Genealogy Report: Descendants of Robert Jennens of Birmingham, England (Report 12-31-01)
Descendants of Robert Jennens of Birmingham, England(Report 12-31-01)
1.ROBERT1 JENNENS1 was born 1500 in Birmingham, England, and died 1618 in Shottle, D., England.He married ELLEN BEARD WFT Est. 1501-1557.She was born 1513 in Birmingham, England.
Notes for ROBERT JENNENS:
From "Maternal Ancestors of Sidney Lanier" by John M. Harrison and Aubrey Starke (Genealogical-Library at Genealogy.com) 8-1-01 Compiled by Francis X Sis Sr.
MATERNAL ANCESTORS OF SIDNEY LANIER
(Concluded)
_________
By John M. Harrison and Aubrey Starke
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JENNINGS
The decent of John Robertson's wife, Sarah Jenningss, can be traced through more generations than that of any other family o Lanier's lineage, chiefly as the result of investigations made in connection with prolonged litigation over the so-called "Jennings Estate".It is ofcourse for the same reason that the family name is the one ancestral name on the maternal side mentioned in Sidney Lanier's published works. 28
I. Robert Jennens, a favorite of Henry VIII, was appointed game warden at Shottle, near Duffield in Derbyshire.He is buried in Derbyshire churchyard.He married Ellen Beard, by whom a son,
II. William, of Mobourne Hill, who moved to Birmingham, where he died December 6, 1602.Both he and his wife Joanna Elliott (d. December 10, 1621) are buried in St. Martins Church, Birmingham.There son was
III. John Jennens (1579-1653), the great Birmingham ironmaster, owner of Aston Hall.This manor house (built by Sir Thomas Holte in 1618-35) has been preserved as a museum since 1864.It is the original of Washington Irving's "Bracebridge Hall".John Jennens of Warwickshire was perhaps closely related to the Sir John Jennens of Hertfordshire (knighted 1603) who was grandfather of the first duchess of Marlborough.He married first, Mary ________, second, Joyce Werner (or Wearner). 29
IV.Humphrey Jennens, son of John Jennens, was born in Warwickshire, August 23, 1629.He was owner of Erdington Hall, and of the manor of Nether Whiteacre, Warwickshire, the manor house of which is still standing, surrounded by a moat and three small square forts, with bridge and gate of the Tudor period.He married, 1659, Mary Milward ( 1637-1708), by whom he had ten children whose individual histories are of importance in Jennings estate litigation.
Robert Jennens (1671-1725), the third son, is said to have been an aide-de-camp to the first Duke of Marlborough.He married, 1700, Ann, daughter and heir to Carew Guidotte (she d. 1761), by whom one son, William Jennens or Jennings, of Action Place, Suffolk (1701-1798), to whom King William stood as godfather.This William was the mister who, dying unmarried and intestate, left an enormous estate which been made the concern of English courts as recently as 1933.
In the settlement of the estate the heir-at-law (inheritor of the real estate) was declared to be George Augustus William Curzon, a descendant of Robert Jennens' eldest sister Hester.His mother Sophia Charlotte Howe (Baroness Howe and Lady Curzon) took possession in behalf of her second son, Richard William Penn Curzon (1796-1870), who was created first Earl Howe in 1821.Earl Howe was later alleged to have been an illegitimate son of a spinster named Ann Oakes, substituted as the heir-at-law.
The personal property of William Jennings was divided between the living next-of-kin who were William Lygon, first Earl Beauchamp (1747-1816), a grandson of Hester Jennens, and Mary, Lady Andover, a granddaughter of Humphrey Jennens' daughter Ann. 30
The claims of American descendants of William Jennings, uncle of intestate William Jennings, are based on the fact that children of the uncle were alive in America at the time of the intestate's death and should have been considered as next-of-kin with Lady Mary Andover and Earl Beauchamp.Furthermore, if the alleged illegitimacy of the first Earl Howe could be proven, the question of proper disposition of the realty would likewise entitle the American claimants to consideration.The matter is further complicated by the fact that parish church at Nether Whiteacre, eldest son of Humphrey Jennens, died unmarried, willing his real estate and his rights in entailed property to the heirs of his sister Hester. 31
V.In the parish register of Aston Parish, near Birmingham, is the record of baptism, November 10, 1676, of William, youngest son of Humphrey and Mary Milward Jennens.He became a British officer and came to America to fight in the Indian wars.He married, perhaps as a second wife, Mary Pulliam, of Hanover County, in 1720. 32He received three grants of land in Amelia for his services to the colony, established Jenning's Ordinary in what is now Nottoway County, and died there in 1775.He was not, as stated by Mrs. Robertson in The Robertson, Purcell and Related Families, a brother of the famous Sarah Jennings who married John Churchill and became the first Duchess of Marlborough, for she was the daughter of Richard Jennings of Sandridge, near St. Albans, one of the twenty-two sons and daughters of Sir John Jennings, High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1625. 33But Mrs. Robertson probably has authority for her statement that he was buried in full uniform with his sword, that his grave was opened in 1875, and that the military buttons and the sword were found rusted but intact. 33a
William and Mary Pulliam Jennings had ten children, who were also parents of numerous progeny.The American claimants of the Jennings estate, as early as 1850, ran well into the hundreds. 34
VI.William Jennings, Jr., son of the emigrant is said by Mrs. Robertson to have been a captain in the navy during the American Revolution, but he is probably not to be identified with the William Jennings whose record is given by Burgess. 35He is said to have been born at Jennings Ordinary, at the tavern kept by his father, which is still standing. 36He lived part of his married life in Virginia, for his children were married there, but he died in Wilkes County, Georgia, in 1793.His will, dated October 19, 1793, 37 is signed with a mark, probably because of the infirmities of age.His children by his wife Agnes Dickerson, are named in the will:Dickerson, John, William Moody, James, Joseph, Robert, Thomas, Henry, Elizabeth, 38 Sarah, Mary, and Nancy. 39
VII. Sarah Jennings, daughter of William and Agnes Dickerson Jennings, became the wife of John Robertson, the mother of nine children, and the ancestress of a numerous progeny.Two of her descendants who participated in the effort to secure the Jennings estate for American "heirs" long after the estate had been settled and the statute of limitations had become operative, were Mallory W. Robertson and John Archer Robertson, uncles to Mrs. Robert S. Lanier.They played a leading role in the Charlottesville convention of Jennings descendants, May 15-16, 1850.Their brother, James H. Robertson, in 1876, sought to persuade his nephew, Clifford Anderson, to take part in the litigation, intimating that it would likely be handled in England by the distinguished advocate and former Confederate Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin. 40
OfSarah Jennings herself we know nothing.Some Jennings family characteristics she undoubtedly -transmitted to her great-great-grandson, among them perhaps pride offamily and of blood.But it is ironic that her one definable gift to him was his claim to an unrecoverable estate that gave him in his poverty stricken, pain racked last years vain and tantalizing day dreams. 41
More About ROBERT JENNENS:
Burial: Derbyshire churchyard2
Occupation: Abt. 1530, Game-warden at Shottle, near Duffield in Derbyshire.2
More About ROBERT JENNENS and ELLEN BEARD:
Marriage: WFT Est. 1501-1557
Child of ROBERT JENNENS and ELLEN BEARD is:
2. | i. | WILLIAM2 JENNENS, b. 1559, St. Martins Church, Bermingham, England; d. 06 December 1602, St. Martins Church, Birmingham, England. |