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William Wollascott, Twyford and Whistley Mills, and Neville's Mediation, 1606-1607

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William Wollascott, Twyford and Whistley Mills, and Neville's Mediation

Central Finding

Royal Berkshire Archives D/EN/F6/1/12, dated 20 January 1606 Old Style (1607 modern reckoning), reveals Henry Neville acting as the expected mediator in Widow Millard's property dispute with her son Henry Millard. This is a substantially different document from the inherited transcription. It does not concern a “widow and John,” and it does not say that Neville owned Twyford mills.

William Wollascott writes that he is sending enclosed articles:

“in variance betweene

the mother and sonne”

He describes the woman as:

“the poore widdowe, whose impotency, moane and want,

if not necessitie in short tyme, may justly require some redresse

in that wch is truly her owne”

The language is both compassionate and proprietary: the requested settlement is not a discretionary gift but redress in property Wollascott says is truly hers.

Twyford and Whistley: The Correct Property Sequence

The son was expected to obtain the Twyford mills from his mother, together with their appurtenant advantages:

“when her sonne shall have Twiford milles from her wth

the commodities to them belonginge”

Wollascott then says that the son was already advancing a claim during the widow's lifetime:

“and pretendeth still duringe

my mother in lawes life the milles at Wystley”

Wystley is Whistley in Hurst, Berkshire. The prior reading Wingfield is rejected by the manuscript and by the local geography. VCH places Whistley in the central liberty of Hurst and Twyford in Broad Hinton immediately to its north. The same source documents both a Twyford watermill and the manor of Hurst alias Whistley.

The companion October letter now prevents a prior overreading of my mother in lawes life. Widow Millard and Wollascott's mother-in-law need not be the same woman. The Millards' Twyford obligation instead rests on a lease from M^rs Martyn and M^r Martyn, while Compton Reade's printed genealogy identifies Wollascott's wife as Anne Martyn and Anne's mother as Marie/Mary Reade-Hurst- Martyn. Mary had first married Walter Hurst, lord of Hurst, and later Edward Martyn of Shinfield. She was still alive in January 1606/7 and died on 10 October 1607. This makes Mary Martyn a strong identification for the mother-in-law and supplies a coherent Hurst/Whistley route without making her Widow Millard.

Neville's Function: Justice, Equity, and an Order

Wollascott asks Neville for:

“yor endeavour of the rest as it standeth betweene them”

He then states what he expects Neville's intervention to do:

“wch I knowe will in the ballance of justice and equity forwarde

her”

This is direct evidence of Neville's local authority operating outside a bare office list. A Berkshire neighbour expected him to receive articles, evaluate a mother-son property controversy, and move it toward an equitable settlement.

The companion Wollascott letter of 22 October 1606, D/EN/F6/1/10, has now received a complete image audit. Wollascott says he read Widow Millard a copy of Neville's order. Her son had received no notice of the visit, and she wanted the brother of her husband present because he could explain the matters better than she could. Wollascott says the widow claimed great matters due from her son, but he could discern little substance in them. He then writes:

“I dislike nothinge in the order or agreement”

His single reservation was that:

“good security be given by Henry

Millard for the sufficient and well repayre of the milles”

The obligation arose under the widow's lease:

“from M^rs Martyn and M^r Martyn”

The two letters therefore document a continuing written settlement process. Neville's order existed by October; Wollascott pursued further articles and an equitable adjustment in January.

Why the 1605-1607 Date Matters

VCH's manor descent records a Whistley succession immediately before these letters. Sir Richard Ward died in 1605 after bequeathing Hurst alias Whistley to his great-nephew Richard Harrison and his nephew William Millward the younger. Katherine Millward and Anne Weldon, sisters and coheirs, released their shares to Harrison in the same year.

That transition makes the Ward-Millward papers a serious research avenue for the dispute, but it does not by itself prove that Widow Millard and Henry were members of that succession. A Hurst parish-register transcript records a Henry, son of Robert Millward/Myllward, baptized 15 February 1588, and Robert Myllward's burial on 21 January 1603. He is an excellent local candidate, not a demonstrated identity. The needed next witnesses remain Ward's IPM, the cited Berkshire fine, probate evidence, and the Martyn/Millard lease.

VCH also supplies a separate Twyford sequence. A sixteenth-century manor of Twyford remained with the Norreys family as late as 1601; the local watermill had older documented roots; and Twyford Mill was in William Hide's possession at his death in 1624. The letter falls inside that changeover window.

A later State Papers calendar gives a useful endpoint. On 30 September 1613, the Berkshire and Oxfordshire Commissioners of Sewers ordered Richard Harrison, then occupant of Whistley Mill, to repair the adjoining banks of the River Loddon. This directly checked printed-page witness confirms the place and its later occupant; it does not identify the 1606/7 claimant.

Who Was William Wollascott?

The sender's surname and forename are secure in two areas of the physical document: he signs William Wollascott, and the verso is docketed from Mr Wollascott. The address names Sr Henry Nevill knight.

A printed State Papers calendar entry for 21 June 1603 records:

“Grant to Wm. Wollascot, on surrender of Edward Martin, of the

Surveyorship of the King's honours, &c., co. Berks.”

The 1664-66 Berkshire visitation places a William Wollascott at Shinfield and joins him to the daughter and heir of Edward Martin. The printed pedigree gives her forename inconsistently as Mary and Ann on its two continuations. The office succession and marriage connection make this crown surveyor a strong candidate for Neville's correspondent. They do not conclusively identify him, because the letter supplies no residence.

Compton Reade's 1899 genealogy resolves the immediate marital sequence more coherently: Anne, daughter and heir of Edward Martyn and Marie Reade, married William Wollascott. Reade also prints that Mary Martyn joined William and Anne Wollascott in a 5 March 1605 conveyance. Because Reade cites Kirt. MSS. rather than reproducing the deed, the underlying instrument remains the preferred upgrade target.

If the identification is correct, the correspondence joins two kinds of county authority: Neville's magisterial and manorial standing and Wollascott's crown survey work. That would help explain why Wollascott believed Neville could turn enclosed property articles into an effective written order.

Archival Placement

The live Royal Berkshire Archives catalogue places the document in:

  1. D/EN, Neville and Aldworth family and estate documents;
  2. D/EN/F, family papers;
  3. D/EN/F6, correspondence and memoranda of Sir Henry Neville, ambassador to

    4. France;

  4. D/EN/F6/1, nineteen documents of miscellaneous correspondence, 1592-1615.

CALMView does not expose /12 as a separately described online item. The physical verso itself bears the modern pencil reference D/EN/F6/1/12. The companion document's physical verso similarly carries D/EN/F6/1/10, while the live /10 URL reports that no separate database record exists.

What This Document Does and Does Not Establish

It establishes that:

It does not yet establish:

Sources

Manuscript Verification Audit