Stephen Pawley, I

THE CORNISH FAMILY OF PAULL (PAWLEY) Since my middle name is Paul I have always been interested in the family name of Paull, indeed my Granny White used to send me birthday cards addressed to Paull. My mother, a teacher, wouldn’t allow me to be christened as Paull because she worried it would cause me embarrassment at school but I have always associated with that spelling of the name. There are many forms of the surname, which derives from the Latin paulus meaning small, and even within this family the name has changed over the years. The version most widely attached to the family in the 15th and 16th centuries is Pawley, which is said to be of Medieval English origin, but could also be a Norman locational name. At some point in the 17th century the branch of the family that led to my great great grandmother began recording the name as Paull. The earliest record of the family is of a John Paly of Gunwin mentioned in the Subsidy rolls (tax records) of 1327. Gunwin (or Goonwhyn, meaning ‘White Downs’ in Cornish) can be found on the downs just outside St Ives near the village of Lelant. Although not a substantial manor, the seat of Gunwin remained in the family for several hundred years and they were recorded as a respectable family. The manor house was knocked down many years ago and replaced by two farmsteads, which have now been converted into six holiday cottages (known as Gonwin Manor Cottages). It is certainly in a stunning setting overlooking the sea. Following John Paly there is a gap of about 100 years before more complete records of the family can be found. According to the Pawley Family Tree there is a line of Stephen Pawleys from 1428 to a Stephen Pawley born in 1492 at Gunwin who became Lord of the manor in the early 16th century. In around 1520 he married Margery Brea from Paul near Mousehole. The Brea (later Bray) family were another respectable Cornish family, now associated with Camborne, and this match may have benefitted the Pawley family if she was an heiress. They had at least two children that I know of leading to two branches of the family. The older son was another Stephen Pawley born in 1524 at Gunwin and he inherited the family seat at Gunwin. The records at this time give the name with many different spellings but mostly interchanging ‘w’ with ‘u’, so Pawley or Pauley and Pawly or Pauly. The younger Stephen married Jane Samford from Combe Florey near Taunton, Somerset in around 1547. They had several children but the eldest was yet another Stephen Pawley born in 1548 at Gunwin. This Stephen married Margery Tresteane from Veryan in 1596, the Tresteanes being another wellestablished Cornish family. He is recorded in 1625 onwards as Stephen Pawley, Gentleman the lowest rank of the landed gentry but superior to Yeoman. This would indicate that his predecessors were probably Yeomen farmers and perhaps helped by marriage the family were now doing rather better. Indeed the next three Lords of the manor were also recorded as Gentlemen. The first of these was Hugh Pawley born in 1598 at Gunwin, the eldest of 11 children who are recorded on a memorial at the Church of St Uny at Lelant. Hugh Pawley, Gentleman married Joan Searle in about 1640 and the following year they had a son Hugh Pawley born at Gunwin. This Hugh was the Town Clerk of St Ives from 1675 to 1683, and in 1680 he married Judith Remfry. They had 7 children, all of whom, along with their parents are recorded on a memorial in the Church at Lelant. The second child and eldest son was yet another Hugh Pawley born in 1682 at Gunwin. This third Hugh Pawley, Gentleman married Christian Blight in 1717 at Lelant but they either had no children or only daughters who survived him. When he died in 1760 the estate passed out of the hands of the Pawleys and came to be held by the Praeds who owned the neighbouring estate of Trevethoe (also known as the manor of Lelant and Trevethow). So the Pawley dynasty that had held Gunwin for over 450 years finally came to an end. Returning to the first Stephen Pawley and his wife Margery Brea it is worth pausing briefly before exploring the other branch of the family that leads to my great great grandmother. Another possible son of theirs is a Thomas Pawley born in 1525, who in turn had a son James Pawley born in 1545 who had a daughter Leonora Honor Pawley born in 1575. This Leonora married Sir John Edward Underhill in 1596 around the time he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for gallant conduct in Spain. Sir John was the son of Thomas Underhill, Keeper of the Wardrobe of Kenilworth Castle to the Earl of Leicester, whose father was Sir Hugh Underhill, Keeper of the Wardrobe to Queen Elizabeth I at the King’s Manor, Greenwich. After an unsuccessful plot against the Queen, Sir John along with Leonora and their son John Underhill born in 1597 escaped to The Netherlands. Refused permission to return to England when the Queen died in 1603 they remained in Holland where Sir John died in 1608. Leonora and her son stayed on in the company of a group of Puritans (Honor being a virtue name used by the Puritans) and John received military training in the service of the Prince of Orange. In 1630 they boarded Arabella, flagship of the Winthrop Fleet, and set off to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Salem. Captain John Underhill was very successful in America both in leading militia against Native Americans and in local government at Boston, Stamford and New Amsterdam, variously serving as Selectman, Sheriff, Magistrate, Justice and Governor for the Dutch (and later High Constable and Surveyor-General for the English). Eventually he fell out with his adopted countrymen and returned to English service before retiring to Kenilworth estate at Oyster Bay on Long Island. Married twice, firstly to a Dutch woman Helena de Hooch and later to a Quaker Elizabeth Feake who converted him, he had 8 children in all. Both because of his own colonial activities and because of numerous well known descendants the Underhill name is highly regarded in America even having its own Society. Finally resuming our journey with the second main branch of the Paull family we return to the other son of Stephen Pawley and Margaret Brea, Richard Pawley born in 1526 at Gunwin. As a younger son he would not have been destined to inherit much from his father and so must have moved to nearby Gulval around 6.5 miles away. The family name in Gulval is generally recorded as Pawle or Paule and it is easy to see how the latter could be read as Paull. Although it would be about 150 years before the first Yeoman would be recorded in this branch of the family it appears that they acquired an estate in Gulval at some point either by hard work or judicious marriages. This would suggest that this line of the family also worked the land though many of them were involved in tin mining at some point. Anyway, Richard Paule married Elizabeth in around 1548 and they had at least 3 sons, the second of these being Alexander Paule born in 1550 at Gulval. Alexander married Jane in around 1577 and they had several children, the oldest being Richard Paule born in 1578 at Gulval. We know little about this Richard except that he left an estate valued at around £140, which would be equivalent to over £200,000 today, and he married Cheston Hockin at Gwithian in 1608 and they had 4 sons of whom the third was John Thomas Paule born in 1622 at Gulval. At the time of his father’s death in 1645 John who had administered the will was referred to as John Thomas Paull. But John who was not the main beneficiary had already moved to Camborne where he had married Jane Harrye in 1638. They had 10 children of whom the second, and eldest son, was John Paull born in 1641 at Camborne. This John married Elizabeth Bryant at Camborne in 1674 and they had 7 children, the eldest being Alexander Paull born in 1675 at Camborne. He would later be referred to as Alexander Paull, Yeoman confirming that this branch of the family had achieved some standing. In 1697 he married Jane Rowe at Camborne and they had at least 8 children, including 7 sons, the oldest two of whom were Thomas Paull, Yeoman & Church Warden and Charles Paull, Yeoman & Church Warden born in 1699and 1703 respectively. Many of their descendants were involved in tin and copper mining. Their third son was Alexander Paull born in 1707 at Camborne and he married Catherine Henwood at St Ewe in 1735. Of their 5 children we are interested in the middle one, William Paull, Yeoman born in 1745 at Camborne who married Grace Dunkin in 1780 at Camborne. They had a son Dr Alexander Paull born in 1783 at Camborne who was a Surgeon at Truro. Alexander married Susanna Burall at Camborne in 1808 and they had 3 children including a son Dr Alexander Paull born in 1813 who also became a Surgeon and a GP. Their middle child was a daughter Grace Burall Paull born in 1811 at Camborne who in 1835 married my great great grandfather the Rev Samuel Fiddian, a Wesleyan Methodist Minister working in Cornwall at the time. They went on to have 13 children born in different parts of the country including Dr Alexander Paull Fiddian a Surgeon & Physician and Judge James Paull Fiddian my great grandfather born in 1845 and 1853 respectively. A total of 9 members of the Fiddian family have now had Paull as a middle name but sadly I am not one of them. The Paull family have now spread throughout the UK and the rest of the world but it is quite remarkable that all of the family members that are mentioned herein were born in Cornwall towards the western-most tip of the county. They were successful in all of the branches that I have looked at and have lived up to their early description as a respectable family in the 500 years that I have addressed. Paul Fiddian – June, 2015