William Leigh

From the Hyten family archive; subject is William Leigh (1542–1632), a 14× great-grandfather of the compiler on the paternal-grandfather (PP) line. This entry covers his birth in Lincolnshire, his death in the City of London, his marriage to Margaret Lowe, and his daughter Prudence Leigh. Notable: Tudor-Stuart era English ancestor with deep London parish association at St Mary Woolchurch Haw.

William Leigh (1542–22 February 1632) stands among the earliest documented forebears in the compiler's paternal-grandfather line, a man whose ninety years bridged the reigns of five English monarchs, from Henry VIII through Charles I. He was born in 1542 in the village of Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire, a quiet parish in the rolling country of the East Midlands. The England of his birth was one in profound transition, as the Tudor Reformation reshaped parish life and the bonds between subject and crown; William entered the world only a few years after the dissolution of the monasteries had transformed the religious geography of his native county.

In the course of his long life, William removed from Lincolnshire to the City of London, a journey followed by many ambitious sons of the shires during the Elizabethan age, when London was rapidly emerging as one of the great commercial capitals of Europe. He was united in marriage with Margaret Lowe, known affectionately as Margery, and their union produced at least one recorded child, a daughter Prudence Leigh, born about 1565 and surviving until 1607. Through Prudence, the Leigh line was carried forward into succeeding generations of the family.

William died on 22 February 1632 in the parish of St Mary Woolchurch Haw, a small but ancient City of London church standing near the heart of the old wool market, not far from the present site of the Mansion House. That parish church, later destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, served the close-knit commercial community of central London in the years when William ended his days there, an old man who had outlived not only his wife but his daughter as well.

William Leigh was a 14× great-grandfather of the compiler on the paternal-grandfather (PP) line, and represents one of the deepest English roots traced in this branch of the Hyten family record.