John Harewell

John married Margaret Beaupine 1371, Worcester, Worcestershire, England. Margaret was born 1353, Besford, Worcestershire, England; died , England. [Group Sheet]

1. William Harewell was born 1395, Wooten Wawen, Worcestershire, England; died , Besford, Worcestershire, England.

Notes:

Source: Harwell: Village For A Thousand Years, 1985 print
web: http://www.harwellparish.co.uk/village4a1000years/book/book-introduction.html

In medieval times, the trade or following of an individual came to be used as a surname and many of these are still in common use, e.g. Smith, Baker, Taylor, etc. In other cases such as a member of a profession or a freehold landowner the place of origin was added after the name, particularly if the individual travelled or was known away from his locality. Thus in the thirteenth century some few villagers would have been known as, for example, ... de Harwell or more correctly de Harewell as the present spelling did not come into general use until the seventeenth century.

John de Harewell (1320 -1386) was born in the village, the son of a freeholder, and having studied at Oxford University he became a priest. In the service of the Black Prince he rose to become Governor of Aquitaine in southwest France during the Hundred Years War and finally Bishop of Bath and Wells. A stone effigy lies on his table tomb in Wells Cathedral.

John de Harewell following the priesthood, of course had no issue. It is to his brother Roger who married an heiress from Wootton Wawen in Warwickshire, that the direct lineage has been uncovered. Several branches of the family were known in the early seventeenth century in Coventry, Wolverhampton, Worcester, Evesham and Suffolk.

A Thomas Foulk Harewell abandoned the impoverished family home at Besford, near Worcester, and sailed with his brother in 1636 as colonists to Virginia, from where the family eventually spread across the southern states of America.

Roger married Maud de Stanford 1350, Besford, Worcestershire, England. Maud was born 1326, Wooten Wawen, Worcestershire, England; died 1419. [Group Sheet]