Huggins Family

The HUGGINS family of Warmington

In the twentieth century, two bearers of this name, who were descendants of the old Warmington family, moved back to the village for a time, but are not included in this tree, which is concerned with the name in the 17th to 19th centuries. Family researchers should be aware that the spellings HUGGINS and HOWKINS were frequently used indiscriminately. Although they are distinct names today, they may well have originated from the same blood relations. The HOWKINS family will be separately traced.

Early generations of the family were tailors, though they soon acquired land and property. The founding father was a Samuel HUGGINS, although he had bought property from an earlier Robert HUGGINS of whom nothing else is known.

Samuel HUGGINS, a tailor died in 1646 leaving a widow Julian who died in 1655.

The couple had two children, Ezekiel and Henry, both tailors. The younger son Henry received a cash bequest under his father’s will. Henry died in 1685, his wife Joan having predeceased him in 1684. Henry and Joan had four or more children, but only two survived their father, a son Joseph and daughter Julian, of whom no further mention is found.

Ezekiel,  elder son of Samuel and Julian, under his father’s will received a dwelling house bought by him from a Job Bromfield and parcels of farm land including a piece intriguing called the Twenty Pennyworth. Ezekiel married Mary DAVIS at nearby Mollington in 1645. Mary was second daughter of Richard DAVIS deceased, lord of the manor of Warmington. Ezekiel died in 1674/5, still described as tailor though his inventory shows also his farming activity. In his will he divided the property he had inherited and also that he himself had bought between his five children

Five children of Ezekiel and Mary

1. Richard the eldest was a citizen of London when his son Ezekiel was baptised in Warmington in 1674. By 1690 in his will there was no mention of wife or children; when he was then described as gentleman of Staples Inn. He left bequests to members of the Warmington family, which are helpful in confirming relationships.  During his lifetime he sold his Warmington property (including the Twenty Pennyworth) to his younger brother John, enabling him to set up as farmer.

2. Simon, yeoman, died 1746 (see section A below)

3. Mary married a man called BARKER

4. Samuel baptised 1654

5. John, tailor later yeoman, 1656 – 1742/3 (see section B below)

Section A, descendants of Simon

Four generations of the HUGGINS family are recorded on the chest tomb, F.64, in Warmington churchyard, starting with Simon and his wife Joan, a long-lived couple. The inscription states that they died on the same day, 3rd September 1746, and that she was 86. His age is illegible.

1. Simon had married Joan FRIEND, nee JUDD, a widow with three little girls, in 1700. The couple had two daughters, Mary baptised 1701 who married Thomas PITKIN in 1729, and Hannah baptised in 1705. They also had one son, Simon.

2. Their son, Simon, 1703 – 1768, married Anne WHITTELSEE, c. 1702 – 1772, no doubt related to the Warmington family of mercers and farmers

Simon & Anne also had two daughters and a son. Margaret, baptised 1735, married in 1761 Richard FOX of Swalcliffe while the other daughter Mary married a man called DAVIS. They also had one son, Samuel

3. Their son Samuel lived from 1728 to 1783. Towards the end of his life the open fields of Warmington were enclosed and in lieu of the estate built up piecemeal by himself, his father and grandfather, he was allotted a compact farm of just under eighty acres, west of the Turnpike road running to the Arlescote boundary, later known as Hill Farm or Ironstone Farm. His farmhouse stood on the plot now known as Agdon House, but also including farmbuildings to the south, fronting the Green. His wife was Elizabeth RALEIGH, (c.1724 – 1797). They had children Simon (c.1759 – 1782), Hannah (1759 – 1784) and Samuel

4. Their son Samuel, yeoman, 1767 – 1835, married in 1788  Mary WADY, 1768 – 1846,  of a Warmington farming family.

Samuel and Mary had eleven children, of whom only brief details are given here:

1. Mary baptised 1789, married in 1810 Richard BEESLEY and had issue

2. Hannah baptised 1793, married in 1815 Samuel BOURTON of Horley.

3. Sarah baptised 1795, married in 1821 Thomas COOK of Warwick

4. Elizabeth 1796 – 1876, married in 1819 Christopher ROBBINS, (c1792 – 1836), baker & maltster of Warmington. This couple had four children:  Elizabeth married Edmund ALLIBAND, John (1823 – 1851), Anne married John BONEHILL, & Hannah married William GIBBS

5. Samuel who inherited the family farm was baptised in 1799. He married a Londoner, Ann Catherine COLES. They had five children, born in Warmington (Methodist baptisms). They were  Mary Jane, born 1848; Samuel Tillcott, born 1849, became a GP; Coles born 1852, married in 1871 Anne HAWTIN, Ratley; Emily Kate born 1855, married Daniel Wilkins FESSY; George Francis, born 1858, became a solicitor.

6. Simon baptised in 1800, married in 1835 Sarah JUDD, daughter of the HUGGINS’ next door neighbour.  The couple farmed at Westcote Barton, where their two sons Samuel and Simon were born in 1841 & 1842.

7. Alice baptised 1802, married 1825 Richard Judd MILES. Had issue William MILES, a prominent Warmington figure, and eight others

8. John baptised 1805, married Mavis Ann BROWN and had five children. They farmed at Avon Dassett before emigrating to the USA

9. William baptised 1806, married 1836 Mary ANDREWS

10. George 1808 – 1825 died of typhus

11. Ann baptised 1811.

The family farm

Samuel Huggins died in 1867 aged 68, but his widow lived on for a further thirty years, dying in Kings Norton in 1897 aged 81. The Warmington farm was then sold to Richard Adkins and let to tenant farmers.

Section B, descendants of John

John was about nineteen years of age when his father Ezekiel died in 1674/5. He was bequeathed by his father a dwelling house (thought to be Holly Cottage), plus entitlement to several sums of money from his siblings. He continued in the family occupation of tailor, but later concentrated on farming, buying farmland from his eldest brother Richard.

John 1656 – 1742/3,  married (i) Rebecca (died 1691), (ii) Mary (died 1694), (iii) Mary.

He had five children who reached adulthood:

1. Hannah, baptised 1694, married a man called WARD

2. Mary, baptised 1699, married a man called DONALDSON

3. John 1702 – 1728, married Mary HOPKINS at Swalcliffe just before his early death.

4. Elizabeth, baptised 1709, believed to have married John GASCOIGN of Warmington.

5. William, 1713 – 1778, yeoman, married in 1759 Elizabeth MILLER. Shortly before his death, the open fields of Warmington were enclosed and William was allotted eighteen acres immediately south of the church. The couple had no sons, but four daughters, who were co-heirs to the estate:

1) Mary (born before her parents’ marriage). She married John GREGORY of Broughton in 1778.

2) Hannah, married James TOMPKINS

3) Elizabeth, 1764 – 1817, married 1788 William GASCOIGN, 1747 – 1818, a member of a long-established Warmington family

4) Sarah baptised 1768, married 1786 Samuel TAYLOR.

William Gascoign bought out the shares of his wife’s sisters in the farm, but he and his wife proved to be childless. After her death in 1817, he committed suicide, leaving the estate to his sister-in-law, Mary, wife of John GREGORY, listed above. The farmland, known before Inclosure as ‘The Twenty Pennyworth’  passed to other owners, later becoming in 1870 part of Grove Farm and eventually part of the Herb Centre. The farmhouse, today known as Holly Cottage, and the cottages which replaced the farm outbuildings to the north, passed under Mary GREGORY’s will of 1835 to her GOUGH and OXLEY grandchildren.