Thomas Aynscombe


Thomas Aynscombe was an early-18th-century Dunstable and Smithfield, London landlord and minor benefactor.
Thomas Aynscombe of Charterhouse yard, and Northall in Buckinghamshire, was the son of Henry Aynscombe, of St. Mary Woolnoth, citizen and haberdasher of London, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Chew, Dunstable haberdasher, who had married Elizabeth, daughter of William Marsh of Dunstable in 1639.
His mother, Elizabeth Chew, was one of the three sisters and coheirs of William Chew, and the Sugar Loaf, one of the most famous coaching inns of the 18th century. It also included 14 farms in Dunstable, Luton, Kensworth, Caddington, Gravenhurst and Edlesborough, the manors of Fitzhugh, Edlesborough, Bowells and Northall, the two inns and several other cottages and pieces of land in Dunstable, a house in London, and houses in the parish of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, leased to London tradesmen. William Chew had been sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1709 and in 1703 had obtained a grant of arms with a device of Catherine wheels and griffins' heads, this was later to be the badge of the Foundation scholars. He was buried, like his nephew Thomas Chew Cart and sisters Frances Ashton, Jane Cart and Elizabeth Aynscombe , in Dunstable Priory. He is in the north aisle where Thomas Green of Camberwell did his monument.
William Chew's estate was inherited by his sisters Frances, who had married William Ashton, a London distiller, and Jane who had married James Cart, citizen and distiller of London, and their nephew, Thomas Aynscombe in lieu of his mother, Elizabeth, who had died in 1711. These last three then created Chew's Foundation in Dunstable, which opened in September 1724. The school house still stands and records their names on its front.

Wife and father-in-law

Aynscombe's first wife Jane, whom he married in 1706 in Norwich, was daughter of Philip Stebbing, grocer and Freeman of Norwich, and Deputy Lieutenant for the City and County of Norwich from 1701. He was apprenticed to the successful grocer and sometime MP for Norwich, Augustin Briggs, Esq.,, 3 August 1674. Was constable for the St. Peter Mancroft ward of Norwich in 1674; a Royalist councillor for the same ward, 1676–1682; chamberlain's council 1679–1681; alderman for the Berstreet ward, 1683–1688; alderman for the North Conisford ward, November 1688 – 1706; sheriff of Norwich 1682; and Mayor of Norwich 1687. As sheriffs he and Lawrence Goodwin had 'established a well-deserved reputation as merciless persecutors of non-conformists with a special animus for Quakers'. In February 1696 he was forced publicly to deny that on reading a 'printed paper' about the Jacobite plot to assassinate King William III he had gone to the Half Moon Coffee-house and declared that: 'the plott is mine Arse all over',.
He is buried in St Peter Mancroft, by the side of his wife, Anne Andrews, and three children. One son was Georgius Stebbing, grocer, freeman, Norwich 24 March 1704, while another Philip Stebbing of Norwich, then of Sprowston, with property in Wymondham, died 1715 making his brother-in-law Thomas Aynscombe his heir; leaving him his messuages, lands, tenements, premises and hereditaments there.

Sister

Aynscombe's sister Jane Elliott also of Charterhouse yard, left him the interest on £3,000; £100 to Christ's Hospital, and £10 to charity schools in the Cities of London or Westminster. She asked to be buried in the chancell of the church in Lombard street as near my dear ffather as possible, but as her brother's will of 1739 suggests she was buried instead in St. Sepulchre. His other sister Elizabeth Gilbert had a son Thomas Chew Gilbert.

Will

Aynscombe desired to be buried in the parish of St Sepulchre: as near the grave of my late dear wife and children and my affectionate sister Mrs Jane Elliott as conveniently may be willing and desiring that a sum not exceeding one hundred guineas be laid out in a handsome monument there to be erected for me and that the further sum of two hundred pounds be laid out upon my funeral which I desire
may be from Hicks Hall in St John Street out of which sum I desire all my tenants that pay me rent to the value of ten pounds a year may have a fflowered ring of the respective value of twelve shillings...
Aynscombe was governor and benefactor of several hospitals, so claimed the Gentleman's Magazine. He left £200 each to Christ's Hospital and to St. Bart's. hospital, and £20 to the charity school of St. Sepulchre. He is buried at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate. John Bosworth,,, tobacconist of Newgate street, Chamberlain of the City of London, master Edward Dod, late of Cornhill, now of Austin Friars, linen draper, and John Miller, senior, of Dunstable, wholesale dealer in straw and oatts , were the trustees.

Descendants

All his sons Philip, Thomas and Chew pre-deceased him.
Philip was admitted a gentleman commoner December 24, 1724 and matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1725, and had was given his MA in 1728, having been admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 4 February 1725/26. He married Valentina Wight, of St. George, Hanover Square, the granddaughter of Daniel Wight the younger, of Southwark, distiller, and owner of, amongst other things in Holborn and Borough, The George Inn, Southwark.
A marriage settlement dated 3 January 1706/07, shows the extent of some property that remained with the Aynscombe family into the 1840s.
Daniel Wight , of Southwark, distiller, son and heir of Daniel Wight, citizen and distiller, of London, dec.
Thos. Malyn of Southwark, Brewer, & Valentina , his eldest daughter; Saml. Wight, citizen and skinner, of London; & Edmond Halsey of Southwark, Brewer:
Philip Aynscombe died at Boulogne in 1737, probably in debt, subsequently Thomas Aynscombe became entrusted with his son's property and spent the end of his life defending this, his granddaughter's, Valentina's, inheritance in the courts; see Frederick v Aynscombe.
Aynscombe's only granddaughter, heir-at-law and devisee, Valentina, the only child of his only surviving son Philip, married Lillie Smith. As demanded by the will of Thomas Aynscombe, by Act of Parliament 1747, Lillie Smith changed his surname to Aynscombe, or as the House of Lords Journal, of February 9, 1747, called it: 'Smith's Bill to take name of Aynscombe'. In 1757 he used another private Act of Parliament to re-settle his father-in-law's property. Lillie was the elder son of Robert Smith, a freeman of London and eminent merchant, of Thames Street, of the parish of St James Garlickhythe, Worcester Place, of Mortlake, and Coldashby in Northamptonshire.
, by Reynolds.
Robert Smith had given Lillie £10,000 and moiety or half part of my trade on his marriage to Valentina in c. 1746; and then left him in his will 50 shares in the Sun Fire Office. Smith had acquired his share of the Sun Fire Office on 24 August 1720.
Lillie Smith Aynscombe was a director of the Sun Fire Office from, at latest, 1754 until his death in 1791.
Around 1750 he bought and rebuilt the Hermitage, St. Leonard's Hill, Clewer, Windsor, and lived there to 1773 when he sold it to the Duke of Gloucester who renamed it Sophia Farm. The site formed part of the Windsor Safari Park and today is within Legoland.
When Lillie Aynscombe died in 1791 The Scots Magazine,, reported it thus:
He also left three daughters :
Landskip, circa 1750s, now in the British Museum.
A great-nephew of Thomas Aynscombe's grandson-in-law Lillie Smith Aynscombe, Thomas-Chaloner Bisse-Challoner, of Portnall Park, Virginia Water, was his family's eventual heir.

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