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From: Tim Powys-Lybbe <>
Subject: Re: Bourchier -> Bowker name change? Help !!
Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 11:03:04 +0100

In message <7gbqud$qrc$1@news.ibi.co.za>
"Paul Tanner-Tremaine" <> wrote:

> I have been researching the Bowker family - Miles Bowker who was an 1820
> Settler to South Africa; married Anna Maria Mitford - and came up against a
> possible dead end. However, thanks to the internet and news groups, I found
> a gedcom file with approx 45000 names in it, including a Bourchier tree. I
> have a book, "The Bowkers of Tharfield", published 1952, authors Ivan &
> Raymond Mitford-Barberton, which traces most of the Bowker tree. In that
> book, the authors state that they had read a document indicating that Miles
> Bowker was of direct lineage to the Bourchiers, Earls of Essex, and that he
> had brought the "family silver" and crest to South Africa with him. I also
> understand that the Bowker coat-of-arms is very similar to the Bourchier
> coat-of-arms. I have read that one of the Bourchiers was a signatury to the
> death warrant of one of the English kings. Is it possible that the
> Bourchiers then changed their name to Bowker, to avoid retributions from the
> royalists of the time? If so, where do the two descendant trees below
> actually connect? Or am I on a wild goose chase. I think not, as the name
> Bourchier does appear in the Bowker tree a few times.
>
<snip of the various descents>

I have a copy of the National Trust guide to Beningbrough Hall, nr York,
England. The Bourchiers used to own the Hall and the guide has a
family tree at the end. This tree shows:

(a) That William Bourchier (1559-1584) married Katherine Barrington,
daughter of Sir Thomas Barrington.

(b) They had a son Sir John Bourchier (d.1659) who was a parliamentarian
and regicide.

(c) That the ownership of the estate passed through Sir John's son
Barrington Bourchier and continued in the Bourchier family until the
mid 1750s when the male Bourchier line died out.

The regicide Bourchier would have escaped any punishment because he died
just before the Restoration.

There is absolutely no sign or possibility of the Boruchiers changing
their name.

It may be worth adding that the Barringtons were also a strong
Parliamentarian family. Sir Thomas' great-grandson, Sir John Barrington,
was undoubtedly invited to join in the trial of Charles I but retired
from politics rather than do this.

But Sir Thomas' son Francis married Joan Cromwell, aunt of the Protector
who very definitely did sign the execution warrant.

And is it worth mentioning that politics apart, the first of these Sir
Thomas Barringtons married Winifred Pole, an unfortunate lady who had had
her father, her grandmother, her great-uncle, her great-grandfather all
executed in the Tower by the order of various sovereigns. And her only
brother was undoubtedly imprisoned in the Tower as a boy of around 10
and either died or was also executed there. Might not she have harboured
some bitterness that was passed on to her descendants and relatives?

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe
For a patchwork of bygones: www.southfrm.demon.co.uk

This thread:

• Re: Bourchier -> Bowker name change? Help !! by Tim Powys-Lybbe <>