Thomas Aynscombe - Descendants

Descendants

All his sons Philip, Thomas and Chew pre-deceased him. Philip (died 1737, aged c. 30) was admitted a gentleman commoner December 24, 1724 and matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1725, and had was given his MA in 1728, having been admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 4 February 1725/26. He married Valentina Wight, of St. George, Hanover Square (died 1745), the granddaughter of Daniel Wight the younger (died 1705), of Southwark, distiller, and owner of, amongst other things in Holborn and Borough, The George Inn, Southwark.

A marriage settlement (Q/EV/116) dated 3 January 1706/07, shows the extent of some property that remained with the Aynscombe family into the 1840s.

Contents:

(1) Daniel Wight, of Southwark, distiller, son and heir of Daniel Wight, citizen and distiller, of London, dec. (2) Thos. Malyn of Southwark, Brewer, & Valentina, his eldest daughter; Saml. Wight, citizen and skinner, of London; & Edmond Halsey of Southwark, Brewer:

12 messuages in Johnsons Court alias Morecrofts Ct., Fleet St., St. Dunstan's in the West, purchased from Jn. & Wm. Morecroft; George Inn, St. Saviours, Southwark, purchased of Sir Jn. Sweetaple, Knt.; 3 messuages in Compter Lane, St. Saviours, purchased of Susan Morell & her son, Richard M.

Philip Aynscombe died at Boulogne in 1737, probably in debt, subsequently Thomas Aynscombe became entrusted with his son's property (see above) and spent the end of his life defending this, his granddaughter's, Valentina's, inheritance (£12,000) in the courts; see Frederick v Aynscombe (1738–39).

Aynscombe's only granddaughter, heir-at-law and devisee, Valentina (died 3 April 1771, near Windsor), the only child of his only surviving son Philip, married Lillie Smith (c. 1715 – 10 February 1791, buried Clewer). As demanded by the will of Thomas Aynscombe, by Act of Parliament 1747 (20 Geo II, c.7), Lillie Smith changed his surname to Aynscombe, or as the House of Lords Journal, of February 9, 1747, called it: 'Smith's Bill to take name of Aynscombe'. In 1757 he used another private Act of Parliament to re-settle his father-in-law's property. Lillie was the elder son of Robert Smith (c. 1672 – Mortlake 11 January 1748), a freeman of London and eminent merchant, of Thames Street, of the parish of St James Garlickhythe, Worcester Place (near Kennet wharf), of Mortlake, and Coldashby in Northamptonshire.

Robert Smith had given Lillie £10,000 and moiety or half part of my trade on his marriage to Valentina in c. 1746; and then left him in his will 50 shares in the Sun Fire Office. Smith had acquired his share of the Sun Fire Office on 24 August 1720 (Dickson, page 271).

Lillie Smith Aynscombe was a director of the Sun Fire Office from, at latest, 1754 until his death in 1791. Around 1750 he bought and rebuilt the Hermitage, St. Leonard's Hill, Clewer, Windsor, and lived there to 1773 when he sold it to the Duke of Gloucester who renamed it Sophia Farm. The site formed part of the Windsor Safari Park and today is within Legoland. When Lillie Aynscombe died in 1791 The Scots Magazine, (vol. 53, p. 102), reported it thus:

10. At his seat at Mortlake, Lillie Ains-

combe, Esq; one of the directors of the Sun

Fire assurance-office. He has left seven sis-

ters, whose ages, computed with his own,

some little time before his death, made 572

years.

He also left three daughters (all died sine prole (d.s.p.)):

• Valentina Aynscombe (c. 1749 – 23 March 1841 (GM 556), aged 92), of Cromwell house, Mortlake. On death the Gentleman's Magazine described her as "the only remaining daughter of the late Lillie Smith Aynscombe of St. Leonard's Hill, Berks". In 1828 she donated £100 towards the establishment of King's College, London. (Old) Cromwell House was demolished in 1857, though the gate piers remain (down Aynscombe Lane). The now slightly controversial Bristol benefactor and slave-dealer Edward Colston died there in 1721.
• Mary Aynscombe (died 1828) married the Rev. John Mossop (1774–1849), vicar of Hothfield in Kent from 1802 to 1849. Mossop remarried, 1 August 1843, and had two children: John Henry Mossop and Mary Aynscombe Mossop. (John Henry Mossop was Captain of Boats (rowing) at Eton in 1865, and was in the Oppidan Wall and Field XIs of 1864. After Christ Church, Oxford he lived at 50 Charles street, Berkeley Square).

• Charlotte Anne Aynscombe, (1760 at Clewer - died 1799, Mortlake), there is a tablet in the vestry of the church in Mortlake. Drawing maestro Alexander Cozens is thought to have taught her (see Kim Sloan), and probably both her siblings, and certainly their first cousin, Henry Stebbing (1752–1818). They acquired in 1794 an album of Cozens' which contained amongst the 121 etchings, prints and drawings, work by Alexander Cozens, John Robert Cozens, and possibly their own copies of Cozens' work (Christie's, June 1982 and July 1991, and see Kim Sloan).