12. CULMER-SAMSON

Baker Tree

 JOHN CULMER and MARGARET SAMSON (12)

 

JOHN CULMER. Tracing the ancestry of George Culmer, who brough up his family in the Kentish town of Stourmouth in the 17^th century we find the following

Baptisms. St Peter in Thanet.
1615 Aug 13  George Culmer sonne of John Culmer.

Thanet is the NE corner of Kent, divided from the rest by the Wansum channel. St Peter’s was a large parish. The coastal part included what was then the fishing village of Broadstairs. The parish church stood on an eminence some way from the coast.

John Culmer was the son of the yeoman George Culmer of Broadstairs and Alice Gawnte from Ringwould in SE Kent.

The parish register and bishops’ transcripts do not give complete coverage of this period. We learn other names of the children of George and Alice from George Culmer’s will. John is one of these. In a known family of six girls and six boys, John was the sixth child and the second son. His birth date is likely to have been 1573.

John was only seven in 1580, when Kent was rocked by the terrifying Dover Straits Earthquake. It shook buildings as far away as London, and is recorded in Samuel Pepys’ diary. It left two serious cracks down the tower of St Peter’s.

John was about 15 when a different terror approached. The Spanish Armada sailed up the English Channel, intent on invading England. Did John stand on the cliffs at Broadstairs to see them? It must have been a shocking sight, with 167 warships and armed merchant vessels bearing down on them. He must have wondered what would happen to him and his family if they landed. In fact, English fire ships sailed among them and scattered the Armada. Then a gale drove them north around the coast of Britain, where most of them were wrecked, before the remnant could make it back to Spain.In 1585. John’s grandmother, Elizabeth Gawnte of Ringwould, died. She left £18 to be shared amongst George’s children.[1]

John became a yeoman, like his father.

We pick up his story again with his first marriage. He must have moved to the neighbouring parish of St Lawrence in Thanet, now known as Ramsgate. He and his bride were resident there at the time of the wedding.

Marriage. St Lawrence in Thanet.
1594 Oct 3  John Coolmer & Alice Norwood

John was about 21 at the time.

The Norwoods feature frequently in the Culmer records. There seems to be a close connection between the families. The overseers of his father’s will were Robert Norwoode and Richard Norwoode.

Alice was the daughter of Henry Norwood and Adrianne Hewet, baptised in St Lawrence.[2]

Their brief marriage ended in a double tragedy.

Baptism. St Peter in Thanet.
1597/8 Feb 26  Alexander

There are then two burials.
Burials. St Peter in Thanet.
1598 Nov 27  Alexander Culmer
This does not say that Alexander was John Culmer’s son, but there is a later baptism for another son Alexander, so this is probably the case.
1599 Dec 18  Alice wife of John Culmer.

In 1598, John’s father, George Culmer of Broadstairs, died. In his testament, after his debts, funeral expenses and other legacies have been paid, he leaves the rest of his movable goods, cattle (any farm beast) and chattels to be divided among his six sons, at the discretion of his overseers.[3]
He wills that his wife and sons John and Leonard shall keep his house until next Michaelmas, with the upkeep coming from the sale of his movable goods. This suggests that John had been living in the family home, perhaps since Alice’s death.
In his will, George requests that his lands also be divided among his sons.
He makes all six sons executors of both his will and his testament.

Soon afterwards, there is another wedding, this time, at St Peter’s.

Marriage. St Peter in Thanet.
1600 Jul 7  John Culmer & Margaret Samson

The dates are consistent with this being the same John Culmer.

For the rest of their lives, we find them in St Peter’s.

MARGARET SAMSON. The wedding took place at St Peter’s in Thanet, so we might suspect that this was Margaret’s home parish. As with John, her baptism may be too early to show up in the fragmented surviving registers. But the 1641 Protestation Return shows no Samsons in St Peter’s. This leads us to believe that she came from another parish, but we have not identified her baptism elsewhere.
The greatest concentration of early Samsons locally is in St Lawrence in Thanet (Ramsgate), with a number also in St John in Thanet (Margate).

Both John and Margaret were Elizabethans.

The year after their wedding, we hear of Sir John Culmer of Broadstairs.[4] He is evidently a relative, but we do not know how close. He was one of the first Congregationalist pioneers in England.
Before the Reformation, Broadstairs had been known for its Shrine of Our Lady of the Sea. This was a statue of the Virgin Mary in a chantry chapel on the cliff above Broadstairs. It was a noted landmark for ships, as well as a place of pilgrimage. Vessels would dip their topsails as they passed.
Under the Protestant Reformation of Henry VIII, almost all chantry chapels were destroyed, including the Shrine of Our Lady of the Sea. In 1601, Sir John Culmer, who owned the land where the chapel stood, reconstructed it in Albion Street, using as many of the original stones as he could find. It became a place of worship again, though no longer in the Catholic tradition.
The first pastor of the new chapel was Joel Culmer. Again, we do not know how closely they were related.

John and Margaret had eight children baptised at the parish church of St Peter’s.

Baptisms. St Peter in Thanet.
1601 Aug 30  John
1604 Apr 1  Anna
1606 Mar 27  Mildred
1609 Aug 27  Martha
1611 Feb 9  Alexander
1615 Aug 13  George
1617 Mar 17  Mary
1623 Dec 26  Joseph

For 4 Aug 1620, the Calendar of State Papers has the following: “Bond of Gabriel Wastell and John Culmer, of St. Peter’s, in the Isle of Thanet, in 20l., obliging Wastell to present all passengers arriving by his boat to the Commissioners for Passage, and to carry none abroad unlicensed.”[5] There was clearly anxiety even then about unchecked immigration. It is not clear what part John Culmer played in this.

John died a year after Joseph’s birth. He was already “weak in body” when he wrote his will and testament on 29 Nov 1626.[6]

Burial. St Peter in Thanet.
1626 Dec 4  John Culmer
He was probably in his 50s.

He left Margaret the bedstead and bed he was then lying on. She was also to have the occupation of his dwelling house and land in St Peter’s, as long as she remained unmarried and kept it in good repair. Should she remarry, this house and land would go to his sons. Instead, Margaret would have an annuity of £4, to be paid in half-yearly instalments.
He gives his eldest son John his dwelling house, with a barn, a close of two acres, and a root garden, as wells 6 acres of land lying northwards from Broadstairs toward Stone, either after his wife’s death or when she remarries.
To his son Alexander he leaves another house with 2½ acres of land at the top of the hill and north to the King’s highway, after Margaret’s death or remarriage.
To his son George he leaves 5 acres beyond Bremeston towards the cliff, again after Margaret’s death or remarriage. There is a proviso that George must sell one of these acres to pay his father’s legacies, or two acres if necessary.
John leaves his youngest son Joseph £40, to be paid when he reaches the age of 20.
To each of his daughters Anne, Martha and Mary he leaves £5, to be paid for out of his movable goods. If any of his daughters should die before they marry, her share is to go to the surviving daughters.
He appears to have forgotten his daughter Mildred. There is a note in the margin bequeathing her too £5 from his moveable goods.
He makes his son John his executor, or, if he refuses to serve, his son Alexander.

Five years later, Margaret married again, to the husbandman George Peale.

The Canterbury Marriage Licences tells us:
Peale, George, of S Peter’s in Thanet, husb., ba., about 37, and Margaret Culmer, s.p.. w. of John Culmer, late s.p., dec. At S Peter’s in Sandwich. May 31 1631.

The wedding took place on 2 Jun 1631. It is not clear why, since both were of St Peter’s in Thanet, they were married in Sandwich.

John had appointed his eldest son, John junior, then a ship’s pilot, as his sole executor. He had allowed Margaret a modest allowance if she remarried. His intentions appear not to have been realised.
Two years after John senior’s death, in Sep 1633, Margaret and her new husband George Peale sued her son John junior for the non-payment of this legacy.[7] They said they had been married for two or two and a half years, but Margaret had only received one or two payments. 40s was now owing.
John replied that he had received for the deceased’s goods and chattels £50.17s.6d and no more. He did not believe there was 40s owing to Margaret.
She responded in October, disputing some of John junior’s claims for the expenses he had incurred. Some of it related to lands, not goods, Expenses for travel by her daughters Mildred and Martha were not allowable. She quoted the relevant clause from John senior’s will about her allowance. [8]
The case was still being disputed in 1635 and 1636. Margaret and George Peale stated the amount now outstanding.[9]
In reply, John Culmer again referred to the expenses he had incurred as executor for burial and funeral charges, and for proving the will, and said he only held £23.12s.5d from his father’s estate. He refused to pay the legacy without reasonable cause

As so often with long-ago court cases, we know the charge, but not the outcome.

Margaret was not the only one to sue John junior. It appears that John Culmer senior, knowing that his death was approaching, had appointed his son-in-law, Thomas Marlow of St Nicholas at Wade, as guardian to his youngest son Joseph. Thomas was the husband of John’s daughter Mildred. This arrangement apparently involved a payment for Joseph’s upbringing. John Culmer’s will only includes a legacy of £40 to be paid when Jospeh was twenty, so the terms for this guardianship must already have been made.
Joseph was only one when his father died.

In 1635. Thomas Marlow sued John Culmer junior for non-payment of the money owed.[10]

Again, we do not know the outcome of this case.

While this domestic controversary was playing out, a larger conflict was brewing in the country at large. Charles II believed in the divine right of kings. This put him at odds with the Parliament, who believed that they should have the predominant say over national expenditure. Things came to a head when the Civil War between King and Parliament broke out in 1642.

We cannot know how individuals reacted to this controversy. Families could be split. But the Culmers as a family have a reputation as being pro- Parlament and strongly Protestant. A Richard Culmer, born in St Peter’s, became canon of Canterbury Cathedral. He gained the reputation of a firebrand Puritan preacher, and is long remembered for smashing the Royal window of Edward IV in Canterbury Cathedral, mounting a 60ft ladder to do so.

George Peale lived just long enough to see the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II in 1660, after a decade of Cromwell’s Commonwealth. He died a year later, on 9 Jul 1661, and was buried at St Peter’s on 11 Jul.

We have not found a burial for Margaret Peale. Despite her remarriage, it is possible that hers is the following burial.

Burial. St Peter the Apostle, Thanet.
1667 Jan 27  Margaret Culmer an antient Widd.
If this is correct, she would have been around ninety.

 

[1] Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury, 1585. PRC/17/46/374. Original will ref. PRC/16/84 G/10. Transcribed by Noël Siver.
[2] IGI, British Isles; The register book of St. Laurence in Thanet, from 1560 to 1653. Transcribed by Kenyon Wood Wilkie; completed and indexed by Christopher Hales Wilkie. Canterbury: Cross and Jackman, 1902.
[3] Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury, 1598. DCb, PRC 17/51/214. Transcribed by Noël Siver.
[4] Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Our_Lady,_Bradstowe
[5] Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign James I, 1619-1623 Ed. by Mary Anne Everett Green. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1858. vol. 10, p. 171.
[6] Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury. PRC 17, Book 64, folios 308-309.
[7] Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Judicial/Church Courts: Papers in Ecclesiastical Suits. DCb/J/J/53/72. Transcribed by Noël Siver.
[8] Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Judicial/Church Courts: Papers in Ecclesiastical Suits. DCb/J/J/53/62. Transcribed by Noël Siver.
[9] Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Judicial/Church Courts: Papers in Ecclesiastical Suits. DCb/J/J/58/114, DCb/J/J/57/66, DCb/J/J/58/154. Transcribed by Noël Siver.
[10] Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Judicial/Church Courts: Papers in Ecclesiastical Suits. DCb/J/J/58/137, DCb/J/J/58/137, DCb/J/J/59/87. Transcribed by Noël SIver.