Mr Pennoyer's Gift

Mary Squire's Almshouses

Mr Pennoyer's Gift

This is the eighth post in my series reporting my research into Mary Squire's Almshouses in Walthamstow, London, formerly in the county of Essex; and of Mary Squire herself.

This post relates to a charity mentioned in the apprenticeship indenture for Thomas Squire, Mary's brother-in-law. Mr Pennoyer's Gift enabled him to apprentice to a wheelwright.

Here is the excerpt quoting the charity, repeating the charity name enlarged underneath:

I am pleased to say that I finally found information on this.  I got lucky in finding a book at the British Library (I thank them for letting me have a Reader's Pass. Couldn't do the research without the Library).


The book is:

Pennoyer Brothers - Colonization, Commerce, Charity in the Seventeenth Century

by Raymond H. Lounsbury. Dorrance & Company Philadelphia © 1971 - Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America (Ref: X.529/16666)

William Pennoyer Esq. Citizen and Clothworker was a wealthy and powerful merchant. His will dated 1670 is lengthy ("Seaventeene sheets of paper and this peece of a sheete") and very convoluted.  I don't think I'm able to make much sense of it but it is quoted, apparently in full, in this book if you wish to look at it yourself.

His five children had died in infancy and, in amongst a great many other legacies, he left money to charitable purposes of several kinds.  From my first read of this book, I remembered that he had left money for the educating of young men, but I thought this related to university education and not apprenticing into trade.

The silly thing is that I can now no longer find this.  I am not inclined to revisit the issue I am afraid.

What did leave a lasting impression is that an unholy mess seems to have broken out in administering the will.  Mr Pennoyer had named a large number of trustees and also overseers but from the Lounsbury book's account the trustees did not do a good job.  They didn't involve themselves in the appointed tasks of will executors and left the paying out to legatees to the named servant.  He in turn did make many payments, but then he died before everyone had been paid.

Then there was trouble and strife of William's brother, Robert Pennoyer, disagreeing with a lesser amount being paid out to him, someone else started a law suit but then died before it was decided, an overseer seems to have enriched himself with money he paid to himself for his expenses and for tasks carried out - and several properties did not bring in much rent money due to heavy repairs... I am not quite sure whate else went wrong.

Suffice to say that it seems pure luck for any money to have gone to charity at all.

Page 237 of the book does state: "...he distinguished himself by making bequests to be used solely for financing the education of children of impoverished parents", this however in context of a legacy to the heirs of his brother Robert based in New England.  Harvard is being mentioned.

The book does refer to Mr Pennoyer's Gift quite often - this is the exact phrase used in Thomas's indenture which can't be a coincidence.  Perhaps the financial situation by 1743 had improved, or the later trustees did a better job.  Mr Pennoyer's will also refers to one draper so he may have had business relationships and friendships with people from the company of drapers but that's neither here nor there for their role so many years later.  1743 is 73 years after 1670.  Why would the Company of Drapers have been involved in paying £50 of Mr Pennoyer's Gift for Thomas to be apprenticed?

In conclusion I can't say if this is the relevant charity only that it seems likely due to its name.  Perhaps there are other accounts out there that may shed more light, I am just pleased that I found a book that says anything at all about it.


If you are wondering why I am writing about Mary Squire's Almshouses then have a look at this first blog post.

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Thomas Squire's apprenticeship

Mary Squire's Almshouses

This is the seventh post in my series reporting my research of Mary Squire's Almshouses in Walthamstow, London, formerly in the county of Essex (the Squire's Almshouses); and of Mary Squire herself.

I believe that the Squire siblings moved away from Walthamstow after their parents died in 1742 and 1744.  In terms of their occupations, William named himself a boxmaker in his 1763 will and I found the original apprenticeship indenture for Thomas.

Again this is incredibly exciting - I believe that not all that many of these parchment apprenticeship certificates survived.

The certificate reads, in part:

This indenture witnesseth that Thomas Squire Son of William Squire late of Walthamstow in the County of Essex Farmer dec'd

doth put himself Apprentice to William Hatch Citizen and Wheelwright of London, to learn his Art...
... serve for seven years...
And the said Master (in consideration of Fifty Pounds of Mr. Pennoyer's Gift paid by the Worship[ful] Comp[any] of Drapers being the money given with said Apprentice). [etc]

2 August 1743

The reference of the apprenticeship records at LMA containing Thomas's indenture is:
X109/005 - 1734-1752
The letter 'S' against Thomas's name in the index stands for 'servitude' and means he served an apprenticeship.  Other references were 'P' for patrimony, when someone could apprentice because their father was a member of a worshipful company, and also 'R' but  unfortunately I can't think what this stands for (could it be renumeration?).

This date confirms that the burial record dated 14 May 1742 is most likely that of Thomas and William's father, and not of Thomas's brother William (which would scupper the idea that William was Mary's husband. So phew!).

1743 was the year after William Sr died, and one year before Elizabeth Squire died - so I feel that this was likely the mother's burial and not that of their sister.

Starting an apprenticeship meant that Thomas moved away from Walthamstow to likely live with William Hatch and his family to carry out the seven years' contract.  I know from the apprenticeship indenture of Thomas's own son that Thomas did become a wheelwright.

I found out a little more about apprenticeships.  Boys, and some girls too, would commit themselves (or I should say their fathers committed them) to serving an apprenticeship of seven years under a master or mistress.  This was the normal, standard length of time.

Some apprentices had a really bad rep: they would go drinking and carousing and form street gangs that made a nuisance of themselves and could even be dangerous.  I suspect that the vast majority of apprentices were nothing of the sort.  I may write more about 18th Century apprenticeships at some future point but this post is already long enough, so I won't add to it just now.

An apprenticeship could also be quite a harsh regime, depending on the master.  Some apprentices were horribly exploited and abused.  Most would probably have experienced a more middle of the road apprenticeship.  I hope Thomas did.


The last point of interest of this apprenticeship indenture is where the money came from: apparently not from the Squire family (did their father's death leave them in financial straits?) but the Company of Drapers seems to have procured a charity payment from something called Mr Pennoyer's Gift.
I found out more about that, and (think that I) learnt a context that makes it even stranger that Thomas would have had help from this quarter - more about that in another post.

© Company of Drapers

I must say that I don't understand why the Company of Drapers got involved (it is lucky for Thomas that they did. Who helped him by putting the Squire family in touch with the drapers?  Was someone at the Company of Drapers a mentor for young Thomas?). Thomas's son William did an apprenticeship to become a haberdasher, which is a lot closer to what drapers did (wool and cloth merchants) - but a wheelwright?  Maybe this is just the apprenticeship they could find for him, maybe it was just luck of the draw.  I must emphasise that I have not found out who helped Thomas get the charity payment, and unfortunately I am unable to answer any of the other questions that occurred to me.  Such a shame.

Most apprentices would start their apprenticeship at 14, I reckon that Thomas was 15 and a half, a bit late in starting.  Was this because of possible financial problems at home?  Where was his older brother William at this time?  William would have been 18 in 1742 at the time of his father's death and 20 when his mother died.  Was there no farm to inherit from his father?  Did he perhaps not want to work as a farmer, or did they lose the farm without their father around because William Sr may have been a tenant farmer?

The late apprenticeship start by Thomas could point towards them giving up farm life in 1743 or 1744 when their mother died.  I have the feeling that this is when William moved to the city - but I have not been able to find an apprenticeship record for him to become the boxmaker his will names him to be in 1763.


If you are wondering why I am writing about Mary Squire's Almshouses then have a look at this first blog post.

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Mary Squire - discovering her will

Mary Squire's Almshouses

This is the fourth post in my series reporting my research into Mary Squire's Almshouses in Walthamstow, London, formerly in the county of Essex; and Mary Squire herself. Official name: The Squire's Almshouses.


I queried the online catalogue of the National Archives in Kew and found a few Mary Squire wills, and one for 1797 that turned out to be the right one.  This was incredibly lucky but then the conditions were right for it to be included (let me know if you want to know more about these conditions).

I paid to initially download the transcript of Mary's will from the National Archives website.  It was very exciting when I could tell that I had found the correct will: it mentions the almshouses in Walthamstow! This was really tremendous and deeply satisfying.  So often you'll find an interesting record but there is no way to be sure that it is the right one.  I copied out the whole text in my previous blog post here.

I had gone wrong before I found the right will because I looked at a will of a Mary Squire in Bedford.  Please don't ask me why I thought that the first Mary Squire will I found could be the right one?  In my defence I can merely say that I literally only just started the research a few days earlier. Very much a novice researcher.  Ahem.  I learned at least this much since then: don't assume.

I am thinking of writing a separate post on the red herrings that I went after, each for a while. It might be amusing and might also help someone who is doing their own research.
The up-the-wrong-garden-path post would show Clerkenwell, King George the III's map collection, a different Mary Squire and husband in the Oxford Street and Kensington area (including a magazine subscription!), some Parrotts and their wills, and a Carter or two. But that's for then, this is now.

The download was of a clerk's transcript - all wills were rewritten in these big ole' ledgers that must be massive: you only get to download/print whatever pages you want, but you don't get access to these ledgers. These have a different code [PROB 11] than the actual original wills [PROB 10 - bundled by first letter of last name].  If you get someone telling you that you CANNOT look at the original then do make sure that whoever you are talking to isn't thinking of the ledgers. You can indeed see the original will if it is at TNA - quote the PROB 10 code reference to try and break through the misunderstanding.

It happened to me and this lady kept arguing with me (I had already seen the will once!). It took me ages to clear up that we were at cross purposes, and her reaction in the end was of being rather miffed that I hadn't been clearer. I guess you get to meet all sorts of people.

Page 1 of Mary Squire's original will

The big reason why I wanted to see her original will, and this justified why I needed to see it, was to see and photograph* Mary's original signature.  That cannot be seen by looking at the transcripts, so I got to handle her actual, real-life will. Wow. I found this really moving and so very thrilling! This is the document that Mary herself handled in 1797!  And that's 220 years ago this year.

The map room is very strict about what they let you walk in with (and obviously that what you walk out with), the security person will let you know. There are more lockers at this level so you don't have to run all the way back downstairs to the main lockers.  Staff there will tell you what you need to do and look out for, and what you can't do.

I must also say that I only realised in the last few weeks how fortunate I was that I found Mary Squire's original will at all and at the National Archives, London. Not all original wills can be found there, many original wills were returned to the executors by the court.  These original wills do not have individual reference numbers, they are bundled by the first letter of the last name. I am extremely lucky that the 'S' bundle yielded her original will!

I was incredibly excited to see her signature and take a photo of it. Here's where a thinking error slipped in that hindered me for a while: I wasn't sure how many people were educated enough to be able to read and write, and do things like sign official documents. I had seen marriage registers that carried a big X mark, but not all that many.

Mary's signature was quite wobbly in the two down strokes: the 'y' of Mary and also the 'q' of Squire.  It didn't look like the signature of someone who was much used to signing her name - I even wondered if she needed to write much in her daily life.  But to think that the wobbliness was related to her level of education was a logical misstep. It made me look for signatures in parish registers where the bride signed her name just as unevenly as she did in 1797.

Wrong. At least I think so. I still need to figure out if I now know her age in 1797, I think she was in her sixties or seventies - she could have easily had a mild stroke or arthritis which made it difficult for her to write evenly.

It is a shame I committed to this assumption at the time, what would turn out to be the beginning of three years looking for the parish register entry of her marriage!  

When I decided to research her I wanted to know all kinds of things about her, where she was born, how old she got, how old she was when she married and where she came from. For that I needed her maiden name which I would only know once I found her marriage record.  And that turned out to be rather difficult and made me spend three years on this project.

I now think that I had come across the right record, I just didn't recognise it at the time. I was still missing the vital bit of information that allows me to identify it now.  More about that later!

My next blog post will be about what I discovered in the parish registers about her husband's family when going to the local Walthamstow archive in the beautiful Vestry House Museum.

*: I am very sorry, my photos of the original will are fuzzy.  I didn't know how to use the macro function properly. This is why I want to go back and revisit this, hopefully a bit later this year.


Research tip:  look at the research guides on the National Archive website. There is a lot of information there that may help you narrow things down, and inform your decision about whether you need to go visit the archive in person.


If you are wondering why I am researching and writing about Mary Squire's Almshouses then take a look at this first blog post.

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