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The Mead family of Buckinghamshire




Generation No. 1


1. WILLIAM1 MEAD was born 1548 in Stewkley, Bucks..

Notes for W
ILLIAM MEAD:
William's grandfather is probably the Richard Mead who was the churchwarden of Soulbury in 1523.

This material is gathered from "William Mead, Quaker, and his relatives" a tract written by Henry J. Mead and published in 1918. Family Tracts Vol. 33 in the Society of Genealogists Library. Also from "The Grazebrook Pedigree" Vol. 1 PE 103, a handwritten manuscript by O.H. Grazebrook and donated to the Society of Genealogists Library.

Henry Mead presents a theory that the Mead family of Soulbury is related to the Meade family of Elmdon and Clavering in northwest Essex. His reasoning:

"The connection of the Soulbury Meades with the Meades of Elmdon is shown by the fact that Dr. Richard Mead (William Mead's nephew) in the preface to his Medica Sacra stated that he was related to the eminent divine Joseph Mead (1586-1638) [born in Berden, Essex] and Dr. Richard's contemporary and biographer, Maty, makes the same statement. Joseph Mead is stated by Foss (Foss's Lives of the Judges) to have belonged to the family of Mr. Justice Meade and is stated in the Register of Christ's College, Cambridge, to have been a kinsman of Sir John Meade of Wendon Lofts. Moreover the arms used by the Revd Matthew Mead (William Mead's brother) and by Dr. Richard were those of the Elmdon Meades, viz., Sable, a chevron between three pelicans or vulning themselves gu. These arms appear on contemporary engraved portraits of Matthew Mead and Dr. Richard Mead and on the monument to Richard in Westminster Abbey and on the monument to Samuel Mead, the Doctor's brother, in the Temple Churchyard."

If this is so, then the Richard Mead, churchwarden of Soulbury in 1523 is probably the son of William Mede and Jane or Berden, Essex. William Mede is the brother of Thomas Mede of Clavering, Essex, and was the executor of his brother's will, dated 1504.



      Children of W
ILLIAM MEAD are:
  i.   WILLIAM2 MEAD, b. 1580, Stewkley, Bucks..
2. ii.   RICHARD MEAD, b. 1583, Stewkley, Bucks..


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