Edward Southworth

  General Notes:

According to the book "Colonial and Revolutionary Lineages in America" Vol. 19, Edward was a silk worker in Leyden, Holland.

Other children : Captain Thomas Southworth (d. 8 Dec 1669)- married Elizabeth, the dau. of John Reyner. They had a child, Edward Southworth.

Other Sources:
New England Families, Genealogical and Memorials, Clearfield Company, p. 1202

Susan E. Roser, Mayflower Increasings (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995), p. 6. ¹¹⁶

  Noted events in his life and other information:

• Occupation: A merchant and business agent for the Leyden Pilgrims. ⁴⁴⁶

• He was born. ¹⁵⁷
Edward was not mentioned in his grandfather Lister's will in 1582 but was in his grandfather Southworth's will in 1595

• English Ancestry: ⁴⁴⁷
There has been some debate over the English ancestry of the American Southworths. I was given a genealogy of my grandmother, Mabel Atwood, done by a profession genealogist sometime between 1920 and 1950. It had Edward Southworth connected to the Sir Thomas and Sir John Southworth of Samlesbury Hall, Lancaster shire, England. I have since read about the controversy over this connection, began questioning that connection.

I followed both A Genealogy of the Southworths (Southards)..., which follows very closely to the genealogy of my grandmother, Mabel Atwood, and the Southworth research done by Jim Stevens (database whose research I highly respect. He is convinced that the connection I was given is correct. He spent many years researching everything he could find about the Southworth family, and he has "the ultimate" Southworth data base on his rootsweb site.

I also searched through the database of the New England Historic and Genealogical Record for any information I could find dealing with this controversy. The NEHG Record,1943, Vol. 97, pages 390-362 has an article titled The Southworth family of Plymouth Colony, which deals with an embroidered Southworth Crest resembling the Crest of the Southworth of Samlesbury Hall, Lancastershire, England which had belonged to Constant Southworth's mother Alice Carpenter Southworth Bradford. This embroidery had been passed down through the Bradford family through the women, starting with Alice Carpenter.

The embroidery is considered to be made in the Americas after 1700. It contains patterns that are from the older Southworth arms, but at the time it was made there was no printed source of this earlier version in either Britain or the Americas. This may have been copied off an inherited family item.

During the sixteenth century there were these two pairs of Southworth brothers, the Southworth brother of Leyden: a Tomas and Edward of the Samlesbury branch and a Thomas and Edward of the Nottingham branch. The first of two sets brothers named Thomas and Edward that were born in Lancashire of the Samlesbury Southworths. They were the grandsons of Sir John Southworth the Recusant, who mentioned them both in his will. Sir John was a Roman Catholic, but the father of these two brothers became a member of the Church of England.

Also during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a large family of Southworths who bore the Southworth coat of arms living in the heart of "Separatist and Pilgrim country." Sir John Southworth, of Samlesbury, living around 1400, had land in Norttinghampshire. Future generations of Southworths lived in this area. There were two brothers there named Thomas and Edward Southworth.

The male Samlesbury Southworths belonged among the foreign burgesses of the Preston Guild. Both Thomas and Edward Southworth named appear in the list of 1602, but both are omitted from the list of 1622. Omission from the list might indicate death or removal from Lancastershire. Edward Southworth of Leyden died sometime between 1620 and 1623.

Whether the Leyden brothers who began the Southworth families in the United States were the Nottingham or Samlesbury branch, the article concludes that they either descended remotely or very closely from the knightly family of Southworth of Samlesbury.
NEHGR, Vol 97 pgs 359-362

• Dates & Events: ¹⁵⁷
Edward southworth was a silk worker in Leyden, one of the Pilgrim exiles who formed Reverend John Robbin's church, On 4 Nov 1611, he was groomsman or witness at the marriage of Isaac Allerton and mary Norris. On 30 Apr 1618, he was again a witness for his friend Samuel Fuller's marriage to agnes carpenter.

Edward moved back to London and lived at the Henige/Heneage House in the Duke Place. Governor William Brandford kept a letter from a Robert Cushman to Edward dated 17 Aug 1620 living at that location. The letter discusses Edward's plan of making a journey to the Americas. Edward never made this journey.

A Genealogy of the Southworths (Southards)..., author Samuel G. Webber uses the location and ownership of the Heneage House as on proof of the connection between the American Southworths and Samleson Southworths. A man named Francis Walsingham took an interest in the welfare of Thomas Southworth when there was fear that Sir John might disinherit his eldest son after Thomas became a protestant. Sir Francis Walsingham had lived across from the Henage House.

Webber also compared the ages and dates of the few Edward/Thomas Southworths living at the time of Edwards marriage to Alice Carpenter, age 16 at the time of marriage. He concludes that the only the Edward Southworth, son of Thomas Southworth and grandson of Sir John Southworth, was of the correct age to marry Alice Carpenter. He further states that there had been a family legend about a previous interest of Governor William Bandford in marrying Alice Carpenter, but Alice's father refusing because Bradford's status was below Alice's. The son of Thomas and grandson of Sir John would be of similar status.

Webber's last argument is that the pilgrim friend of Edward and Thomas Southworth, Myles Standish, lived within eight miles of the Samleson Southworths. He concludes his book, A Genealogy of the Southworths (Southards)..., by giving Constant's and Edward's ancestry as the one I have used here.

~A Genealogy of the Southworths (Southards)... , Chapter Five, Southworths in England pgs. 401-438

• Background Information: ¹⁵⁷
Entry from A Genealogy of the Southworths (Southards)... pg. 426:
Thomas Southworth, born about 1561; died 1617; married Rosamond Lister, daughter of William Lister, Esquire of Thornton, York, and Bridget Pigot of Midhope. His children were: John, who died before his father; thomas, present at Edward's marriage at leyden in 1613; William, of Holcroft, Lancaster, living in 1618; Richard; Michael (Nicholas); Edward, in Leyden married Alice carpenter; Bridget, married Duddel, Esquire of salwick; Margery, married Thomas Osbaldston, Esquire; Ellen, married William Dewhurst; Ann. all these children were living 1595, when their grandfather made his will.

Edward married Alice Carpenter, daughter of Alexander Carpenter and Priscilla Dillen, on 28 May 1613 in Leyden, Holland ¹⁵⁷ (Alice Carpenter was born 3 Aug 1590 or 16 Dec 1593 in Wrington, Somersetshire, England ^116,156,158, christened on 1 Sep 1592 in Brighton, Somersetshire, England ¹⁵⁷ and died in 5 Apr-29 Mar 1670 in Plymouth, Massachusetts ¹⁵⁷.)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Marriage: ¹⁵⁷
Edward's brother, Thomas Southworth was present for the wedding that took place in Leyden in 1613.