OF THE

Parish of Thorington

IN THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK,

WITH

NOTES OF THE DIFFERENT ACTS OF PARLIAMENT REFERRING

TO THEM,

AND

NOTICES OF THE BENCE FAMILY, WITH PEDIGREE,

AND OTHER FAMILIES WHOSE NAMES APPEAR THEREIN.

EDITED BY

THOMAS S. HILL, B.C.L., M.A.,

RECTOR OF THORINGTON.

LONDON:

MITCHELL AND HUGHES, 140 WARDOUR STREET, W.
1884.

PREFACE.

IN editing these Registers I have added such items of information as I could gather relating to the families of those whose names occur therein, and also regarding the different Acts of Parliament by which entries in Registers have been affected, so as to give the book more historical interest. One of the chief motives that induced me to undertake the task of putting the Registers into print was a desire that the inhabitants of the parish should be able, if they wished, to feel more personal interest in it and the families that have resided here. In these days people very easily forget that the same work has been going on, the same houses occupied, the same relative duties fulfilled by former generations, who were of just as much importance and as necessary to fulfil them as those who are fulfilling them now.

By the kindness of the Bence Family I give a very full statement of their pedigree. They have been an influential family in this neighbourhood for more than three hundred years, dating their recorded history from the time when they were the most important of the inhabitants of Aldborough, and have held the chief portion of the property in this parish since 1691, when they bought the estate of the Coke Family, who were the previous owners. In that portion of their pedigree relating to the Rev. Thomas Bence, Rector of Kelsale-cum-Carlton, who died 1757, the descendants of Catherine, who married Gabriel Trusson, and whose daughter Catherine married Anthony Collet, are represented now by the Rev. Anthony Collett, Rector of Hastingleigh in Kent.

I am able also, by the kindness of F. A. Crisp, Esq., to give a photo-lithographic copy of an old engraving of Thorington Church, copied from a volume of drawings of Suffolk Churches made by Isaac Johnson of Woodbridge between 1793 and 1816.

I thought it of interest also to give the names of the Rectors of the parish, and, as I have stated elsewhere, Dr. Bensly, the Diocesan Registrar, has enabled me, at much inconvenience and trouble to himself, to give a complete list of all the Rectors from December 1331, the date of the first recorded institution, to the present day, by which I learn that

I am the fifty-third recorded Rector in direct succession from the institution of Jo'es Fowas de Donewyco. The Priory of Blythburgh held the patronage of the church and rectory before this date, as in their charter, dated in the last year of Richard I., the gift of the advowson and of land in the parish to the Priory by William, son of Walter de Sadenfield is referred to. I have, however, in my possession an old Chartulary of the Priory in which this gift is mentioned as having been made by Galfride de Beletone, and afterward confirmed by William de Sadenfield. Fourteen pages of this Chartulary relate to Thorington, and a copy of the first page, which contains the record of this gift of Galfride de Beletone, I have had taken by photo-lithographic process by Mr. Griggs of Peckham, and have added it to this book. The Historical Manuscripts Commission of the Rolls House have examined this Chartulary, and will give a notice of it in the Report they present to Parliament next year. The Rectors from the date of this gift to the institution of Jo'es Fowas are not recorded in the books of the Diocesan Registry, and, as the tower and walls of the body of the church are of Early Norman date, it seems tolerably certain that the fabric has been in existence at least since 1130, so that two hundred years of the early ecclesiastical history of the parish leave no traces of the Rectors that officiated here.

The Registers of this parish are not the only Suffolk Registers that are published. Those of Tannington and Ellough have already been printed, and those of Brundish and Carlton (by Kelsale) are in the printers' hands, and I think that increased interest in the past history of our parishes would be encouraged by a wider publication of these records. I have added an Appendix of names entered since 1882, for I have taken longer time in publishing the book than I anticipated, and the type, after a sufficient number of copies had been printed, was broken up. I have brought the entries down to the latest possible date.

THOMAS S. HILL.

THORINGTON RECTORY,

October 1884.