Websters from Wymondham: The Webster Line

WebsterLine

St. Marys Church, Attleborough
Used by permission from St. Marys

The name Webster was very common in eastern Norfolk county, England, and appeared early in every parish record I looked at. The word itself was originally related to weaving as seen in the words web and webbing. The surname Webster was taken independently by different families of weavers in different areas, and later Websters appeared in a variety of social positions. For example, "Wate Webster the bottler from Bronholm" supplied beer at the funeral of Sir John Paston in May, 1466 (as listed in The Paston Letters, Vol.4, p.228). And Robertus Webster was a novice in the Hickling Priory in 1526 and a monk by 1532 (as given in The Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, Camden Society, 1888, pp.213,277). Other Websters became small farmers ("husbandmen") or laborers.

The immediate families of ISRAEL (JAMES), FRANCIS, and WILLIAM WEBSTER fit this latter social category. Their father THOMAS WEBSTER was listed as "labourer" with the christening of all of his children except one, and with that one he was listed as "husbandman." At least thirteen Webster couples appear in the same parish records besides the three known to be ours. Socially they were similar as laborers, small farmers, weavers, etc, and further study will probably reveal family relations not yet found.

Our earliest known WEBSTERS, however, lived in the large town of Attleborough, Norfolk, where the first Webster reference in the extant parish records was the christening of Grace, infant daughter of John Webster in 1585. Several couples appeared through the 1600s to 1675 when Maria Webster married Nicholas Gall, widower. No other Websters appeared until 1727, but in that year the references begin to tell us of our own family. This study in Attleborough was helped greatly because the lengthy parish records of 1552-1840 were indexed by surname and printed by the Norfolk and Norwich Genealogical Society in Vol.12 of the Norfolk Genealogy Series (Fiche no.6046423).

Four Webster references preceding the marriage of our first known ancestor EDWARD on 11 October 1761 probably refer to our people. They are insufficiently detailed to show a sure relation, but I have speculatively made a family group for our EDWARD with a possible brother William and three possible sisters (Mary, Anne, and Elizabeth) showing common relations to each other as well as to the NN (No Name) father of our EDWARD. After this EDWARD WEBSTER and ELIZABETH COMMAN, all later WEBSTERS in the ancestry of ISRAEL (JAMES), FRANCIS, and WILLIAM are identified in the parish records by the names of their mothers as well as their fathers, so we feel confident of the accuracy of our WEBSTER line from EDWARD down to the present.

With three of the wives' lines, for ELIZABETH AUSTIN, MARY GOWARD, and ELIZABETH RADE/READ, we found enough information to create their own Earliest Descent Charts, but for ELIZABETH COMMAN we found very little. She was the paternal great-grandmother of ISRAEL (JAMES), FRANCIS, and WILLIAM WEBSTER. No further data on her or her family are given in Generations of Websters, and the name is quite rare though "Colman" is frequent. Only three other references appear in the Attleborough records, for Elizabeth dau of Thomas and Marie Coman (christened on 22 Nov 1637) and for Stephen Coman's son Daniel (born and buried in 1792) and his wife Mary (buried in 1805). In nearby Wymondham in the 1830s Stephen Coman was a weaver, and Jonathan joined him in the 1840s (Film no.1911510). In Wicklewood the name Coman appeared twice: William Coman and Honor his wife had Sarah christened on 26 March 1802, and John Welton and wife Mary Coman had Susanna christened on 22 September 1803 (Film no.1526812). Likely these families were relatives of our ELIZABETH, but none was traced further.

In the Pedigree Chart and Descent Charts, the abbreviation "A" or "a" means the christening date.

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