William and Christopher Johnson of the South Cave Lease, 1586

William and Christopher Johnson of the South Cave Lease

Why they matter

William and Christopher Johnson occupy different documentary positions in Sir Henry Neville's major South Cave lease of 1 November 1586.

• William Johnson of South Cave, gentleman, was the lessee.
• Christopher Johnson was one of five witnesses.

The shared surname makes a family relationship plausible, but the lease abstract does not state one. The men must therefore be researched separately until a parish, probate, deed, or signature record joins them.

The lease

Hull History Centre catalogues U DDBA/4/116 as a twenty-one-year lease from:

Sir Henry Nevell of Pillingbere, Berkshire to William Johnson of Southcave,

gentleman

The property included:

• the mansion house of the prebend of South Cave;
• all appurtenances of the prebend;
• the advowson of South Cave.

The annual rent was £30. The entry records £300 already paid and a further £180 due on 30 November 1587. The total entry premium was therefore £480, in addition to the annual rent.

This is a substantial transaction. Over the full term the nominal rent alone would total £630, bringing the stated premium and rent to £1,110 before allowing for repairs, obligations, profits, or the time value of money.

A correction to the later local history

J. G. Hall's History of South Cave summarizes the same transaction but says that William Johnson was to pay Neville £380 as a fine. That figure conflicts with the Hull catalogue's itemized £300 paid plus £180 payable.

The catalogue abstract is both more precise and tied to the surviving deed reference. Unless the original instrument reveals a catalogue error, £480 should be retained as the controlled figure and Hall's £380 treated as a later arithmetic or transcription mistake.

This correction matters because the lease is evidence for the scale of Neville's Yorkshire property income and liquidity. A hundred-pound error is not trivial in this context.

The witnesses

The catalogue gives the witness list as:

Henry Nevell, Robert Beseley, Christopher Johnson, George Wellington, and

Richard Hathorne

The group is unusually promising because later research has independently placed:

• George Wellington in Wokingham and in Neville's 1605 South Cave

settlement;

• Robert Beseley at Merton, later managing Neville's Trelawny nephews;
• Richard Hathorne beside a concentrated surname-and-place cluster in

Warfield, Berkshire, though his identity is not yet proved.

This raises a testable possibility that at least part of the witness group came from Neville's Berkshire or administrative circle rather than being composed only of Yorkshire neighbours. Christopher Johnson is the least localized member of the list. If he proves to be William's relative, the deed may combine tenant-side and landlord-side witnesses.

William Johnson

The lease securely identifies William as:

• resident at South Cave;
• a gentleman;
• able to undertake a large premium and annual rent;
• the occupant or controller of the prebendal mansion and appurtenances for

twenty-one years;

• connected to the advowson as part of the leased property.

No further sixteenth-century record has yet been securely attached to him. Later Johnsons in the South Cave papers cannot be made his children or descendants from surname and locality alone.

His financial capacity makes probate and manorial research especially important. A will or inventory could identify his lands, livestock, household goods, debts to Neville, and relationship to Christopher.

Christopher Johnson

Christopher is secure only as a witness. The deed abstract gives no residence, occupation, title, or kinship.

A 1582–83 East Riding bond names a Christopher Johnson of Thorngumbald, farmer, with Robert Johnson of Mappleton. That record is a same-name lead, not an identification. Thorngumbald lies within the wider East Riding but does not by itself connect its Christopher to South Cave or Neville.

Searches should include Johnson, Jonson, and Jhonson, but the commonness of the surname requires a residence, occupation, signature, relative, or repeated transaction before records are merged.

Research programme

1. Inspect U DDBA/4/116 for signatures, seals, endorsements, handwriting,

and the exact financial clauses.

2. Search York and East Riding probate indexes for William Johnson of South

Cave from 1586 through the early seventeenth century.

3. Search South Cave parish, manorial, subsidy, muster, and ecclesiastical

records for both men.

4. Determine whether Christopher appears in other Barnard-family deeds near

1586.

5. Compare the witness signatures with any Berkshire or Merton records before

assigning the witness group to one regional network.

6. Preserve the £480/£380 discrepancy until the original deed is inspected.

Citations and public sources

• Hull History Centre, Papers of the Barnard Family of South Cave, `U

DDBA/4/116`, public catalogue PDF.

• J. G. Hall, *A History of South Cave and of Other Parishes in the East

Riding of the County of York*, public scan.

• East Riding Archives, bond involving Christopher Johnson of Thorngumbald,

zDDHE/3/1/2, public catalogue record.

Source-control note

The original lease has not been imaged in this research pass. All exact wording comes from the Hull History Centre's public catalogue abstract. The identity of Christopher and his relationship to William remain unresolved.