General Notes

[raywing.ged]

The first known mention we have of Matthew Wing is contained in the
records of St. Mary's Church at Banbury, under date of 21 April 1576,
when his second son, Thomas, was "christened."  There is no record of
his marriage or of the birth of his oldest son Fulk.  From this, we
infer that Matthew was born in the days of the boy king, Edward VI,
about the year 1548-50.  The records of St. Mary's go back to 1558,
the year of Queen Elizabeth's ascension to the throne.  Prior to that,
during the days of Queen Mary, 1553-1558, St. Mary's was a Roman
Catholic holding.[CI:226:?4:CI]
The vital records of St. Mary's church at Banbury had been kept for
eighteen years before the name Wing appeared upon the church books, in
April, 1576, when the baptism of Matthew's second son, Thomas, was
recorded.  The fact that from this time on for a period of more than
one hundred years the name of the family appears with regularity and
frequency, it may be surmised that Matthew and his wife Mary married
elsewhere, and that their first son, Fulk, was not a native of
Banbury.[CI:229:?4:CI]
The will of Matthew Wing is dated August 9, 1614 and it was proved in
Court November 15, 1614.  He named his sons Fulk and Thomas as his
executors, and the document designated himself as a tailor.  He
records his wish that he be buried in the churchyard of St. Mary's and
makes bequests as follows:  "To the poor of Banbury, 10s; to his
eldest son Fulk, lease of house in which testator dwells and Ð20; to
second son Thomas 40s; to son-in-law Robert Chamberlain Ð10; to
daughter Joana, 20s; bequests were left to the children of Fulk, viz:
Anna, Dorcas, Mary and Matthew; to John, son of Thomas; to Deborah and
John, children of son John; to John Nichols, son of son-in-law John
Nichols; to William, son of fourth son James; to Thomas, son of
son-in-law Robert Chamberlain; to the children of Richard Gillivar,
viz: John, Thomas and Phebe.  It will be noted that Matthew makes no
mention of his son Matthew in his will.  We are unable to account for
the bequests to the children of Richard Gulliver, who were undoubtedly
in some way closely connected with the family.[CI:230:?4:CI]
Matthew Wing, Taylor, was Buried 19th October, 1614.[CI:2856:?4:CI]
Mathew Wing made the request in his will that his body should be
buried in St. Mary's churchyard.  Somewhere in this ancient burial
grounds lie the bodies of Matthew and Mary.  There are no memorial
stones in the burial ground. In his history of the "Former Parish
Church of Banbury," Mr. William Potts thus refers to the absence of
ancient gravestones in the burial grounds, "The Former Church
contained the monuments of preceding generations, none of which, it is
to be regretted, were preserved and replaced in the new Church.
The Church Building Act of 1790, under which the destruction of the
old Church, was allowed, enacted "That in taking down the said old
Church Chancel and Tower, as little damage shall be done to the
Graves, Grave Stones, Monuments, and Monumental Inscriptions, as shall
be necessarily removed.  Inscriptions in and about the same as
reasonably may be, and that such Grave Stones, on account thereof,
shall be at the Charge and Expense of the Person or Persons interested
therein, and requesting the same be fixd on such part or parts of the
Site of the said old Church or Chancel, for answering as far as may be
the Purposes for which they were originally laid or put up, as the
Trustees shall think fit."
"In spite of this the monuments seem to have been totally destroyed.
Apparently no persons were sufficiently interested in the memorials of
old families to come forward and take advantage of the clause in the
Act which enabled them to be preserved.  It seems strange that those
of such families as the Copes of Hanwell, the Chamberlains of Wykham,
the Danvers of Culworth and Calthrop who certainly had
representatives, if not lineal descendants, living at the time should
have been allowed to perish.
The old families of the town, such as the Knights and Whateleys, had
apparently died out, and had no one to save their monuments from
demolition.  The absence of any persons legally entitled to demand the
preservation of the monuments cannot, however, exempt the Trustees
under the act from blame which must ever attach to them for the
sacrilegious breaking up of tombs, which was the worst features of an
altogether regrettable undertaking.
A relic of a monument only appears to have been used for a memorial
purpose and that is the mediaeval effigy of an ecclesiastic, which
lies in the churchyard on the tomb of a parish clerk of the last
century.  Some of the tombstones were used to pace the floor of the
new Chancel in its original condition.  Fortunately we have a list of
some of the monuments as they existed in the Church early in the
eighteenth century in the collection of Dr. Rawlinson, which, on his
death in 1755, were bequeathed by him to the Bodleian Library."
According to Potts, "A considerable amount of damage to the
ornamental parts of the interior of the Church seems to have been done
by the Puritans during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I, and
afterwards the Church suffered greatly during the Civil War, when it
was in the hands of the Parliamentarian soldiers and was used by them
as a vantage point from which to fire on the castle, the fire from
which it received in return."
Oxford, twenty three miles distant, was the seat of the government of
Charles I, during his war with parliament, and Banbury was the scene
of many stirring conflicts.  The great battle of Edge Hill was fought
seven miles northwest of the town.
Thirty years after the burial of Matthew Wing, the bullets of
Roundheads and Cavaliers were literally hurtling over his grave, and
the ground covering him, trampled upon by contending armies locked in
the arms of a deadly Civil War.[CI:227:?4:CI]
In the month of October, 1913, we commissioned Mr. G. T. Hodgkin,
Verger of St. Mary's Church, Banbury, to search the Parish Registers
from their commencement in 15658 down to the year 1700 in quest of all
references to the Wing family in Banbury.  Under date of November 20,
1913, Mr. Hodgkin writes: "I have very carefully gone through the
Parish Registers from 1558 to 1700, Marriages, Births and Burials with
the results enclosed, which are correct extracts.  The first mention
of the Wings is in 1576 (baptism) and the last in 1695
(burials)."[CI:2818:?4:CI]