It was in discovering old wills and monumental inscriptions that I was at last able to understand which Norfolk village was truly the origin of my ancestral Bane's. Trunch, is its name, of old known as Trunchet, which has been a settlement since the earliest times, with its burial mounds and dug up axeheads made of flint. Bane as a surname was an old Pictish description of fair skinned peoples, of which there were varied versions of this name, even in our family, there being Baynes, Beans, Beanes and Banes. As far back as parish records go in these parts, which is more than many other areas of Britain, to the middle of the 1500's, one can see our furthest back known Bane ancestors, John Bane and his wife Marjorie, baptising in 1560 a son Richard, after which would come children Margaret, Anthony, and in 1566 my ancestor Robert. Another daughter was possibly Marjorie, named after her mother, and other children there would have been too. Little Margaret, born in 1562, died as a baby, common enough for the times, but a grief for the family to bear all the same, for which they would have found solace in Christianity. And an older Bane who died in Trunch in 1588 was likely to have been John Bane's widowed mother, Mary. This was all during Tudor times, when the Virgin Queen Elizabeth 1st ruled the land.
There appears to have been a connection for our Bane's with Norwich, with some family members living in the big city, and maybe time spent there in the past. Hence sometimes family members would marry and settle down in Norwich, far from the olde worlde village of Trunch. A potential daughter to John and Marjorie, Marjorie the Younger, married her own beloved Robert Elvin in Norwich in the spring of 1592 in the church of St John the Baptist at Maddermarket.
Marriage in Norwich of a Marjorie Bane to a Robert Elvin on 3rd April 1592 at John the Baptist at Maddermarket
It can be seen that John's wife, Marjorie, was a widow when she died in Trunch in the spring of 1606. Presumably she would have been born around the same time as Queen Elizabeth I, or even earlier, maybe as far back as 1520, although there were no records for baptisms that early on. This means she would have been a child during the reign of King Henry VIII. Thus she and John were born into boldly changing times, in which the grand monasteries, shrines, friaries and convents were forcibly shut down, places the general folk would have made pilgrimages to, and been greatly inspired by, as Britain's King and elite chose to disassociate from the Pope and Roman Catholic traditional ways. Thus the folk love of communing with sacred relics and seeking of miracles in holy settings was now denied to them.
Majorie Bane was a widow when she was buried on 30th March 1606 at Trunch
Another occurrence Marjorie and John would have lived through, along with their parents and grandparents, whoever they may have been, was the sweating sickness, which killed off so many people, rich and poor, including Prince Arthur, who would otherwise have been the long ruling king of Britain rather than his younger brother Henry VIII. This sweating ailment slayed people within the first 24 hours in general, beyond which, in surpassing this time scale, they would have ultimately recovered. The first epidemic of the sweating sickness, thought to have been a zoonotic hantavirus, potentially spread through bats or rodents and/or their fleas, began with a few soldiers in the Battle of Bosworth, Richard III having some of those very symptoms himself, being from there widely spread among London crowds, of all who came to see the coronation of Henry VII, these events being in 1485, and ended after its final decimation in 1551, nine years before the birth of John and Marjories son Richard. In one of the Norfolk abbeys, Creake Abbey, in the 1502 outbreak, everyone there contracted the sweating sickness and died from it, the abbot being the last person to perish.
It was John and Marjorie's youngest son, Robert Bane, born in Trunch 1566, who I am descended from. Other surviving children were Richard and Anthony. Robert's baptism:
Baptism in 1566 in Trunch of John and Marjorie Bane's son Robert
In 1588 John and Marjories son Richard married a local girl Ann Wignell, in 1595 son Anthony married another local girl Mary Bartram, and in around 1592 or thereabouts our Robert married Amy Daly, all three brothers having a great many children with their respective wives. It was Robert's son, also called Robert, who would ultimately leave a will, giving us more of an insight into this family. Of this younger Robert, his siblings (being the other children of Robert and Amy), in order, were Marjorie, Richard, William (who died as a baby), Elizabeth, Henry (who died at the age of 13), John, Rebecca and Thomas. Our Robert the Younger, who was born in 1603, would train to be a worsted weaver, as would be revealed in his later will. It's the first idea we have of a trade for the Bane family. His wife was Amy Smith, as seen in this Trunch marriage in 1632, a cousin Susan marrying her own sweetheart Simon Angell in the same year.
1632 in Trunch, the marriages of John and Margery's grandson Robert to Amy Smith, and their granddaughter Susan to Simon Angell
Robert the Younger and Amy Smith went on to have eight children - Ann, Mary, Elizabeth, Robert (my ancestor). Richard, William, Amy and Susan. And as we now know, Robert supported the family as a worsted weaver, a trade that he prospered well in.
Worsted was a fine wool cloth, distinctive, smooth and lightweight, its name deriving from the Norfolk village of Worstead. The material was highly valued, classier than traditional wools, sold both at home and exported to other lands, used for fine clothing, shawls, hangings, curtains and covers. Dutch settlers, known as Strangers, revived the Norfolk cloth industry when it had been waning. The master weavers homes were grand and spacious, in which were looms of 12 feet in height. In the cellar, with its interlaced beams on the ceiling, the wool would be stored at a fine even temperature. As a master weaver, Robert would have hired many locals on various tasks would have set up the patterns he required on his workers looms, and would advertise and sell his own produce, both at home and abroad. Dyes of woad and madder would be used to colour the materials, the woad creating blues and the madder creating reds. Some worsteds were combined with silks. He would have his own warehouse and packing room, his own home being the hub of the grand operation.
Combing and weaving
Antique Norfolk weaving patterns
More of old Norfolk design
We can see from the later will where various of Robert and Amy's children moved to when young adults and who were the husbands of the daughters, as well as the names of the grandchildren. For instance one daughter, who I think to have been Ann, the firstborn, had married into the Collings family of Conisford in Norwich. It is known that around this time one of the Collings family was a radical preacher, by even the same name as Ann's husband, John Collinges, for which I wonder if she was a second wife to this preacher, or even his mistress, as I never did find a marriage for them. Interestingly the famed John Collinges wrote a book in 1675 called The Weavers Pocket Book, Or Weaving Spiritualised', verily the occupation of Ann's father Robert Another daughter, Elizabeth, is seen to have moved to Worstead (the home of worsted weaving) where her husband William Lound was from. Another daughter, Susan, moved to Knapton and then Walcott with her husband, a Mr Howse. And daughter Amy was in Ridlington with her husband John Chapman, where son Richard, who was the executor of his fathers will, was also living, and from whose own will it can be seen that our family owned many properties and lands, not just in Trunch, but also in Southrepps and Knapton. It is also seen that they owned a malthouse in Trunch, which is rather interesting considering that the other son, Robert (my ancestor), had a son Richard (also my ancestor) whose profession in his own will was given as maltster. So it can be seen that both worsted weaving and malt production were businesses for our family.
So in this lineage of Robert Bane's, there was born in 1638 a third Robert, the son of Robert Bane the worsted weaver and Amy Smith:
1638 baptism on Trunch of Robert Bane, son of Robert and Amy Bane
The above third and youngest Robert married a Mary (the wedding details not found) and likely Robert was a maltster, for two of his sons carrying on that trade (although there is no record of his profession) and of children he and Mary had Edmund, Mary (she was the third try at a Mary as those before her had died when little), Elizabeth, Sarah, Amy, Richard (my ancestor) and Robert. It was when newly a family, with but their first child, Edmund, that the last of the notorious bubonic plagues ravaged the people of Britain, beginning in the year Edmund was born and ending the next year, 1665 to 1666. This was known as the Great Plague, to which our family appears to have been resilient, as I see no record of them dying during those years. Norwich was one of the cities badly hit and it is reckoned up to half the population may have died in consequence. The cause was unknown, it being only much later that rats, their fleas and human body lice were understood to be the reasons. Just the previous year an outbreak of smallpox had been doing the rounds. The plague itself had been around since it came over from Central Asia in 1331, that original pandemic known as the Black Death.
Richard Bane, my ancestor, born in Trunch in 1677, to Robert and Mary Bane, baptised on February 27th
When grown up, of Robert and Mary's children, Mary would marry John Cubitt from Trimingham, Robert would marry Ann Jowler, and as for our Richard, he had two wives, firstly Mary Cubitt, whom he married in Swafield in 1704, she being the daughter of Thomas Cubitt of Trunch, and then Rachel Bayfield, another Trunch born girl, daughter of Thomas Bayfield, whom he married in Norwich Cathedral in 1719. Richard was a yeoman and a maltster, as it says on the various marriage documents.
Richard Bane's first marriage to Mary Cubitt - the license had given a choice of three churches to marry in, either, Swafield, Knapton or Antingham, and it is the former place that they selected:
1704 marriage at Swafield for Ricus (Richard) Bane, yeoman of Trunch, and Maria (Mary) Cubitt of Trunch
Richard Bane's second marriage to Rachel Bayfield in Norwich Cathedral (Gunton having been the other location possible for the marriage);
Marriage between Rachel Bayfield and Richard Bane in the summer of 1719 in the Norwich parish of St Mary in the Marsh, previously in the cathedral grounds closer to the river, and by this time the parish using the chapel of St Luke in Norwich Cathedral
It's Rachel who is my ancestress, and her family is of interest in that they were non-conformists ie. dissenters, unwilling to follow the ways of the established church. So this I will explore, Richard Bane's seeming wealthy life, his leaving to be in other villages, always keeping a connection though with Trunch, to the point of being buried there, his profession as a maltster. and Rachel's heretic family, who also left Trunch for other villages. Thus it was that these descendants of Trunch famililes left their roots and lived here and there in other villages.
Rachel Bayfield's ancestors, the Flights (her maternal lineage) and Bayfields (her paternal lineage) of Trunch, were all of dissident families, and were rather affluent people, conscientious enough in their religious convictions to brave potential persecution and loss of rights. Rachel's parents were of high enough status to be buried within a church, in 1745 in the village of Antingham, rather than on the land around, for which in older life they may have given up the more radical ways of their youth. Two wives Rachel's father Thomas Bayfield himself had, and he lived long, till 78 years old, with the status of a gentleman, as can be seen from his grand tombstone complete with coat of arms. It is his first wife, Rachel Flight, who was Rachel's mother; the Flights being a renowned non-conformist family, to the point of Rachel Flights father, Robert Flight, also referred to as a gentleman, holding congregationalist meetings in his own home in the village of Trunch, one of the first there who dared to do so. Thomas Bayfield's second wife, Judith Paynell, the lady who would raise little Rachel, on account of being her stepmother, was from an even wealthier family, her father being an esquire, John Paynell of Belaugh.
Rachel Bayfield was born in Trunch in 1692 to her parents Thomas Bayfield and Rachel née Flight. Although they were Trunch residents she was baptised in a dissenters chapel at a nearby village, Bradfield, on account of her parents being religious radicals. This chapel was no more than a barn really, an obscure place of worship, on account of former persecutions against non-conformists. In later times a proper chapel would be built there.
Baptism record for Rachel Bayfield in the Independent chapel at Bradfield in 1692
The Independent chapel, a converted barn, in Bradfield, where Rachel Bayfield was baptised in 1692
When Rachel was two years old her family moved away from Trunch to another village, Antingham, and when she was four years old her mother died, surely an awful tragedy for one so young, for which she was raised by her fathers second wife, Judith née Paynell, whose father was an esquire of Belaugh. The professions of Thomas Bayfield and his father in law Robert Flight are not recorded, other than that both of them were gentlemen. It is for sure that they were affluent and educated people. In time they moved to Gunton, not so much a village as a grand aristocratic estate, in which Thomas would have had some useful position and a cottage on the estate was likely their home. It was there that Rachel was living when her courtship with Richard Bane began. Their wedding was to be a grand affair in Norwich Cathedral in one of the chapels radiating out from the apse. It was a marriage by license, specifying that the marriage was to either be at Gunton or in Saint Luke's Chapel within Norwich Cathedral. And it was the latter that they chose.
Outside perspective of St Luke's Chapel in the side of Norwich Cathedral
The actual signatures of Richard Bane and his father in law Thomas Bayfield (as inscribed on Richard Bane and Rachel Bayfield's marriage license):
Signatures of the ancestors - Richard Bane and his stepfather Thomas Bayfield
The official marriage license between Richard Bane, widower, maltster, of Bradfield and Mary Bayfield of Gunton, giving the choice of places to be married as either Gunton or St Luke's Chapel in Norwich Cathedral
The marriage license shows that Richard Bane was a widower, living in Bradfield at the time (where the non-conformist chapel was) and working as a maltster, and that Rachel Bayfield lived at Gunton. Richard had already had five children by his first wife Mary Cubitt (of Trunch), their first child Robert having been born in Trunch in 1706, after which the family moved to Erpingham for some years, there having daughters Elizabeth and Ann (two Ann's actually as one died as a baby), and then to Bradfield where son Richard was born. This first wife Mary died in Bradfield in 1717 at the age of 39 and it was two years later in 1719 that Richard married Rachel of Gunton at the Norwich Cathedral, she being fifteen years younger than him, upon which the family moved yet again, to Northrepps, where in 1722 was born my ancestor Thomas Bane, who apprenticed as a tailor, a skill he passed on down through the ensuing generations, in the villages of Thorpe Market and Southrepps (the family now far removed from their origins in Trunch). All these places were close to one another, as an old Norfolk rhyme does say:
"Gimingham, Trimingham, Knapton, Trunch, Northrepps, Southrepps, lie all in a bunch"
So we see that Richard was a yeoman, meaning that he was a land owner, possessing of his own landed estate, and also that he made his fortunes as a maltster, this trade being about the preparation of barley for brewing beer. A maltster was master of the beginning of the brewing process, soaking in general barley in water to make malt. This barley would be raked on the ground for a few days until germination began, by which the starches were converting into sugar, at which point all was roasted; the longer it was roasted then the darker the malt, lightly for a pale ale. This was big business, as just about everyone drank beer, making for any maltster a great deal of money.
A maltsters labourers working in his malthouse
Although having moved away from Trunch, Richard and both his wives were nevertheless buried there. Both of Richards wives, Mary and Rachel, were actually buried in the same grave, sharing sisterhood for eternity, whereas he himself had his own separate grave, buried t the good age of 85 in 1762, all of these tombstones still standing.
Gravestone transcriptions for the wives of Richard Bane the maltster, buried together in Trunch, and the transcript for Richard and Marys son Richard who died rather young at 35 in 1751, his father Richard outliving him
Gravestone transcript for Richard Bane the maltster, who had been living in Northrepps but was like his wives buried in Trunch. He lived till a good age, till 85 years old, dying in 1762
In 1745 Rachel's father Thomas Bayfield had died, aged 78, of which a great find has been the tombstone of Thomas and both of his wives, within the Antingham church and upon which useful information has been inscribed, confirming that these were status families:
Tombstone in the Antingham church for Thomas Bayfield and his two wives Rachel Flight and Judith Paynell
It was in Norwich in the grand church of St Peter Mancroft (a church I myself often went in as a girl), wedged between Hey hill and the market place, that Thomas Bayfield married his first wife, my ancestress Rachel Flight, in 1689 on 26th February, Rachels older sister Martha Bayfield having married in the same church in the same month, on 1st February, to her own beloved, Benjamin Surrey:
February marriages in 1689 for Martha and her sister Rachel to Benjamin Surrey and Thomas Bayfield
St Peter Mancroft church in Norwich where the Flight sisters Martha and Rachel married their sweethearts Benjamin Surrey and Thomas Bayfield in February of 1689
After the so very sad death in 1696 of Rachel at only the age of 26, she having had four children: Rachel, Thomas, Mary and Martha (who would die aged two, not so long after her mother), Thomas Bayfield married his second wife Judith Paynell in the village of Dilham in 1699 (and they would have nine children together - Judith, Gazeley, Elizabeth, John who would not survive, another Martha, Benjamin, another John, Arthur and Joseph):
Marriage to Judith Parnell in Dilham in 1699 and death of said Judith at Gunton, with burial in Antingnan in 1719, Judith being buried in the same grave as her husbands first wife Rachel née Flight;
Marriage in Dilham in 1699 of widower Thomas Bayfield and Judith Paynell
Death in Gunton, and burial in Antingham, in 1719 of Thomas Bayfield's second wife Judith
The marriage of Thomas Bayfields own parents, Thomas Bayfield Senior and Prudence Frazer in Gimingham in 1662 (Thomas Junior was born in 1665, other siblings being Prudence, Elizabeth and George):
And so we look at the radical religious climate which the Bayfield's and the Flights lived in. In Trunch the Flights and the Banes had been living side by side for many generations, the Bayfields being newcomers to Trunch, and though I know of the non-conformity of the Flights and the Bayfields, I know not what were the earlier spiritual inclinations of the Bane's. Maybe they were more conventional, maybe not. Thomas Bayfield and Rachel née Flight of Trunch, we have seen that as a young married couple they were visiting the Bradfield chapel, converted from a barn. The barn-chapel had been set up in 1672, twenty years before their daughter Rachel was baptised there, before which Independent non-conformists like them would have met in private homes, within Trunch, there being the houses of Henry Withers and John Google to do so in.
It was Rachels own father, Robert Flight, who himself offered up his home in Trunch, and was indeed one of the first to do so, for 'congregationalist' non-conformists, who were essentially Puritans that later merged with the Independents. One can see in 1664 that our Robert paid the hearth tax, showing he was a man of property and wealth. It is in the episcopal returns of 1669 and 1672 that he is listed as hosting congregationalist meetings in his house in Trunch, in the latter date he having been joined in this hosting by also Christopher Amiraut (an ejected minister of Huguenot name from New Buckingham) and Thomas Worts (an ex minister of a Flemish name from Barningham). Other non-conformist groups meeting in peoples homes were Independents (as the Bayfields would get involved with) and the Presbyterians. And prior to these dates, during civil war times, when royalty had been banished (effectively by execution) and Oliver Cromwell governed the land, when Robert Flight was a family man, open to new ideas, various dissenter preachers were welcomed in Trunch, such as Richard Lawrence and John Tillinghast, both educated men, graduated from Cambridge University and now independent ministers, congregationalism itself having been founded by a Norfolk man, Robert Browne, who preached in Norwich and Great Yarmouth, who along with his followers, to escape persecution, had to find safety for a time in other lands, in both Holland and America (the original pilgrims on the Mayflower were his followers).
Such puritan trends were influenced by Martin Luther and John Calvin, known as reformers, who openly challenged the Roman Catholic Church, releasing the Bible from its Latin obscurity into the local languages of the people, so that ones religious growth, prayer and religious study became a personal matter rather than the sole prerogative of the priesthood. It was in 1533 that Henry VIII, himself interested in reformism, split the church from the control of the Pope, giving hope and inspiration to many radicals and religious thinkers, only for him to backtrack, reviving many of the older traditions in his new Church of England, with himself in place of the Pope. Remaining radicals were subject to persecution and even being made martyrs of, especially in the time of Elizabeth I, hence the exodus to other safer lands, some of those people later returning. It was not until the time of Oliver Cromwell that the Puritans won back their influence, free to be active once more, being especially popular in Cromwell's military circles. When the monarchy was restored the non-conformists were once more under threat, and yet some still met privately, as can be seen in Trunch, with writers such as John Owen, John Bunyan and John Milton shaping the development of such religious attitudes in the consciousness of the people. A toleration act of 1689, thanks to the accession of royals William and Mary the year before, allowed chapels to be built and worship to be acceptable once more, although disadvantages were still there. It was for being banned from universities and public office that radicals from esteemed families lost their power and influence, seeding their intellect rather into the progress of the chapels and the education of the younger members. Not until the 1700's was religion at last a freedom for all, which unleashed an intense current of evangelism, especially in regard to methodism which was embraced on a large scale.
Trunch baptisms shown for the children of Rachels maternal grandparents Robert and Mary Flight and Richard Banes parents Robert and Mary Bane in 1663 and 1665, for which with this being a small village they would have known one another:
Baptisms of both Bane and Flight children in Trunch in 1663 and 1665
In 1684 there was a will written by Robert Flight, although I have yet to access what is on there. It can be accessed in Norwich in the Norfolk Record Office, and may impart some interesting information, hopefully.