John Branch\ Braunche ll^[1]

1466 - 1521  (55 years)

• Name	John Branch\ Braunche ll
  Birth	20 Mar 1466	Abingdon, Berkshire, England
  Gender	Male
  Death	25 Mar 1521	Abingdon, Berkshire, England
  Person ID	I46817	Master
  Last Modified	6 Nov 2022

  
  

  Family	Margaret Edwards,   b. 1480, Abingdon, Berkshire, England d. 1521, , , , England (Age 41 years)
  Children	+ 1. Richard Branch,   b. 1496, Abingdon, Berkshire, England d. 26 Jul 1544, Abingdon, Berkshire, England (Age 48 years)
  Family ID	F10637	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	5 Nov 2022

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 20 Mar 1466 - Abingdon, Berkshire, England Death - 25 Mar 1521 - Abingdon, Berkshire, England  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  Name: John Braunche Sex: M Birth: ABT. 1466 in Abingdon, Berkshire, England Death: AFT. 25 MAR 1521 in Abingdon, Berkshire, England Occupation: Carpenter Note: This second John Apparently married Margaret Edwards and was still alive in 1521 when his two sons Thomas and Richard are mentioned with him. After 1521, no further reference to the second John Branch is known. On May 16, 1488 John and his mother Avis, granted the annual sum of 4 shillings to the Fraternity of the Holy Cross in Abingdon. Father: John Braunche b: BEF. 20 MAR 1437/38 in Abingdon, Berkshire, England Mother: Avise ? b: 1447 in Abingdon, Berkshire, England Marriage 1 Margaret Edwards b: ABT. 1488 in Abingdon, Berkshire, England Children 1. Has Children Thomas Braunche b: ABT. 1514 2. Has Children Richard Braunche b: ABT. 1503 in Abdingdon, Berkshire, England 3. Has No Children William Braunche John Braunche was a Carpenter and lived at West Saint Helen's Street, Abingdon, England He had the following children: i Richard Branch ii William Branch was born about 1520 in Abingdon, Berkshire,England. He died in Abingdon, Berkshire,England. [Source: Abingdon Area Archeaological & History Society at: http://www.abingdon.gov.uk/history/people/braunche-family] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` The Braunche Family The Braunches were a leading family in Abingdon through several generations. A John Branch (d. 1488) worked from 1438 as a master carpenter on the building of All Souls College in Oxford. He was responsible for selecting and preparing the timber to be felled, and he may have been the designer of the hammer-beam roof in the chapel. Although his pay was only fractionally above that of the more skilled of the half dozen or so other carpenters employed, he was paid by the week and they by the day, so his income was probably more steady than theirs. He was almost certainly the John Braunche who leased property in 1438 from men whom we can recognise as leaders of the Fraternity or Guild of the Holy Cross, at that time not yet a chartered corporation. In 1440, John Braunche and his wife Avise (died 1490) took a house in West St Helen Street. The family’s connection with the Fraternity continued. Their son John (died 1521) carried on the carpentry business and was a Fraternity member. Their grandson Richard (about 1503−1544), who prospered as a woollen draper, was a master of the Guild. At the time of Amyce’s survey in 1554, Richard’s widow Elizabeth (about 1507−1556) was living in the Bury near the end of Lombard Street and deriving income from three adjoining properties in East St Helen Street, two of which, the present Nos. 55 and 51, still exist. Richard’s elder son Thomas owned the Bull Inn on the corner of Littlebury Street (about where the NatWest Bank is now) but he died in 1565 and left it to his brother William (before 1538−1602), a woollen draper like his father but also a maltster. William continued the family tradition, becoming a governor of Christ’s Hospital, which had been established in 1553 to replace the old Fraternity. He was master four times between 1572 and 1593, as well as being mayor of Abingdon four times between 1563 and 1588. He also represented the town in the short-lived parliament of 1593. It was in William’s time that factional conflict broke out in both the Corporation and in Christ’s Hospital, and he played a major role in it. This resulted in his oldest son Thomas (1557−1603) having his entry to these bodies delayed, so that he never achieved great distinction in them. Another son, Richard (1560−before 1602), became a clergyman and was rector of Hinton Waldrist and Longworth, while a third, Lionel (1566-1605), moved to London. In the next generation, the name of Braunche no longer appears among Corporation members and Hospital governors. Their position in Abingdon politics was taken up by a son-in-law, Robert Payne, who also inherited the Bull Inn. There was a John Braunche, saddler, who was active in Abingdon in 1637 but is not known to have taken any part in public affairs. Lionel’s offspring emigrated to Virginia and started an American branch of the family. The second John Braunche was a feoffee of the Fraternity of the Holy Cross and in 1489 was party, with his co-feoffees, to a conveyance of some Fraternity property. He was alive in 1497, when he appears in a rental of Fraternity properties as paying an annual sum of twenty shillings in respect of his house in West St. Helen's Street, which was on the north of a house belonging to or occupied by Margaret Edwards. John's brother, William, appears as party or witness to various conveyances between 1479 and 1487, but little else is known about him. On March 25, 1521, John Braynch (a varieant spelling of Braunche), a carpenter, conveyed the house in which he lived and his father before him from 1440 onwards, to Mrs. Margery Harcourt, widow, Oliver Wellesbourne, gentleman, and Richard Edwardes alias Braynche, draper. On April 4, 1521, Richard and Thomas jointly released any rights they might have on the house to the three persons named in the earlier conveyance. This mention of Richard Edwardes alias Braynche in the first conveyence presents a problem to which the records give no answer. He may have been the stepson of John after a marriage to his neighbor, the widow Edwardes, sometime after 1497, or possibly the illegitimate offspring of the two neighbours. Whatever the fact, it is clear that this Richard was neither the lawful son and heir to John, nor blood brother to Richard and Thomas. After 1521 no further reference to the second John Braunche is known.

  
  

• Sources

  [S761] Yates Publishing, Ancestry Family Trees, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.), Ancestry Family Tree.