| Located At | Staffordshire Record Office |
| Level | Section |
| Alt Ref No | D641/3 |
| Title | Jerningham Family, of Costessey, Norfolk |
| Administrative History | Administrative History
The Jerningham family trace their descent from one Hubert Gernegan who is recorded as holding a knight's fee of the Suffolk Honour of Eye in 1183. The founder of the Costessey (or Cossey) branch of the family was Sir Henry Jerningham, eldest son and heir of Sir Edward Jernegan of Somerleyton and Huntingfield, Suffolk, by his second wife Mary, daughter of Lord Scope of Bolton. She married secondly Sir William Kingston whose properties included the manor of Painswick in Gloucestershire. Sir Henry Jerningham c. 1543 married Frances Baynham, granddaughter of Sir William and Mary Kingston and through her obtained title to the manors of painswick and Moreton Valence in Gloucestershire after the death of her uncle and his half-brother, Sir Anthony Kingston, in 1556 (D641/3/A/4/2-4). The manors of Lowestoft and Mutford and the hundreds of Lothingland and Mutford, co. Suffolk, also came to Sir Henry Jerningham through his mother, Lady Mary Kingston. In 1547 he obtained a grant of the lordship of Herringfleet, co. Suffolk, with the house and site of the priory of St. Olave, as well as the manor of Raveningham and Tibenham co. Norfolk.
Sir Henry Jerningham was one of the first to declare for Queen Mary on the death of Edward VI and was appointed captain of her guard, vice chamberlain of the household and a privy councillor; he also received a knighthood and confirmed grants of the manor and castle of Wingfield, Veales and Syleham in Suffolk and Costessey in Norfolk in 1553 and 1555 (D641/3/A/2/1/2). He rebuilt Costessey Hall and made it the chief residence of the family. He and his descendants remained loyal to the Catholic faith which prevented further progress at court and subjected their estates to the fines and forfeitures imposed on recusants under the penal laws. Evidence of the measures taken to meet these by mortgages and loans, especially in the first half of the seventeenth century, can be found in the collection (e.g. sections A and P/1/1).
In 1769 the Jerninghams also inherited the Staffordshire and Shropshire estates of the Stafford-Howard family under the will of Lady Mary Chabot, daughter of 4th Earl of Stafford. By the terms of her will the English estates passed to Lady Mary Jerningham (nee Plowden) and ultimately were to vest in William Jerningham her eldest surviving son. Similarly, under the will of her cousin Philip Southcote (d.1757) Lady Mary and her male heirs inherited lands in Surrey and the manor and rectory of Drayton in Berkshire.
The manor of Moreton Valence in Gloucestershire appears to have been sold c.1629 (D641/3/C/1/1/4-6). Painswick was retained until 1804 when the Lodge Estate was sold to Sir William Jerningham's third son, Edward and the manor was sold elsewhere (D641/3/E/5/21-22); the Lodge Estate, too, passed out of Jerningham ownership in 1831. The manor of Corfham in Shropshire was sold soon after 1769 (together with other lands at Shifnal and Stafford) to raise funds to pay debts inherited from the Stafford-Howards (D641/3/E/6/10-15). The Berkshire estate was sold in 1826 (D641/3/B/1/13a). George Jerningham, later 8th Baron Stafford, married in 1799 Frances Sulyard,. joint heiress to the Sulyard properties in Suffolk including the Haughley estate; Haughley Park was their residence until the death of his father, Sir William Jerningham; in 1811 the estate was sold and the money vested in the Haughley Trust (see Sulyard papers D641/4).
The Jerningham baronetcy dates from 1621. No titles were inherited with the Stafford-Howard estates in 1769 since the earldom was extinguished in 1762 for lack of heirs male while the older barony was under attainder since 1680. Legal procedures to appeal for a restitution of the barony were begun by Sir William Jerningham c.1800, but it was not until the attainder was reversed in 1824 that the Jerningham claim could be accepted and the barony restored in 1825 (see D641/3/N). Sir George Jerningham thus became 8th Baron Stafford and he assumed the additional surname and arms of Stafford. In 1913, with the death of Sir Fitzosbert Stafford Jerningham without issue the Jerningham baronetcy passed to his heir male, his cousin William Jerningham, while the Stafford barony devolved upon his sister's son, Francis Fitzherbert of Swynnerton (see Fitzherbert papers D641/5). |
| Arrangement | Arrangement
The packet numbers given to the bundles by the Rev. Frith have not been retained. Most of the bundles proved to be entirely miscellaneous in content and very few appeared to be original. For example, 17th century papers which had been bundled together, probably by Rev. Frith, turned out to contain copy deeds, manorial accounts, legal papers, estate correspondence and some personal items. These have been classified separately. Where there was a possibility that a bundle was original, either from its content or appearance, it has been retained; detailed cross-referencing has been used where the contents cut across classification divisions. |
| Date | 13th cent-1904 |
| Description | This section of the Stafford collection contains the papers of the Jerningham family of Norfolk who succeeded to the Stafford-Howard estates in 1769 and to the Stafford title in 1825. A large proportion of the papers relate to the Norfolk, Suffolk and Gloucestershire estates, but there is a significant amount of material for the administration of the Stafford and Shifnal estates inherited from the Stafford-Howards after 1769.
Costessey estate
Apart from copies of the royal grant of the manor of Costessey of 1555, the collection includes a small number of title deeds of the estate which show that additional lands were acquired by the Jerninghams in the Costessey area during the late 17th and 18th centuries, but the greater number are mortgage deeds. These reflect the financial pressures on the estates in the 17th century particularly and this also applies to Wingfield manor and park in Suffolk.
The manorial records begin much earlier. There is a fine series of court rolls for Costessey from 1274 and manorial account rolls from 1591. The bailiffs' and haywards' accounts are particularly complete for the period 1620-50 and 1741-52. Similarly, a considerable number of court papers survives for this manor for the 16th and 17th centuries.
Many of the 17th and 18th century estate papers survive in bundles which appear to be original and since these sometimes include Painswick documents with the Costessey papers it seems that the Costessey agent had oversight of the Gloucestershire estate at some periods. Conversely, although there is little estate correspondence for Costessey, some references to the Norfolk estate are to be found in the Painswick bundles in section D641/3/E/6. There is no separate series of accounts, rentals or surveys for this estate.
The earliest map in the collection is an 18th century plan of Costessey Hall and lands adjoining which shows both the old hall and the new house. The nineteenth century improvements to the hall can be seen in the series of plans by the architect J. C. Buckler, mainly dated 1869-70, in section D641/3/G. These are supplemented by the letters to Lord Stafford from both J.C. and C. A. Buckler in the personal correspondence section (D641/3/P/3).
Painswick estate
The title deeds for Painswick and Moreton Valence date from 1539, while the short series of court rolls for the manor of Painswick covers the period 1511-88. There are manorial accounts for the years 1565-79 and 1781 and a good series of 18th century estate correspondence from agents and bailiffs, but apart from this very little estate material survives. There is one plan of the Lodge Estate dated 1801.
Stafford and Shifnal estates
There are few title deeds for these estates in the collection since the early deeds were already lost by 1762. A few documents survive from the Stafford-Howard period (some of which may be strays from D641/2), in particular a survey of 1720 and a bundle of letters from Lady Mary Chabot to her agent, Francis Paddey. Paddey continued to act for the Jerninghams after Lady Mary's death in 1769.
The Jerningham administration of the estates is well documented. There are detailed surveys and valuations for 1769 and 1802 and rentals for the period 1785-1832; some of the latter are in a separate series, but many are to be found in bundles of miscellaneous estate papers which have been left intact (D641/3/E/5). The agents correspondence for both Stafford and Shifnal is particularly complete for the period 1762-1832 and is supplemented by correspondence from the solicitors, Few & Co., 1853-84. The agents' correspondence incidentally provides a detailed record of the progress of the rebuilding of Stafford Castle in the years 1813-17 and there are financial accounts and vouchers for the work elsewhere among the estate papers. Additional references to estate matters can be found in the bundles of solicitors' papers which relate mainly to family settlements and are therefore classified as D641/3/B/1/20.
There is a small group of plans of properties in the Stafford and Castle Church area which illustrate the development of the town in the early nineteenth century, but only three plans of properties at Shifnal survive in section D641/3/F.
Minerals on the Shifnal estate at Lilleshall were exploited by the Lilleshall Company, in which Henry, 9th Lord Stafford, was a partner and shareholder. There is a lease of 1823 to Viscount Granville, which includes a detailed plan, among the leases (D641/3/E/1) and there are papers arising from Lord Stafford's involvement in the company in section D641/3/L). Other papers relating to the company elsewhere in the collection have been cross-referenced from section L.
Drayton estate
Very little survives for the Drayton estate in Berkshire after its inheritance by the Jerninghams from Philip Southcote, but there is a good series of Southcote leases for the period 1686-1765. Apart from these only a few manorial papers and rent accounts survive, and a small group of agent's letters for the late eighteenth century.
Personal papers
Sir William Jerningham's appeal for a restitution of the Stafford barony which was begun in 1800 was successfully concluded by his son, Sir George, in 1825. The papers arising from the legal processes in the House of Lords together with a substantial amount of correspondence and pedigrees have been classified as D641/3/M. Additional correspondence on this subject from the family's agents in London is in section P/3.
George Sulyard Stafford Jerningham, 3rd son of Sir George Jerningham, had a distinguished career in the diplomatic service and served in various European embassies in the years 1832-72. Section N/6 contains his diplomatic correspondence for the years 1833-68, a volume of his copy despatches from the embassy at Stuttgart, 1854-59, and personal journals written at the Hague, Turin and Madrid.
The personal correspondence (c.1,800 letters) was found in disorder with almost no original bundles surviving and the present arrangement, which is largely by recipient, is artificial. The largest groups are the correspondence of Frances, wife of Sir William Jerningham (dated 1796-1823), Sir George Jerningham (1810-1846) and his wife, Frances (1804-1832) and their son Henry Valentine, 9th Baron Stafford (1828-1884). There are a number of letters from Edward Jerningham, the eighteenth century poet and dramatist and some of his verse is also to be found amongst the personal miscellanea (D641/3/P/4/14/20). The correspondence of Marianne Smythe who married Edward Stafford Jerningham in 1828 includes letters to and from Maria Fitzherbert and one to Mrs. Fitzherbert from the Prince of Wales (D641/3/P/3/29).
The presence of the mediaeval court rolls and accounts of the de Morley family in this collection (D641/3/R/1) is unexplained. The most notable of these is an account roll for the expedition to Calais in 1416 which contains a detailed record of the payment and provisioning of the expeditionary force. They also include the expenses of the funeral of Lord de Morley, the Captain-General of the English forces.
Also of note is a parish book for Shifnal in Shropshire, 1672-1723, which contains detailed overseers' and churchwardens' accounts (D641/3/K/2/5) and a court book for the hundred of Forehoe in Norfolk, 1555-56 (D641/3/K/1/1) whose presence in the collection is more difficult to explain. |
| Extent | (39 boxes, 33 volumes and 55 maps and plans) |
| Related Material | Related Material
Other Jerningham papers can be found in the Norfolk Record Office, Birmingham University Library and the Huntington Library, California. |