Thomas Aynscombe - Wife and Father-in-law

Wife and Father-in-law

Aynscombe's first wife Jane, they married in 1706 in Norwich, was daughter of (major) Philip Stebbing (c. 1641 – 1705), grocer and Freeman of Norwich, and Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.) for the City and County of Norwich from 1701. He was apprenticed to the successful grocer and sometime MP for Norwich, Augustin Briggs, Esq. (senior), (c. 1618 – 1684), 3 August 1674. Was constable for the St. Peter Mancroft ward of Norwich in 1674; a Royalist (Tory) councillor (councilman) for the same ward, 1676–1682; chamberlain's council 1679–1681; alderman for the Berstreet ward, 1683–1688; alderman for the North Conisford ward, November 1688–1706; sheriff of Norwich 1682; and Mayor of Norwich 1687. As sheriffs he and Lawrence Goodwin had 'established a well-deserved reputation as merciless persecutors of non-conformists with a special animus for Quakers' (Evans p. 297). In February 1696 he was forced publicly to deny that on reading a 'printed paper' about the Jacobite plot to assassinate King William III he had gone to the Half Moon Coffee-house and declared that: 'the plott is mine Arse all over', (Norfolk Record Office, Mayor's Court books, vol. 26 f.10, via Mark Knights, 2005, page 158). He is buried in St Peter Mancroft, by the side of his wife, Anne Andrews (died 1702), and three children. One son was Georgius Stebbing, grocer, freeman, Norwich 24 March 1704, while another Philip Stebbing of Norwich, then of Sprowston, with property in Wymondham, died 1715 (also buried in St. Peter Mancroft) making his brother-in-law Thomas Aynscombe his heir; leaving him his messuages, lands, tenements, premises and hereditaments there (will dated 21 April 1715).