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| Great St Helen's Street, London, EC3 cc-by-sa/2.0 - © David Hallam-Jones - geograph.org.uk/p/3406231 The Grade II-listed 12th century Church of "St Helen's, Bishopsgate" occupies the centre space. This was William Shakespeare's parish church when he lived in the area in the 1590s. |
Augustine Wynnoll (sic) and Elizabeth Knighte (though I suspect the final 'e' is superfluous) - a pair of my 9th great-grandparents - married on 12 May 1634 at St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate - one of only a few churches in the City of London to survive both the Great Fire of 1666 and The Blitz.
Augustine and Elizabeth's five children were all baptised at St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney (and Elizabeth and Rachell buried there).
- Mary Winnall bap. 20 Feb 1634
- Elizabeth Winnall bap. 6 Sep 1637 (buried 24 Feb 1640)
- Amy Winnall bap. 6 Nov 1639
- John Winnall bap. 31 Mar 1642
- Rachell Winnall bap. 19 Oct 1643 (buried 20 Nov 1643)
Their seemingly only son, John Winnall, who was my 8th great-grandfather, therefore, was born in the same year as the start of the English Civil War.
Buried on page 408 of the Calendar of the Quarter Sessions Papers: pt. 1. 1591-1621, is the following item:
If this is the same Augustine Wynnall (and, with the same fairly unusual name, just seven years before the above marriage, I imagine it must be), then several conclusions may be drawn: he appears to have been wanted to appear before the Quarter Sessions for some reason that I have yet to discover; he probably originally hails from Buckland, Gloucestershire and he was a Labourer.
More interestingly, however, is that among the notable burials at St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate is the tomb of Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579), royal agent to King Edward VI (1547–1553) and Queens Mary I (1553–1558) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and founder of the Royal Exchange, whose father, Sir Richard Gresham (1485-1549), Lord Mayor of London, and Member of Parliament, who served as a commissioner under Henry VIII, had both held the manor of Buckland. One imagines, therefore, that Augustine Wynnall had probably been employed by and came to London with their descendants.
Augustine Wynnall was buried, on 2 Feb 1642, at St Dunstan's, Stepney.
