Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
It seems more than likely that the Glascocks were originally a family called FitzRalph who seem to have originated in Lincolnshire well before 1066 who in the female line can be traced back to the Anglo Saxons. There are records of this family giving land in the 12th Century to Neesham Priory in NE Lincolnshire which had been inherited from Emma the heiress of an Anglo - Saxon Lord. She had married an early "Norman" settler called de Teisa. However he seems to have died without any children by her and she remarried someone called Ralph from elsewhere in Lincolnshire and their eldest son and heir took the name Ralph FitzRalph (Ralph son of Ralph) and down the generations this familly seem to have alternated between Ralph and William for the eldest son creating families of FitzRalphs and FitzWilliams and younger sons creating numerous other Fitz..... family names. The fazmily seems to have spread to Cumbria, Yorkshire, Essex, Hertfordshire,Staffordshire and Warwickshire and it is the Staffordshire/Warwickshire family that seems to be the key. The main family seat was Nether Whiteacre or Whitacre near Tamworth and sometime in the 12th or 13th Century they received at least part of the manors of Glascote, Klingfelde and Perry Croft from the de Clnton Earls Of Huntingdon. Nether Whitacre passed down through a succession of FitzRalphs and FitzWilliams until the late 13th Century when the name FitzRalph seems to have been established as the surname by a Ralph FitzRalph.
Glascote etc seems to have become the property of descendants of a younger son under the names FitzNicholas and FitzGiles. The last generation of this family was a minor heiress called Isabel who became Ward of the last Marmion Lord of Tamworth who married her off to his ilegitimate son in the late 13th Century. This family descended to the de Ferrers and Grays. The main Nether Whitacre family at some point adopted the name de Whitacre which became Whittaker. However the family names from Glascote appear to show that there is someone missing from the chronology and it would appear that either this person or one of their sons went to Essex. They probably inherited property from one of the other FitzRalph families who were fairly numerous in Essex in the 13th and 14th Centuries but start to disappear as a "surname" about the time the name Glascock starts to appear.
There are several examples (including the Whittakers) of this family adopting the name of one of their estates as a surname and it would have been common when someone moved away from home to identify themselves from where they were born. The earliest known use of Glascote in a name but said not to have been a surname is in 1198 when someone was calling themselves de Glasscote. It seems likely that someone then was called FitzRalph or FitzWilliam de Glasscote. De Bretts gives the first known Glascock as Walter de Glascote in the 14th Century. However Staffordshire Plea Rolls mentions a Henry de Glascote holding an acre of land in Brompleye in Staffordshire in 1276 which is at least 20 years before Isabel held Glascote.
Much of this is speculation and actual records are very scarce but much of it would explain why a good few members of a seemingly unimportant family managed to make good marriages with important families, held important posts and were wealthy landowners. It is also impossible to know for certain how they got from Staffordshire to Essex. Anyone interested in the Essex Glascocks should go to the Essex County Archives http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk This is a huge searchable database with hundreds of records on the Glascocks in all the various spellings going back to the 1300s. Includes deeds details, will details and even jpegs of actual wills.
One thing becomes very clear from these records. There were two distinct classes of Glascocks. There was the wealthy landowning one who were constables, held their own manorial courts, were MPs, lawyers, Government officials, jurors etc and poor families that were tradesmen, servants and farmers. There are countless court records of members of these families in court for; running ilegal drinking and gambling dens and even the odd brothel, theft, murder, rape and mob rule with culprits branded, executed, dying in prison or being transported. It is quite possible that Thomas Glascock who went to VA was a fugitive. There is a record of a Constable being hsuled before a court for allowing a Thomas Glascock to escape custody.....
What is quite clear though is that some of the Glascocks were major property speculators buying and selling property for what would have been considerable sums of money back then. There seems to have been two main periods. The first came with Henry VIII and the dissolution of the Monastries and the family connection with the Bassett Bishops Of London. Henry set up three courts to hand out the various former church lands and also a court to manage the property of Wards Of The Crown. The members of these courts seem to have distributed a considerable ammount of the property amongst themselves and freinds and family. One Glascock was in fact a member of the Ward Court and the same person may also have been the assesor for the late Earl Of Oxford's estate when he left a Minor heir. During this period Castle Hedingham (whether the castle or manor is not clear) and the Dukes of Norfolk's Lambeth (London) estates seem to have passed through their hands. It also seem it is then that High Easter Parsonage and Tithes came into the family through the Sorrels. The second phase came with the English Civil War when they as usual picked the correct side with the family including one Baronet (the Sir Charles mentioned in Pepys Diary) and two MPs. They seem to have been given then sold on several Royalist estates and with at least one (Brizes in Kelveden Hatch)they gave the Royalist owner a large mortgage on the estate to allow him to pay a large fine. The money was never repaid and they seized the estate. They may have demolished the original house and built the one which is still standing but it is unclear whether they ever lived in it. It seems that they retained the freehold and leased it to various other families.
While clearly many American Glascocks came from Essex it is more than likely that the Glascocks who owned Indian Banks were in fact Glasgows from Ayrshire in Scotland. There is a record of a Dr Robertson visiting them at Indian Banks and describing them as Scotch. It is also said that this Dr Robertson married a Glascock girl. It is known that a Robertson married the heiress of Glasgow Of Mountgreenan in Kilwinning, Ayrshire and that Glasgow was a major Glasgow tobacco lord who built Mountgreenan when he returned from abroad. There was also a George Glasgow, possibly his brother who owned the nearby Nethermains estate in Kilwinning who may have been the Glascock of Indian Banks. It would make sense as Indian Banks was a major collection and shipping point for tobacco and seems to have also had stores. The Scottish tobacco lords more or less controlled the buying and shipping of the tobacco and the stores that sold the plantation owners everything they needed.
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:
|
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/glascock/messages/124.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|