5
Alan March’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back many generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Alan’s as (1)
WILLIAM SMITH and ANN (13)
WILLIAM SMITH was the fifth of the six children of Robert Smith and Mary Johnson of Westerham.
Baptisms. St Mary the Virgin, Westerham.
1638 Dec 2 William the sonn of Robert and Mary Smith.
Two of these children had died in infancy before William, who was the second of that name, was born. He was the third of the survivors and the younger boy.
Manorial records suggest that his father was perhaps a sawyer, though this is not certain.[1]
Westerham is a village in NW Kent, adjoining the Surrey border on the Kentish Weald. At one point, we find this family at Molehilly field in Force Green. This is north of Westerham village.
William was born just before the Civil War and was eleven when Charles I was executed.
He seems to have become a miller, like his grandfather.
We find him listed as a taxpayer in 1661, shortly after Cromwell’s Republic ended and Charles II took the throne.
It was around this time that William married Ann.
ANN. We have not found a record of their marriage, so we do not know Ann’s surname, or what parish she came from.
Baptisms of their children begin in 1662, so they must have married shortly before this.
They made their home, not in Westerham, but in Brasted, a parish adjoining Westerham to the east.
Baptisms. St Martin, Brasted.
1662 Jun 8 Richard
In 1662 William was a tenant of Lady Dacre.
1664 Nov 20 William
1669 Dec 10 Anne
In 1671 and 1672 William Smith was prosecuted for not coming to church.
In 1672 William appears in a list of taxpayers.
1673 Jul 4 Susan
1677 May 18 John
The following year, Susan was buried on 13 May 1678.
1682 Dec 21 Sarah. Sarah was buried nine days later, on 30 Dec.
In 1681, William Smith, miller of Brasted, was indicted to appear at the Quarter Sessions in Maidstone on a charge of not going to church. Also indicted was Joseph Cole. He was a well-known Baptist, so we assume that William Smith was a Baptist too.
Lionel Cole, researching this family, says that this William Smith was possibly of an older generation, but we have not found a likely alternative. Our William’s grandfather Richard Smith was a miller, and his son became a millwright,
Unlike Joseph Cole, William Smith was not one of the leading Baptists in this area.
The Act of Uniformity of 1558 made it mandatory for everyone to attend their local parish church, with fines for those who failed to do so. This was not repealed until the Act of Toleration in 1689.
William Smith and Joseph Cole may have been attending an illicit Baptist meeting elsewhere. It was probably not in Brasted. The Baptist records for Brasted date only from 1754.
Ann died five years later.
Burial. St Martin, Brasted.
1686 Sep 14 Ann wife of Will Smyth
We have not found William’s burial in Brasted. It is possible that he went back to Westerham to live with one of his children. His burial could then be one of the following:
Burials. St Mary the Virgin, Westerham.
1716 Apr 7 William Smyth
1719 Jul 1 William Smith
[1] For the research into manorial and other records I am indebted to Lionel Cole: https://www.stamboomonderzoek.com/parkhoward/getperson.php?personID=I36398
NEXT GENERATION: 12. SMITH
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: 14. SMITH-JOHNSON