Richard was the younger of the two sons born to Richard Gwinnett and his wife, Mary, neé Estcourt. He was baptised at Badgeworth Church on 4th March 1599/1600. He grew up at the Crippetts and was only 15 years old when his father died, leaving him and his older brother, George, as Wards of the King.
In Richard senior’s will, young Richard was left a house and land in Great Shurdington or, if his older brother George wanted to keep the property, Richard was to receive £300 instead. He also received £100 direct from his father. The way it was worded, the will seemed to imply that George and his brother might not be the best of friends – or perhaps the father just wanted the Gwinnett estate to be kept together.
As it was, young Richard did quite well for himself. On 11th October 1625, Richard Gwinnett, junior, married Mary Newton (or Newinton) in Wormington Church. Mary was the only daughter and sole heir of John Newington who, as Lord of the Manor of Wormington, had died in 1625 leaving the Manor to her. Richard presumably took over the Lordship when they married, as was the normal practice then. But the marriage wasn’t to last very long.
In the following eight years, Richard and Mary had four children, namely, Richard, George, John and Mary. Due to the state of the Wormington parish registers and bishops’ transcripts, the only baptism found was that for John. He was baptised in the parish church on 12th March 1629.
Sadly, Mary Gwinnett became a widow in 1633 when Richard died ‘sick in body’. It is not known exactly when he died or when he was buried; it was, presumably, in Wormington. From his will, we know that he was still alive on 10th July 1633 and that his wife, Mary, was pregnant at the time. She gave birth to a daughter, and named her Mary, after her mother.
Very little is known of the four children of Richard and Mary. The eldest son, Richard, much like his father, only lived into his thirties, dying at 35 years old, in 1661. This implies a birth in 1625/6 which would have been in the first year of the parents’ marriage. He was left a legacy of £50 by his grandmother, Mary Gwinnett nee Estcourt in 1638; at that time he was under 21 years of age. According to the Heralds’ Visitation of 1682, Richard junior died unmarried, aged about 40 years and had no descendants.
His brother, George, born about 1628, lived to a grand old age of 80. George also received a legacy of £50 from his grandmother in 1638. He married late in life, on 13th October 1679, at the approximate age of fifty, to a lady called Joan Eddy. The marriage took place at Lydney St Mary’s Church. Joan’s birth date is not known, the earliest records for Lydney parish being in 1661. The couple lived in Lydney and both died within a few months of each other in 1708, Joan dying first, being buried on 25th April, and George following on 4th October.
Reference: Gloucestershire Archives, P209 IN 1/1
George and Joan had no children to leave their assets to, so George did not make a written will but, when he was dying, he spoke his bequests in a nuncupative will, leaving everything to his sister-in-law, Sarah Bubb and her daughter, Sarah Crump. There is obviously some connection between George’s wife, Joan Eddy, and his young sister, Mary, as she became Mrs Thomas Crump. No record of her marriage has been found. In 1682/3, George was the churchwarden at Sy. Mary’s Church in Lydney.
Next, we come to John. Although he was the third son, he seems to have inherited the most from his father. John was left ‘my house in Tewxbury’ and ‘my tenement in Witcombe’, when he reached the age of 21 years. No information has been found on these properties, though it seems likely that the Witcombe tenement was the one left to his father, Richard, by his grandfather. According to the Heralds’ Visitation of Gloucestershire for 1682, John died, young, at sea and unmarried. He was not mentioned in the will of his grandmother, Mary’s, dated 1638. No more information has been found.
Finally, Mary was the child born posthumously to Mary Gwinnett neé Newton. This would have been in 1634 or early 1635. Mary was left a legacy of £20 when her grandmother died. According to the will of her brother, George, young Mary married Thomas Crump but, as this would have been during the Commonwealth period, when the use of parish registers ceased, no record has been found. Nor have any records been found of any births to the couple but there are two burials for possible daughters, both called Mary after their mother, which appear to relate to Thomas and Mary Crump.
The first burial was on 1st January 1671 in St. Mary’s Abbey church in Tewkesbury, described as Mary, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Crump. As Mary Crump’s father had owned a house in Tewkesbury which was left to the son called John, it is feasible that Thomas and Mary could have been living in the town.
The second burial is to be found in the Lydney parish registers. It is dated January 13th 1682/3 and records the passing of Mary, daughter of Mary Crump, widow. I may be wrong, but I suspect that Thomas Crump died sometime before 1682 and his widow, Mary, moved to live in Lydney either with or near to her only surviving relative, her brother, George.
So, what happened to Mary Gwinnett neé Newton after her husband died in 1633, leaving her with four young children? She would only have been in her thirties, a young age for a widowed woman to live on her own. Well, it seems that Mary Gwinnett neé Newton married again. The marriage itself has not been found but, when Mary died about 1649, she left a will which proved that she had married a Mr Browne-John (sometimes Brownejohn) who lived in East Woodhay in Hampshire. It is believed that he was called Henry but that has not been confirmed.
The marriage produced two children, Henry and Sarah. In the will, Mary recorded her four children, Richard, George, John and Mary Gwinnett, by her first husband and her two children Henry and Sarah Brownejohn by her second husband. Sometime after the birth of the two children, Mary lost her second husband. Finally, she died and was buried in East Woodhay between 18th December 1648 when she wrote her will and 12th October 1650 when it was proved.