of their children. To Sarah Bullocke, my servant. To poor prisoners of eight prisons, to the hospitals, to other poor and needy people. To the Parish of Wighton in Norfolk where my husband was born. To the Company of Goldsmiths. To the Governors of Bridewell.
      To son James Feake, to son Edward Feake, 20 acres in Home, Surrey, called the Moores, which I lately bought of one Nicholas Hurling To son John Feake a messuage by the Sign of Noah and the two tenements in three in St. Swythens Lane which I bought of my son Thomas Feake. To son John for life certain properties in Godstone als Walcombstead, Surrey, a messuage called Maynard's bought of my son-in-law William Smyth of London, mercer. After John's decease, then to grandson Samuel Feake, son of my son John, remainder to Judith Feake, daughter of said John, lastly to right heirs of John.
      To son James two messuages in Lumbard Street now in tenure of Anthony Bradshaw and Robert Davies, goldsmiths. To every of the children of my son John £20 a piece. To daughter Rebecca Bournford £600 and certain goods of her late husband sold unto me by the late Sherriffes of London by force of an extent. Said Rebecca to occupy the house in Bow Lane which I hold of the Company of Goldsmiths for life, then to Samuel and Henry Bournford, her children.
      To Alice Feake, daughter of son James, £100. To son-in-law William Smith, £300 on condition he pay son William Feake £20 per annum for life. To Katherine Smith, daughter of said William and Sarah his wife, £100. To daughter-in-law Mary Feake, wife of William. To daughter Barnham. Mention is made also of the lunacy of Mary Barnham and of the dwelling house of son James in Lumbard Street. James Feake and Robert Feake, my grandchildren, to either of them, £100 etc. Son James Feake is named sole executor.
      A definitive sentence pronouncing for the will of Marie Feake, late of St. Edmund the King, City of London, widow, dated Jan. 27, 1619/20 (PCC: 8 Soame, no. 43), shows a dispute between James Feake, son and executor of said Marie, and William, John, Thomas, and Edward Feake, Sarah Feake als Smith, and Rebecca Bournford als Feake, children of deceased.
      There is also attached to the probate record a memorandum apparently in the hand of the executor James Feake, naming the following persons as left out of the will: Mrs. Blacklicke and her sister Ransom; Barnabye Gregorye and his sister Amey; cousin Sale; brother Edward Boyes; sister Bournford; cousin Bullock. Of these we shall be able to identify only the two Gregoryes, cousin Sale, and cousin Bullock.
      As there is a gap of at least seven years between the births of James and Thomas, there may have been other children who died vita patris. Children: 8
      i. Mary, b. ca. 1565, aet. 49+ in 1614, obviously not born before summer of 1565 as her parents married Nov. 12, 1564. She wrongly appears as seventh child in the 1623 pedigree. Before May 7, 1595, she m. Thomas Barneham (d. ca. 1614), eldest child of Thomas Barneham (d. ca. April 1, 1576) by wife Alice Cressey of London; grandson of Francis Barneham, Sheriff of London, by wife Alice Bradbridge; great-grandson of Stephen Barneham of Southwick, co. Southampton (see Harleian Society 42:168 f.; 54:8; 64:150; The Ancestor 9:191-209, and an article in preparation by John Insley Coddington). At an inquest post mortem (vol. 412, no. 9, 17 Feb. [11], James I-1613/14), held at Stratford Langthorne [co. Essex] before William Smyth [her brother-in-law?], "Mary Barnham, widow, lunatic, enjoys lucid intervals, say Geoffrey Thurgad[?], William Pullyn, Tobias Dixon [later her niece's husband], John Silvester, Wm. Feake, etc. She is incapable of managing her lands. Fifteen years ago she was capax eruditionis. William Feake is her brother and next heir, and she is aet. 49 and more." She was still living in 1619 and still a lunatic when her mother made her will. Her only child Isaac was baptised at St. Botolph's Bishopsgate, Nov. 19, 1595, but died before 1614.
      ii. William, b. ca. 1566. As the bequests he receives in the wills of his parents are relatively small, though of course of much greater purchasing power then than now, and are not capital funds but annuities to be paid periodically by others, it seems possible that William was regarded as not quite competent to manage his own affairs. Delafield, however, discovered that he was Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths in 1621, which does not suggest incompetence. Sir Ambrose Heal (op. cit.) lists a William who could be this man as goldsmith in 1632 and says there is a will probated in i666. This we have not found but, if authentic, it may be that of another William (no. 67). Our man was already married on May 7, 1595, to a wife Mary. Both were living in 1619, and are marked "s.p." but not "d.s.p." in the 1623 pedigree.
      iii. James, b. ca. 1567, aet. 34 on July 1, 1601; d. ca. 1625.
      iv. Thomas, minor in 1595, b. after 1574; coelebs in the 1623 pedigree; matriculated pensioner from Trinity, at Cambridge, Easter 1589; scholar 1590; B.A. 1592/3, M.A. 1596.; by father's will was to be kept at the University until aet. 30; living 1619, no wife mentioned, in his mother's will.
      v. John, second eldest of minor children in 1595.
      vi. Edward, third eldest of minor children in 1595.
      vii. Sarah, elder of minor daughters in 1595; by 1619 had m. William Smyth of London, mercer, who was probably man of that name before whom the inquest post mortem of Thomas Barnham was held in 1614. By 1619 this couple had a daughter Katherine.
      viii. Rebecca, youngest child in 1595; shown, for reason not apparent, as eldest child in 1623 pedigree; by 1619 had m. William Bournford of London, grocer, and was then his widow with two sons Samuel and Henry."

      2. Source cited below indicates his profession was that of a goldsmith and that he was affiliated with the Church of England.

      SOURCES_MISC:
      1. FHL book 929.273-K727kf: "Knapp's N' Kin, The Ancestral Lines of Frederick H Knapp and Others," compiled by: Frederick H Knapp, Rt. #2, Box 438C, AB Hwy, Richland, Missouri, 65556; 1987; Revised/Updated 1991. It notes the following sources, none of which I have yet reviewed:
      -NYG&HR, Vol. 11, by J.J. Latting.
      -NYG&HR, Vol. 86, by Geo. McCracken.
      -NYG&HR, Vol. 87, by Geo. McCracken.
      -NYG&HR, Vol. 47 (1893).
      -TAG, Vol. 27, by J.L. Jacobus.
      -Anc. Heads of NE Fam., by Holmes.
      -Norfolk Rec. Soc., Vol. VI, p. 76.
      -Topography Hist. of co. Norfolk, Eng., vol. 9, p. 209 (1808).