Migration and Mobility in the Isle of Thanet in the Late Elizabethan/Early Jacobean Period

MIGRATION AND MOBILITY IN THE ISLE OF THANET IN THE LATE ELIZABETHAN/EARLY JACOBEAN PERIOD (c.1560-c.1620)

gill wyatt

The research on which this article is based was originally carried out for two pieces of academic work for the University of Kent. The first examined marriage, family life and kinship in one Thanet parish, St John the Baptist Margate, between 1560 and 1604. This gave intriguing hints that the parish boundaries were permeable and that it was not an isolated unit. Following this ‘Networks and relationships’, which extended the period studied, investigated aspects of the social and official life of all seven Thanet parishes to discover whether or not the island was insular in more than its geography. Part of the evidence used concerned the movement of people within the island and into it from other parts of Kent, the whole of England, and to a lesser extent from the Continent. There were also those who left Thanet to settle in other parts of the kingdom but this was not followed up systematically at the time.¹ The research shows that the boundaries of the island were not impermeable and that people moved from parish to parish within the island as well as into the island from the neighbouring parishes, and from further afield in England. There was also some movement into Thanet from the Continent, although it has not always been possible to decide if this was migration or just business contacts, and little has been discovered about individuals whose names appear in the sources.

The main sources used were the depositions made in court cases, when deponents listed the parishes where they had lived before arriving in Thanet. Other sources were marriage licence allegations, wills and the Birchington Church Wardens’ Accounts, which were the only ones available for the relevant period. Church registers were also used but tend to give a rather static view of the population, and do not necessarily note when one of the marriage partners is from another parish. One example of this occurs in the case of Mary Lincoln who married Alexander Thornton in 1568; St John’s marriage register does not note that the groom was in fact the vicar of Lyminge, near Folkestone; this fact is discovered through the marriage licence allegations.² A more intensive investigation into marriage in early modern Thanet appeared in this publication in 2011.³ One question which had to be answered in re-examining this data was whether the movements noted could accurately be described as ‘migration’. Can movement of people only be called migration when the movement is permanent from one place or country to another? It may be more correct to describe this paper as an investigation of movement or mobility of population around, into and, to a lesser degree, out of the Isle of Thanet in the early modern period. Some of those moving, for example women from elsewhere in England, did at their marriage become permanently settled in the island, but can they be described as ‘immigrants’? P. Clark and N. Tadmor have no hesitation in describing the movement of early modern people about England as ‘migration’ and this is how the term is used in the present article.⁴

Early Modern Thanet; a description

Thanet forms the most north-easterly part of the Kentish peninsula, and is surrounded by sea on its northern and eastern sides. The boundary with the Kentish mainland is formed by the Wantsum Channel, which by the 15th century had been bridged at Sarre but historically had provided a safe passage for shipping from the Channel to the Thames. Its gradual silting up had provided grazing marshes for the parishes of St Nicholas at Wade, Monkton and Minster, but the island was still easier of access by sea to its four small ports at Ramsgate (St Lawrence), Broadstairs (St Peter’s), Margate (St John the Baptist) and Birchington in the parish of All Saints (Map 1). Thanet had no direct road access paralleling the Thames Estuary until the modern motor road was built in the 20th century and until the coming of the railway in the 19th century, travellers to the island still mainly arrived by boat from London, or via Canterbury, 20 miles away inland.

During the early modern period, Thanet could still be seen as a geographically self-contained group of seven parishes but politically and socially it was far from the simplicity this description assumes. By the late 13th century churches in Thanet were parochial, although Birchington was subordinate in some sense to Monkton up to the 19th century and St Nicholas paid dues to Reculver. In the late 16th century St Nicholas and Monkton were exempt parishes but the rest belonged to the Deanery of Westbere; Stonar belonged to Sandwich and had a Lay Rector but no church. The area which had originally been largely divided administratively between Christ Church Priory and St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury had come to the Crown at the Reformation and been mostly sold off and let or sub let to lay tenants. Although much local government was mediated through the parish officers, the Cinque Ports also had jurisdiction over most of the island’s parishes: Woodchurch (part of Birchington), St John’s and St Peter’s were ‘limbs’ of Dover; St Lawrence remained within the county administration as part of the Hundred of Ringslow, but the harbour area of Ramsgate was a limb of Sandwich. The earlier research could find no surviving records for the manorial courts.

There were no towns in the island at this time, although there is evidence of the beginnings of urban life round the harbours and in such centres as the area round the church at St Nicholas, and these areas were more densely populated. Most of the island consisted of small isolated farms and cottages which can still be found, at least by name, on a modern Ordnance Survey map. Some of these settlements, such as Flete and Dumpton, crossed parish boundaries. During the 16th century the excess of baptisms over burials recorded by the churches show that the population was following the national trend and increasing though it was still probably no higher than 3,000 souls. The area was mainly agricultural and comparatively wealthy and records show that yeomen and husbandmen were moving to the area, along with a large number of the servant class, but some tradesmen also arrived: carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers and maltmen. The brewing industry was in its infancy in Thanet at this period. Canterbury would have been a necessary destination for much official and personal business and a source of such goods which were not available locally or were of better quality in the city and some of these needs were also serviced by Sandwich. Some inhabitants also had connections with London either for official business or for trade.⁵

Movement between Thanet Parishes

Movement between early modern Thanet parishes gives evidence of the fluidity of the society. Occasionally this can be gleaned from the parish registers where one family can be traced through various parishes for different life events. Another source is the church court depositions (the statements made by witnesses in cases which came under their jurisdiction) which are particularly useful for tracing the movements of servants from one place to another.

The gentry family of Cleybrooke provides an example of this inter-parochial movement. William Cleybrooke married Agnes Johnson of a gentry family from St Lawrence, in 1566 at St Lawrence and their second son, Stephen, was baptised there in 1572, although the elder son, Paul, had been baptised at St Peter’s in 1568. They would therefore appear to have moved to St Peter’s after their marriage (possibly William lived there) returned to St Lawrence at least for Stephen’s baptism, and finally they moved to the parish of St John the Baptist. The three males all died and were buried there, William in 1593, Stephen in 1604 and Paul in 1624. William has a brass (although this was attributed by the Victorian restorers of the church to his grandson, Paul’s son another William) and Paul has an imposing Jacobean monument on the wall of St George’s chapel.

In some cases wills containing a request to be buried in a different parish from that of the death will also show inter-parochial movement. Several men and one woman asked for burial in another parish than the one they declared their residence in when their will was written. Most of these were for burial elsewhere in Thanet. Robert Grant of Minster, a servant of Terry of Birchington, wanted to be buried in Birchington; he may have been baptised there in 1544. Two St Nicholas men asked respectively for burial at Birchington and Minster; Nicholas Curling of St Peter’s wanted to be buried at St Lawrence. Possible family links for these men to their desired parishes can be found.⁶

Evidence is given of possible movement in the marriage licence allegations, where people from Thanet are given a licence to marry either in the parish of one of the parties, or even in a completely different parish but still within the island. It was not always possible to trace these marriages in the registers; they may never have taken place or were celebrated in a parish outside the island, but they show that people might be moving at marriage.

The court depositions show that several men born in one Thanet parish were not living in the parish of their birth at the time of their deposition, and some had moved more than once. Many but not all of these men were servants following the practice of frequent possibly annual movement during their early years before settling down at marriage. When he deposed in court William Levindale was a resident of St Nicholas, but had originally come from St John’s and Bartholomew Saunders, whose family belonged to the parish of St Lawrence, had been living in Minster for 20 years. Other deponents had lived in more than one Thanet parish before their court appearance: Stephen Penny moved from Monkton to St John’s and finally to Birchington; William Goldfinch, a husbandman of Minster, had also lived at Monkton and Birchington. Some women also followed this pattern. In a case of disputed marriage one deponent, Elizabeth Wright, who was a servant in St John’s parish, had also worked in the parishes of St Peter and St Lawrence, and another, Alice Grant, married to ‘Gregory of St Peter’s’ was herself originally from St Lawrence. Some of the wills mention kin in other Thanet parishes, implying possible movement by some members of the family within the island.⁷

Migrants into Thanet

Most of the Thanet immigrants were of Kentish origins, especially those who had moved only the comparatively short distance from the parishes along the Stour Valley between Canterbury and the island, a distance of no more than 20 miles. Nine had moved between 20 and 30 miles, and one and had left Tonbridge in the far west of the county to settle in Minster. Some of these migrants may be what N. Tadmor dubbed ‘chain migrants’: family members moving to a parish where a relation had already settled. Most of these men came from parishes not too far distant from Thanet. Thomas, John and William Christian had moved to Thanet from Goodnestone near Wingham and kinsmen Clement and Nicholas had preceded them to the island. William and Ciriacke Binge came from Thanington, a parish whose name shows its connections with Thanet; it was on the droveway from the island to the pig pastures in the Weald. Members of the Swinford family also appear to have followed each other to Thanet. Two men from further afield also follow this pattern; Simon and Robert Woodruff came from Beetley in the Breckland area of Norfolk.⁸

Deponents in other cases include a servant from Monkton, William Custiam who had been born at Goodnestone, worked at Ash and Preston and then lived at St Nicholas and Minster in the Isle of Thanet; a yeoman of Birchington who came from Boughton Aluph, and Richard Shirley the parish clerk of Birchington, who had come from Worcestershire via Magdalene College Cambridge; he had been a servant of John Crispe but claimed yeoman status in his will of 1598.⁹

One incident which became the subject of a court case shows the mixture of places from which Thanet residents came. Involved in a brawl in the street at Acol near Birchington were Lucy Caterowe the wife of a miller who was also deputy to the Mayor of Dover in the Cinque Ports administration, and Henry Archer, described as ‘under deputy’. It was an incident common at the time where the participants exchanged verbal insults and mild physical scuffling but the range of places from which they came illustrates the cosmopolitan character of Thanet society. Caterowe himself had previously lived in Minster for four years, but was born in Burnshill in Lancashire. Of five deponents living in Birchington, only one was Kentish; Thomas Eglinder had lived in Birchington for 14 years but originated in Paddlesworth, near Folkestone. Ronald Wanes, who had lived for only three years in Birchington, came from Cartmel, in Lancashire. Edmund Hammon came from Fetcham in Sussex, and had lived in Monkton for ten years, and William Jordan, a tailor from Lincolnshire, had lived in Sandwich for 14 years before moving to Birchington, where he had been for 7 years. Four further deponents lived locally, but only one was Kentish; William Nethersole was referred to as ‘Nethersole of Ickham’ though he currently lived in St John’s parish and came originally from Goodnestone. The other three were all Yorkshire men originally: Thomas Smith of Wickhambreaux was born in Knaresborough; Richard Craven of Sturry also came from Knaresborough and Henry Spenser of Chislet came from elsewhere in Yorkshire. Richard Powell in whose house some of this motley group had been drinking, hailed from ‘Bristow’ and a woman in company with Lucy Caterowe was Goodwife Dowle, a family which came from Minster but which had property in Dowle Street in Pluckley, near Ashford.¹⁰

Women as migrants

Women appear as ‘migrants’ at their marriage and also if they are in service. Three women who were not native to the island are mentioned in memorials in the church of St John the Baptist. Rachel Cranmer (a collateral relative of the archbishop) married John Blowfield, and there is a brass to this effect; Mary Culpepper was an Aylesford woman who married local gentleman Henry Crispe as his second wife, and appears on his memorial in the chapel of the same church. His first wife was the daughter of Alvered Randolfe and the marriage does not appear locally so she may also have been an incomer. The imposing Jacobean monument on the wall of the same chapel to the memory of Paul Cleybrooke commemorates also his wife Mary Knatchbull, of Mersham near Ashford. Valentine Pettitt, of another Thanet gentry family, married Mary Cleve of Preston near Faversham.¹¹

Other non-Thanet women can be found in Berry’s Genealogy which notes Thanet gentry seeking brides in Bucklebury, Berkshire, London, and Slyfield, Surrey as well as from other Kentish towns such as Rochester and Canterbury. It also notes ‘Tench of Sandwich’ as marrying into Thanet.¹²

These are women who are known to have migrated into the island, but other women named in the marriage licence allegations may well have done so, although the marriages may not be traceable in the island registers as one assumes they took place in the woman’s parish of origin. So we find Thanet men applying for licences to marry women from the neighbouring areas of Reculver, Fordwich, Herne, Elham and Northbourne as well as several for Canterbury and Sandwich, and from further afield in the county: Orlestone, Wittersham, Harrietsham, Challock, Bearsted and Lynsted. The only way to be sure that these women did in fact move to live in Thanet would be by tracing all the marriages in the registers of their home parishes.

At the same time, 44 Thanet women were named in marriage licence allegations with men from a wide area in Kent and also in two cases from outside the county. Again Canterbury and Sandwich feature largely in these applications, as well as the nearby parishes of Goodnestone and Chislet. Further afield in Kent, they were linked with men from Ashford, Mersham and Smeeth, Bearsted and Maidstone, Harty on the Isle of Sheppey and Sittingbourne, and also with Hadlow on the western side of the county; outside the county Arundel and Westminster feature. So there were potentially 44 women who left the Island on their marriage.

Women servants also moved in and around Thanet, some of whom were local but one or two who came from a distance. There are fewer female deponents to study but six of them do show the same trends as the male deponents. Two of these were born in Kent but outside Thanet: one in Chislet, just the other side of the Wantsum, and the other at St Margaret at Cliffe, on the Channel coast near Dover. These women did not always state the parish of their birth. One was living in Whitstable at the time of her deposition; she had worked at St Nicholas and also at Chislet for Thomas Parramore. Members of this family also appear in Thanet parishes but appear to have originated in Ash. The woman lived at Herne but had worked for two employers in the parish of St John’s. Another woman involved in the disputed marriage case already cited had worked at St John’s before moving to Stourmouth.

Two widows who presumably moved with their husbands provide a contrast. The first was the widow of a man from Littlebourne; as she was living in St John’s parish when she made her deposition it is possible that she was Thanet born and had returned there when her husband died. The other had been born in Sutton on the Hill in Derbyshire, so had moved a very long distance to Kent. A wish for burial outside the island may also indicate an incomer: Katherine Swyer of St Lawrence asked to be buried in Faversham when she made her will in 1567. We have no record locally of a marriage for her; it is possible that she was a Faversham woman who married into Thanet but wanted to be buried in her original parish.¹³

Movement out of Thanet

As discussed above, there was at least potential movement of women out of Thanet when they married non-island men. Female servants also moved away even if not permanently, or moved from parish to parish within the island. It would appear probable that men also followed this pattern; although this aspect of mobility has not been followed up systematically, some familiar names do appear in the deposition evidence, usually in connection with cases concerning Thanet.

Thomas Parramore, one of a family which probably moved into Thanet from Parramore Street in the parish of Ash, had moved at the age of 50, three months before his deposition, to Fordwich; he described himself as ‘armiger’ and stated that he had been born in Minster and had also lived in Monkton. Alexander Norwood, of a prominent Thanet family, moved to Canterbury where he worked for one Richard Wallis, and finally settled there as a public notary. Peter Welby, born at St Lawrence, became a yeoman in Herne. Robert Webbe, who was frequently involved in the testamentary process in Birchington and other places in Thanet, moved several times between Herne and Reculver.¹⁴

The apprenticeship records also show movement away from the island. Circa 1558, George Parker, the son of a ship’s carpenter of St John the Baptist, was apprentice to Valentine Tatnall, a Dover shipwright and at the end of the period in 1624, the feofees of Henry Everard, described as ‘son of a deceased gentleman of Sarre’ apprenticed him to a Dover tailor called Roger White. One of these feofees was Sir Norton Knatchbull, whose family as we have seen was connected with the Cleybrooke family of St John’s, and the other was George Binge ‘a prominent figure in Dover’. The Binge family was also prominent in Thanet: William the elder lived at Thorne Court in the parish of Minster.¹⁵

Wills were another source of information which showed that testators had kin-ship interests in other areas, although it is not possible to discern whether they or the kin moved to or from Thanet, except in the case of John Tutton who made a bequest to his birthplace in Somerset.¹⁶

Most of these kin were from the Canterbury/Thanet area: Chislet, Sturry, Hacking-ton, Rushbourne near Westbere, Herne, Sandwich, and Milton near Canterbury, but one lived in Smarden in the Weald.

There were others, however, who lived outside the county. John Mountstevan of Monkton referred to his son Thomas ‘dwelling in Devonshire’ and Robert Mallens of Birchington mentioned ‘four sisters living in the West Country’. Two men from St John’s parish had kin in the east of the country. William Lesley, who was the vicar of St John the Baptist, had a sister-in-law at Orford in Suffolk, although whether Lesley and his wife had originally come from there, or whether his wife’s sister had moved there from Thanet or elsewhere is unknown. The other, Walter Smyth, had a brother Robert who lived at Poynton in Lincolnshire, although again we cannot determine who had moved or whether the brothers were born elsewhere and moved to different places. Even more confusingly, William Stokes referred to his mother ‘Agnes Lankester widow of Roger of Wynstone in Cheshire, if she be living’. If she was dead the bequest went to William’s uncle Thomas Lankester of Rochester.¹⁷

These random examples show that there was movement away from Thanet by both men and women. The geographic insularity of Thanet proved a highway rather than a barrier to the movement of its population.

Strangers among us

There was some stranger migration into Thanet at this period, but it is the most difficult type of to find concrete evidence for and only tentative suggestions can be made as to what these people were doing here by analogy with what is known of the activities of other immigrants. While it is clear that the island’s ports, along with many other Kentish towns had contacts with and visitors from the Continent, it has proved difficult to decide whether they were just visitors or were settled residents.

Most of the references are to burials, which of course only show that someone died in Thanet, not whether they were domiciled there. The parish registers of St John the Baptist and St Peter the Apostle give only the name and sometimes although not always, the country of origin of the deceased, so it may well be that they were regular visitors rather than residents so permanent residence cannot be assumed; the records are silent on this point. One such possible resident was George Clayse, who may have been German or Dutch; he owned a ship called The Sea Horse of Rotterdam and as the name is given in English, it was possibly based here. Two stranger women may also have been part of the settled population; Margret wife of Wealand of Flanders was buried at St John’s in 1574 and Margaret Wild, wife of Richard, was described as ‘immigrant’ when buried at St Peter’s in 1585. One further example of a possible resident rather than visitor was Evan ap Owen of St Mary Overy, Southwark, whose daughter Ann was baptised and buried at St John’s in 1597. No further information about this family has been traced, but it might be thought unlikely that a pregnant woman near her time would have been brought on a short visit, so it is possible that they were settled here for a period. There was an established trade in cattle between Kent and the Welsh Marches in which Evan might have been involved. There are also possible Welsh connections in St Lawrence parish where Griffin (Welsh Gruffydd) was a fairly common name, and where one child was baptised Phulliam. Using the analogy of Fluellen in Henry V, could this be a local attempt at Llewelyn!

Perhaps the most interesting but also the most elusive people were a small group of Portuguese and Italian (Venetian) men who appear in the parish registers and Church Wardens’ Accounts for All Saints, Birchington. Three Venetians and two Portuguese were buried there, and the Accounts note the payment from ‘the Portingales’ for their burial. The Venetians were buried between 1564 and 1582: Michael Ventianus in 1564, Zachary Venetiani in 1577, and George Gasper Venetianus in 1582. Both the Portuguese were buried in 1582 and they are named as Simon de Andrade and Brandeis Pamplona.¹⁸

A Portuguese and a Venetian also appear in the baptism records of the same church. Andrea Nobisia (a Portuguese) was godfather to Andrew, son of Thomas Long, in 1566. The order in which the names of the godparents are listed in the register gives no clue as to who might be considered the ‘chief’ godparent, but the fact that the child received an anglicised version of Nobisia’s name implies that he was so considered at the time. Twenty years later Camillo Zame ‘veneciani’ played the same role at the baptism of Lucretia, daughter of Thomas Ferris. Again, it is probably significant that the girl was called ‘Lucretia’ which was a name only comparatively recently introduced into England, although a woman called Lucrece or Luce Morris married John Crispe at St John the Baptist in 1593.¹⁹ In addition, two other godparents for Lucretia were Richard Crispe, armiger, and his sister in law, the wife of Henry Crispe. The Crispe family were gentry, significant landowners and the leading family in Birchington at this time. There may have been further connections between this gentry family and Italian immigrants: Yungblut states that William Crispe, deputy lieutenant of Dover Castle was sent by the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports to disperse a gathering of immigrants, mainly Italian, who were gathering at Sandwich, intending a foray across the Channel to challenge the Spanish in the Low Countries. Unfortunately, as with most other writings about strangers in early modern England, the major emphasis is on the Flemish who brought new techniques for the cloth trade and settled in Sandwich and other towns.²⁰

Unfortunately nothing further about these individuals has been discovered, nor has any information about the Portuguese in England at this period come to light, although there is information about Italians. Venice had become a temporary place of refuge for Italian Protestants, which may be significant, since all the Birchington Italian immigrants are described as Venetian. Haynes tells us that the introduction of the Inquisition in Italy in 1542 ‘made it certain that Italians with unorthodox opinions would flee abroad’.²¹ Given Kent’s connections with Continental ports it is not impossible that some of these refugees reached Birchington. A man called Verzelini who was an immigrant industrialist bought land in Kent and from the reign of Henry Vlll onwards other Italians were involved in a variety of industrial ventures such as glass making; they were also prominent in the medical profession and in the academic world. The Queen herself had an Italian language tutor, Giovanni Battista. The earl of Leicester was also in involved with Italian immigrants, and both he and the Queen had land holdings in the Thanet area.²² Less high status immigrants became fencing masters or musicians and it is quite possible that Thanet gentry families employed them in these roles. In the probate inventory of Libby Orchard of Monkton several musical instruments are listed and although these items do not appear in other inventories, gentry families almost certainly did own them, as was commonplace at the time.²³ Mate tells us that Venetians imported luxury goods into England and again, gentry families may have made contact with them in this way.²⁴ Immigrants were also employed as doctors (e.g. Sir Julius Caesar) and John Crispe of Birchington who died in 1583 had his will witnessed by ‘Cornelius Reibelius medicus’ a latinized name probably denoting a foreign place of birth. It is intriguing to think that some of these strangers in Birchington may have been language tutors to the local gentry. Some of these Italians managed to avoid church attendance and remained Catholic although this appears not to be the case with those buried at Birchington.

No information about Portuguese immigrants at this period has come to light but that country had been allied to England since the middle ages and it may well have been seen as a safe haven for Portuguese Protestants, especially after the establishment of the Inquisition there in 1536 and later during the Spanish occupation of their home country from 1580.

Conclusion

The ‘popular’ impression of early modern society, or indeed any society in the past, is of a population which rarely moved from its home parish (or place of settlement). Some records such as parish registers strengthen this impression as they rarely give information that shows whether both partners to a marriage, for example, originated in the parish where the marriage took place. However, other records such as wills, depositions, and memorials show that the population was very mobile, both around the island, and to and from Thanet and that there were also at least some incomers from Continental Europe.

endnotes

¹ G. Wyatt, ‘Marriage, Family and Kinship in an East Kent Parish: St John the Baptist in Thanet (Margate) 1559-1603’ (m.a. dissertation, University of Kent, 2001); G. Wyatt, ‘Social Networks and Relationships in Early Modern Thanet c.1560-c.1620’ (m.phil thesis, University of Kent, 2010).

² J.M. Cowper, Canterbury Marriage Licences 1568-1618,1st series (Canterbury, 1892).

³ G. Wyatt, 2011, Early Modern Thanet: a Closed or Open Society? Evidence from a study of marriage making and marriage horizons c.1560-c.1620’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxi, 373-392.

⁴ P. Clark, ‘The Migrant in English Towns, 1580-1640’, in Crisis and Order in English Towns 1500-1700, Peter Clark and Paul Slack (eds), Essays in Urban History (London, 1977), pp. 117-143; P. Clark and D. Souden, Migration and Society in Early Modern England (London, 1987); P. Clark, ‘Migration in England during the Later seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries’, Past and Present 83 (1979), pp. 57-90; N. Tadmor, Family and Friends in 18th Century England; household, Kinship and Patronage (Cambridge, 2001).

⁵ A fuller description of early modern Thanet will be found in Wyatt, ‘Social Networks and Relationships’.

⁶ CCAL, PRC 17/40 fo. 306v (Will of Robert Grant, 1568); CCAL, PRC 32/31 fo. 32/31 (Will of John Swinford, 1569); CCAL, PRC 17/49 fo. 128v (Will of Nicholas Curling, 1594); see also, Wyatt, ‘Social Networks and Relationships’, Chapter 4.

⁷ CCAL, X11 and X12 (Depositions of Elizabeth Wright and Alice Grant) CCAL, X11.2 fo. 192 (Deposition of Bartholomew Saunders).

⁸ CCAL, PRC 32/38 fo. 88v (Will of Thomas Swinford, 1597); CCAL, PRC 17/43 fo. 27v (Will of James Swinford, 1580); CCAL, X11/3 fo. 66 (Deposition of Clement Swinford); CCAL, X10.17 fo. 167 and X10.19 fo. 84 (Depositions of Richard Shirley).

⁹ CCAL, X10/16 fo. 306 (Deposition of William Custiam).

¹⁰ CCAL, X11.5 fo. 197 (Deposition of Richard Craven); CCAL, X11.5 fo. 196v (Deposition of Thomas Edginder); CCAL, X11.5 fo. 197v (Deposition of Edmund Hammon); CCAL, X11.5 fo. 196 (Deposition of William Jordan); CCAL, X11.5 fo. 14 (Deposition of William Nethersole); CCAL, X11 fo. 96 and fo. 107 (Depositions of Richard Powell); CCAL, X11.5 fo. 97 (Deposition of Thomas Smith); CCAL, X.5 fo. 124v (Deposition of Henry Spenser); CCAL, X.5 fo. 95 (Deposition of Roland Wanes).

¹¹ CCAL, PRC 17/35 fo. 155v (Will of Valentine Pettitt, gent.).

¹² W. Berry, County Genealogies. Pedigrees of the Families in the County of Kent (Sherriff, Gilbert and Roper, 1830).

¹³ CCAL, PRC 17/40 fo. 109v (Will of Katherine Sawyer 1567).

¹⁴ CCAL X11.15 fo. 6 (Deposition of Thomas Parramore); CCAL, X11.7 (Deposition of Peter Welby); CCAL, X11.22 fo. 304 (Deposition of Robert Webbe).

¹⁵ M.E. Dixon, ‘Economy and Society in Dover 1509-1640’ (ph.d. thesis, University of Kent, 1992).

¹⁶ CCAL, PRC32/36 fo. 189v (Will of John Tutton, 1590).

¹⁷ CCAL, PRC 32/42 fo. 226 (Will of John Mountstevan, 1610); CCAL, PRC 17/43 fo. 73 (Will of William Lesley); CCAL, PRC 17/41 fo. 87 (Will of William Stokes, 1567).

¹⁸ CCAL, U3/76/51/2 and 3 Churchwardens’ Accounts of Birchington 2 vols. 1531-1587 and 1587-1600.

¹⁹ E. Withycombe, ed., Oxford Dictionary of English Christian names, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1949).

²⁰ L.H. Yungblut, Strangers Settled Here Among us: Policies, Perceptions and the Presence of Aliens in Elizabethan England (London, 1996).

²¹ A. Haynes, ‘Historical Immigrants in England, 1550-1603’, in History Today, 27, no. 8 (1977), pp. 526-534.

²² CCA-DCc-ChAnt/M/203B and C; CCA-DCc-ChAnt/M/205, 206 and 207.

²³ CCAL, PRC 21/5 fo. 160 (Inventory of the goods of Libby Orchard).

²⁴ M.E. Mate, Trade and Economic Developments 1450-1550: the Experience of Kent, Surrey and Sussex (Woodbridge, 2006).

Map 1 The Parishes of Thanet in the early modern period.