John Eyre, MP

“A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and ...“ By John Burke. Page 290. GoogleBooks

John EYRE, of Wedhampton and Northcombe. This gentleman m. first, Margaret, dau. of John Button, of Alton, in Wilts; and secondly, Jane, dau. of John Cusse, esq. of Broughton Giffard.

By the first wife he had issue,

1. JoHN, of Wedhampton, M. P. for the county of Wilts in 1563, married Alice, daughter and co-heir of Stephen Payne, of Motcombe, in the same shire, and had

• (with two dau. Mary, who d. s. p.
• and Edith, the wife of Nicholas Bacon, esq. of Whiteparish)
• two sons, the elder, John, of Wedhampton and Chalfield, M. P. for New Sarum in 1571, m. Anne, eldest dau. and co-heir of Thomas Tropenell, esq. of Chalfield, Wilts,

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His son John Eyre - 1st s. of John Eyre of Wedhampton and Chirton by his 1st w. Alice, da. and coh. of Stephen Payne of Motcombe, Dorset, wid. of one Hampton; half-bro. of Robert Eyre I m. (1) by 1553, Anne, da. of Thomas Tropnell of Great Chalfield, and coh. of her bro. Giles 1s. Sir William 6da.; (2) 1579, Elizabeth (d.1606), da. of Richard Dauntesy of Potterne. suc. fa. 1554.1

Though they had hitherto been but minor gentry, the Eyres were one of the oldest families in the county. They owned the manors of Wedhampton, Urchfont and Chirton, compact group of estates which came to Eyre on his father’s death in 1554, save for a life interest in Chirton for the widow. Judging by his will, John Eyre senior, who lived at Chirton, was a sheep-farmer. Eyre himself, after acquiring the Tropnell estates, spent little time in his family’s original home. When, however, he remarried in 1579, he arranged that his wife would enjoy a life annuity of £20 from these lands.4