Thomas Aynscombe

Thomas Aynscombe was an early-18th-century Dunstable and Smithfield, London landlord and minor benefactor.

Thomas Aynscombe (died October 1740) of Charterhouse yard, and Northall in Buckinghamshire, was the son of Henry Aynscombe (died 1697), of St. Mary Woolnoth (where he was buried, in the chancel), citizen and haberdasher of London, by his wife Elizabeth (died 1711), daughter of Thomas Chew, Dunstable haberdasher, who had married Elizabeth, daughter of William Marsh of Dunstable in 1639.

His mother, Elizabeth Chew (aka Mrs. Henry Aynscombe), was one of the three sisters and coheirs of William Chew (another brother Thomas Chew, of Dunstable, (died 20 July 1698, aged 52 (Neve)), distiller, of Dunstable, who died unmarried and intestate 18 March 1712/13, aged 58, leaving an estate worth £28,000, this included property in St. John Street, Smithfield, and several coaching inns in Dunstable, the Windmill and Still (theirs since the 17th century ), and the Sugar Loaf (acquired by 1713), one of the most famous coaching inns of the 18th century. It also included 14 farms in Dunstable, Luton, Kensworth, Caddington, Gravenhurst and Edlesborough, the manors (in Bedfordshire) of Fitzhugh, Edlesborough, Bowells and Northall (Buckinghamshire), the two inns (and the Maypole and Black Lion) and several other cottages and pieces of land in Dunstable, a house in London, and houses in the parish of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, leased to London tradesmen. William Chew had been sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1709 and in 1703 had obtained a grant of arms with a device of Catherine wheels and griffins' heads, this was later to be the badge of the Foundation scholars. He was buried, like his nephew Thomas Chew Cart (died 1722) and sisters Frances Ashton (died 1727), Jane Cart (died 1736) and Elizabeth Aynscombe (died 1711) (all have monumental inscriptions), in Dunstable Priory. He is in the north aisle where Thomas Green of Camberwell did his monument.

William Chew's estate was inherited by his sisters Frances (died 1727), who had married William Ashton, a London distiller, and Jane (died 1736) who had married James Cart (died 1706), citizen and distiller of London, and their nephew, Thomas Aynscombe in lieu of his mother, Elizabeth, who had died in 1711. These last three then created Chew's Foundation in Dunstable, which opened in September 1724. The school house still stands and records their names on its front.