William Hemerford, parson of Osmington, Symondsbury [Dorset], Folke [Dorset], canon of Salisbury, belonged somehow to a fairly prominent local family in Somerset and Dorset. He studied at Oxford and received his BA 19 June 1540 and MA 22 March 1541/2 [
Foster, Alumni Oxoniensis, 1500-1714, II:692] and so was likely born 1515-1522. According to the CCED database he held a number of livings: rector of Long Bredy [Dorset] 1556-1559; prebendary of Slape in the cathedral of Salisbury 1560-1582; rector of
Folke [Dorset] 1567-1583; rector of Symondsbury 1572-1584. He was buried 18 October 1583 at Folke. His will dated 23 September 1583, proved 12 October 1583 PCC shows him to have been rich, sociable, charitable, and well connected. It names his sisters
Soper and Compton and his nephews Clavell, Brent, and Thomas Hemerford the Elizabethan martyr executed 12 February 1583/4 at Tyburn. It’s surprising therefore, despite all the evidence, that he and his sisters cannot be securely placed amongst the
Hemerford families of Somerset and Dorset (whose name is spelled variously Hymerford, Hemerford, Hemmerford, etc, all here homogenized to Hemerford).Of these families the Clavells were probably the most substantial, but I cannot find anything in the
Clavell records other than that Thomasin Clavell was William Hemerford’s sister. I have set out what I have been able to find about the Hemerford and Brent families below. At first it seemed as though the Brent connection would be straightforward,
yet there turns out to be a hole in the Brent accounts.
Clues, evidence, or further guidance most welcome!

Scott Swanson
sswanson [at] butler [dot] edu

Here cast into a chart are the brothers and sisters and their children. [Hope I got the spacing right for the list.]

*----- Hemerford
Children:
x. William Hemerford; parson of Folke and Symondsbury; buried 18 October 1583 Folke, Dorset
*will dated 23 September 1583; proved 12 October 1583 PCC [PROB 11/66/31] x. ----- Hemerford
Children:
x. Thomas Hemerford; martyr; executed 12 February 1583/4 Tyburn
x. Mary Hemerford; married -----: ----- Soper [Sooper]
x. [ ] Hemerford; married -----: ----- Compton
x. Thomasine Hemerford; married -----: John Clavell
Children:
x. (Mr) John Clavell
x. Richard Clavell
x. [ ] Hemerford; married -----: ----- Brent
?? Grace?? her sons Stephen and Giles named daughters Grace
Children:
x. Stephen Brent of Dorchester
*will dated 31 May 1580; proved 31 October 1580 PCC; [PROB 11/62/448]
*Stephen Brent married -----: Margaret Hole; daughter of Christopher Hole
x. John Brent
x. Giles Brent of Honesbrooke, Wimborne Minster, Dorset
*will dated 3 June 12 James I [1614]; proved 4 March 1614/5 PCC [Grey 109]
*Giles Brent married -----: Anne -----

2. Hemerford families

a) Folke, Dorset

At first it seemed likely, since William Hemerford held the parsonage of Folke, that this family might well be the children of Henry Hemerford of Folke, Dorset. There are three Hemerford burials in Folke: 1) Henry Hemerford; buried 19 March 1546/7 Folke,
Dorset; 2) Robert Hemerford; buried 16 May 1547 Folke, Dorset; 3) William Hemmerford; buried 18 October 1583 Folke, Dorset. Henry was Robert’s father but he was clearly not William’s father. Robert’s IPM identifies his heirs as his sisters Anne/
Avice widow of John Bayley and Ellen Mollens/Mullens/Moleyns.

At best the family could be the children of Henry Hemerford’s brother if there was one.

National Archives E 150/937/6 and National Archives WARD 7/3/110 [= folio not item number] are inquisitions post mortem pertaining to this family.

b) East Coker, Somerset

There is a 1500 PCC will of John Hemerford of East Coker, Somerset. on the border with Dorset, who names only his wife Joan.

C. H. Mayo, “The Social Status of the Clergy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, The English Historical Review 37 no 146 (April 1922): 258-266 at 261, writes without evidence that William Hemerford, rector of Folke, belonged to a family
seated at East Coker.

John Batten, Historical and Topographical Collections Relating to the Early History of Parts of South Somerset..... (Yeovil: Whitby and Son, and London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1894): 170,
notes that his family too ended in heiresses: “There is little doubt that this John Hymerford was the ‘John Hymerford of East Coker’ whose will, dated 12th November, 1500, was proved at Canterbury 14th February following. By it he desires to be
buried in East Coker parish church, ....., he gives all the residue of his goods to his wife Joan. Although he does not mention his children, it may be assumed that his son and heir was William Hymerford, who succeeded to Waynesland, subject apparently,
to his mother’s jointure. With him the male line of the Hymerfords of Coker became extinct, and his estate was divided between his two daughters, Margaret and Joan, and on the marriage of Joan with John Hambridge, son of William Hambridge above
mentioned, he settled all his lands in East Coker, North Coker, and Waynys, by deed dated January 16, 1529, on her and the issue of the marriage.

National Archives E 150/932/1, inquisition post mortem for Dorset, dated 28 October 1543, pertains to this family and notes an indenture dated 16 January 1528/9 noting the marriage between William Hemerford’s daughter Margaret and William Vowell and
William Hemerford’s daughter Joan and William Hambridge; it states that his son and heir was Andrew Hemerford, age 9, who apparently did not live as the estate at East Coker came to be held by William and Joan Hambridge. William Hemerford died 24
August 1542

National Archives E 150/931/7, inquisition post mortem for Somerset, dated 25 November 1541, and National Archives WARD 7/1/46 = no112, dated 28 October 1543, give much the same information

c) escheator network?

There appear to be a number of people with these surnames who served as royal escheators in Somerset and Devon. [Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (1849): 175-176: pp. 73, 175, 176, 178, 184] Since there were family networks that
staffed, say, the Exchequer, possibly there was a family network that staffed this escheatorship by rotation?

1) Henry Hemerford 3-4 Henry VIII [1511-1513]; presumably Henry Hemerford of Folke, Dorset
2) Humphrey Hemerford 18-19 Henry VIII [1526-1528]; again 24 Henry VIII [1532-1533]; otherwise unattested in the records
3) John Soper of Taunton; IPM 1 Elizabeth [1558-1559]
4) Stephen Brent, esquire; 11 Elizabeth [1568-1569]; nephew of William Hemerford

d)

Peter Hemerford and his wife or mother Elizabeth Hemerford of Dorset; extant 1540/1

F. W. Weaver, Somerset Medieval Wills (third series) 1531-1558 [Somerset Record Society 21] (1905); [page 63][no. 1540]: Thomas Tynbery of Mynchyn Buckland; burial Saint Nicholas Durston before the west door; Alexander Popham, John Bulcomb, clerk, vicar
of North Petherton, my son William Halley, and James Muckley, clerk, have the occupation of my farm of Halamp Court in the county of Dorset and my sheep there with which to pay the debts which I owe to Peter Hymmerforde, Elizabeth Hymmerford, and Henry
Totehill; 6 October 1540; proved 3 February 1540/1

Possibly the same Peter and his wife Ellen:

Lists and indexes 54: 228
Peter Hymmerford and his wife Ellen, executrix and late the wife of Thomas son of Philip ap Price, vs William Uttermere, husband of Elizabeth, executrix and late the wife of the said Philip ap Price; profits of a messuage, garden, and orchard in North
Curry held of the dean and chapter of Wells, and of a bargain of sheep; Somerset [= National Archives C 1/1230/90-92 [1544-1551]

e) earlier Hemerfords

There are inquisitions post mortem for William Hymerford of Dorset [1511-1512] [National Archives C 142/68/58] and John Hymerford of Somerset [1512-1513] [National Archives C/142/2/140 + E/1590/900/5] which I have not seen

Andrew Hemerford, esquire, married 25 August 1572 Bishop’s Hull, Somerset: Agnes Farwell

3. Brent families

The standard account of the family which contains William Hemerford’s three nephews contains a serious problem.

John Collinson, History and Antiquities of the county of Somerset, 3 volumes (Bath: R. Cruttwell: 1791) 3:436: offers an account of the Brent family of Cossington, Somerset; picking up in mid-stream:

“The eldest son of this John Brent was called Robert, and married Margaret, daughter of Hugh Malet, of Currypool, by whom he had another John, who added to his estate the manors of Godwin’s-Bower and West-Bagborough, which he purchased of Thomas
Godwyn, as also (from his wife Maud, the daughter and coheir of Sir Walter Pauncefoot) the manor of Compton-Paunceford, and Paunceford-Hill, all which descended to William Brent, their eldest son, under age.”

“The manor of Cossington, with Ford, and part of Godwin’s-Bower, was purchased by John Brent the heir male of the family, viz. son of Stephen, son of John, second son of John Brent and Maud Pauncefoot. Which John, by that marriage was an officer
under William Warham archbishop of Canterbury, and afterwards under the treasurer of Calais. It appears by papers found at Cossington, that, upon the dissolution of the religious houses, he was employed by the commissioners to take account of the lands
and muniments of such of them as were within this county, particularly of the abbey of Clive, to which he seems to have been steward. This John was twice married; his first wife was a daughter and coheir of Thomas Godwyn; his second was Mary,
granddaughter and sole heir of Thomas Culpeper, of the city of London. He died in 1557, and was buried at Bexley in the county of Kent. Stephen Brent, son of this John, was a lawyer, and lived at Dorchester, in a house that was his mother’s in whose
right he had several other lands in that county and in Kent, all which were sold by his son John, upon his purchase of this manor of Cossington, an estate in which he seems to have taken great delight.”

It is unclear to me whether Collinson is possibly conflating John Brent with another John Brent of the Brent family of Kent which bore the same arms as the Somerset family.

A series of articles by W. B. Chilton in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1905-1910, repeats Collinson’s passage.

Frederic William Weaver (ed), The Visitations of the County of Somerset in the Years 1531 and 1573, together with Additional Pedigrees, chiefly from the Visitation of 1591 (Exeter: W. Pollard: 1885): 96: gives a pedigree of Brent of Cossington citing
Collinson III.434 in which appear Stephen, Giles, and John, whose father’s name [John] is given in brackets.

As against these authorities, the 1524 will of John Brent of Cossington, who married Maud Pauncefoot, names his sons William and Richard. No John. Nor would the two wives Collinson assigns to that putative son John, the daughter of Thomas Godwin and
Mary granddaughter of Thomas Culpeper of London have a brother William Hemerford.

An abstract of John Brent’s 1524 will is printed in Frederick Arthur Crisp, Abstracts of Somersetshire Wills (1887)
link: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Abstracts_of_Somersetshire_Wills_Etc/JyYVAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=abstract

Collinson’s remarks about Stephen Brent suggest that he was drawn to Dorset by his mother’s holdings, yet I have been unable so far to find any records which associate Stephen Brent with his mother.

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