Chart 37. Rev. William Pemberton, D.D.,
Rector of High Ongar, co. Essex.

According to the Funeral Certificate, this William was the “2nd son of Henry Pemberton of Merton (Moreton) co. Chester,” and the Will of his father* supplies a few details concerning that family. The Arms, it will be noticed, are the same as the Northants family (Chart 9), and others which combine the buckets and the griffins’ heads. We have already noticed (Chart 36) the probable connection of the Charlton family with that of Moreton, and consequently with William of Ongar. This William was instituted as Rector of High Ongar in 1611, and in the following year married Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Cope, of Bury St. Edmunds. She died in 1621 and William in 1622, at the age of 45. Foster† assigns to this William several particulars which really belong to William of Rendlesham (Chart 38, No. 1), with whom he wrongly identifies him, e.g., William of Ongar was not born until 1577 (being 35 at the time of his marriage in 1612), but Foster makes him a B.A. of Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1572. William of Rendlesham died in 1598, and William of Ongar in 1622. The only items that refer to William of Ongar in Foster’s list are that he was Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1600, and unduly elected Master of the same College in 1610.

There had been Pembertons at Moreton since at least 1535, when two were tenants of lands belonging to Birkenhead Monastery,§ but in only two cases besides the family of William of High Ongar has it been possible to connect the individuals mentioned. There is (1) Arthur Pemberton (d. 1629) who married Margery Hancock (d. cir. 1660), and had sons Richard and Robert and a daughter, and (2) Robert Pemberton (d. 1632) who married Ellen Urmston, and had sons Edward and Miles, a daughter, and a grandson Robert, son of Edward.‡

Turning to the family of William, Parson of High Ongar, we have already seen|| that his father, Henry, had four sons, Miles, William, Thomas and John, and also that a Miles was the father of William Pemberton of St. Olave’s, Southwark, who in 1629 mortgaged property to John Pemberton, Rector of Charlton. We have to decide whether this was Miles, son of Robert (No. 26), or the son of Henry (No. 5), or another. Now a William Irbie, of Moreton, in his Will of 1618‡ mentions amongst others “Miles, my son-in-law, and his two youngest children Thomas and John” and also a William, Henry, Robert, and John Pemberton. Miles and Ellen his wife were executors. This shows that Miles had elder children. Then William, of Southwark (afterwards of Lambeth), brewer, left a Will in 1657¶ which shows that his wife had been buried at Lambeth, and his mother and grandfather in Bidston Church (Moreton being a hamlet in the Parish of Bidston). He mentions a brother Henry and sisters Isabel, Jane, Anne and Ellen, and cousins Robert Pemberton and Thomas Gill. If we add the names of Miles’ “two youngest children” mentioned above, we find his sons are William, Henry, Thomas and John, which are exactly the names of the father and brothers of Miles (No. 5) the brother of William of Ongar, whilst Jane was the name of his mother and Ellen of his wife, though of course the latter point proves nothing. It is true that a child of the other Miles (No. 26) would have had a cousin Robert and a cousin Gill (No. 25) but a Katherine Pemberton, probably the aunt of William (No. 7), also married Richard Gill in 1605. The two families were probably closely connected. The coincidence of names given above is too weighty to be ignored, and we have based the chart on the assumption that William, of Lambeth, belonged to the family of William of High Ongar.

* Mr. Fergusson-Irvine’s MS. book, “Bidston Registers.”

† AL Ox., Early Series, Vol. 3, and Wood’s Fasti 122, p. 219.

§ Irvine’s MS. “ Bidston Registers,” kindly lent to the compiler.

‡ From Wills given in Irvine’s “Bidston Registers.”

|| Note on Chart 36.

¶ Proved in P.C.C.