Richard Crompton

Events

Date of Birth: unknown.

Place of Birth: unknown.

Date of Death: about 1598.

Place of Death: unknown.

Ormerod cites pleadings from the Duchy Court of Lancaster dated 29 April 1602 that show that Richard died before 3 August 1598.

Relationships

Father: John Crompton.

Mother: Anne Assheton.

These parents are given in MS. Harl. 1551, fo. 123. Ormerod (p. 28) gives Anne’s name as Eleanor, but on p. 29 gives it as Anne. Middlesex Pedigrees in its transcription (p. 164) gives the name as Anne. Ormerod identifies the Richard who was the son of John and Anne [Eleanor] Assheton with the Richard Crompton of this page, making arguments from property and heraldry which make the identification seem probable, but perhaps not certain. 

Spouse: unknown.

The Bolton parish registers have this entry under 1591: "Uxor Crompton de Hackinge buryed in the church the 3 of october".

Children:

(Complete source citations for facts about the children on this page are currently outside of the scope of this project.)

John Crompton (born about 1553 - buried 13 March 1611/12 in Bolton, Lancashire).

James Crompton married Anne.

Evidence

from Ormerod (p. 29 - 30):

3. Richard Crompton, third son of John Crompton and Anne Assheton, remains. He is noticed as such in the pedigree of 1586. Subsequently, as already shown, his elder brother withdrew entirely from Lancashire. The family occur no longer in connexion with Prestolee; and it is likely that the lives in that leasehold had expired, as the lives subsequently did at Hacking, in Darcy Lever adjacent, in or shortly previous to 1598, on the death of Richard Crompton hereafter mentioned, lessee of that place, and considered to be identical with this Richard.

    The Bolton Register gives the burial of the wife or widow (uxor) of a John Crompton, as from Darcy Lever, within the church, who is considered to be the mother of these brothers, 27th May, 1588. The subsequent death of Richard Crompton, of Hacking, in Darcy Lever, in or before 1598, accords with the silence of the auditor’s will, in 1600, respecting his brother Richard, who had been noticed in the pedigree of 1586. A singular suspension of legal proceedings respecting the renewal of the customary leasehold in Hacking, mentioned hereafter, is exactly commensurate with the auditors’s life, which in many ways was likely to interpose many difficulties; and all the minor coincidences of names, dates, and localities, are in favour of the identity. The arms of the auditor’s line are continued on the Hacking seals; and the heraldic “mullet”, the difference marking the third son, applicable to the auditor’s third brother Richard, but to no other known individual, is uniformly displayed among the devices carved in stone within Hacking Hall, with the date of 1604, and the initials of John, eldest son of Richard Compton, to whom such difference could only apply in right of a predecessor, thus branching from an elder line.

    In default of title-deeds ascending to this point and of entry in visitation, as the births of the parties are before the time of parish registers, and as the Chester wills proved before 1600 are unavailable from disarrangement and decay, more than this cannot be obtained, and the point must rest on moral probability.

A 1571 Chancery pleading from the National Archives catalogue:

C 3/32/1

Crompton v Crompton.

Plaintiffs: Richard Crompton.

Defendants: Maud Crompton widow.

Subject: estate of the deceased James Compton [sic] of Darcy Lever, Lancashire

1571

A 1611 conveyance by feoffment (National Archives catalogue):

ZFL/10/1

Date: 4 Feb 1611/2

Adam Byrom of Salford, gent., to Ellice Crompton of Darcy Lever alias Little Lever, dyer - messuages and tenements in Darcy Lever alias Little Lever called the Hackinge with appurtenances, formerly in the occupation of Ellice Crompton and Thomas his brother, Anne Crompton, widow, and Richard Crompton, her son, and James Bradshaw of Darcy Lever - except for 2 closes called the Lower Marled Earth, to be conveyed to Richard Fogg of Darcy Lever, gent.

Commentary 

A Richard Crompton is listed in a 1586 pedigree as the third son of John Crompton of Prestolee (or Prestall?) and London. [Vincent, 10, p. 70; Harl. MSs., 1551. The 1586 date is deduced from the children listed and not listed.] 

The Richard Crompton of this page was of Hacking and died in about 1598. 

Ormerod argues the two Richards were identical, making these points:

1. Thomas Crompton, the brother of the first Richard, does not mention Richard in his will of 1600, although he mentions his other brother, John, and Richard is mentioned in the 1586 pedigree. Therefore his brother Richard must have died before 1600. Richard Crompton of Hacking died in about 1598. This is evidence that the two were identical.

2. In 1588, the wife or widow (uxor) of a John Crompton of Darcy Lever was buried in the church at Bolton. She was probably the mother of the three brothers, since her husband was named John and she was of high enough status to be buried in the church. (Also, John Crompton of Hacking asked in his 1611 will to be buried “at the Church of Bolton in my usuall burying place".)  And she was living at Darcy Lever in 1588, where Hacking is located, and where Richard Crompton of Hacking died in 1598. 

3. The customary leasehold in Hacking expired and legal proceedings commenced in about 1598, on the death of Richard Crompton of Hacking. These proceedings were suspended for a few years. Ormerod states that the suspension is “exactly commensurate” with the life of Thomas Crompton, brother of the first Richard, and argues that such a suspension makes sense if Thomas were the brother of Richard Compton of Hacking, since Thomas’s existence would “interpose many difficulties” in the proceedings.  (The point is, I think, that the 1598 proceedings were based on the fact that Richard’s son John was older than his brother James, whose widow and son were in possession of Hackinge [wrongfully, as John argued.] This case would be undermined if Thomas, who was older than Richard, was still alive. I am not sure why Ormerod ignores the existence of Thomas and Richard’s older brother John.)

4. The arms confirmed to the descendants of Thomas Crompton of the Prestolee/London/Driffield line appear on the Hacking seals. Mullets (indicating a third son) appeared in the devices carved in stone in Hacking with the date 1604 and the initials of Richard’s eldest son John. This third son must have been the third son Richard –no-one else is known to whom the mullet could apply. The mullet couldn’t apply to John himself, since he was the eldest son. Thus heraldry strongly suggests that Richard Crompton of Hacking was identical with the Richard Crompton who was the third son of John Crompton and Anne Ashton. (As far as I can see, Ormerod is not claiming that the Crompton arms with the mullet were carved in stone at Hacking. He shows these arms in his Crompton of Hacking pedigree, but they seem to have been first confirmed to “Ormerod of Tyldesley” as a quartering.) 

Ormerod’s case seems pretty reasonable.

I will put the Richard Crompton of this page as the son of John Crompton and Anne Assheton on Ormerod’s authority, but with less than full confidence that it is correct.

References

Hyde, Patricia. “Crompton, Thomas II (d. 1601, of Bennington, Herts., Hounslow, Mdx. and Farrington, London)” in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603 (1981).

Middlesex Pedigrees, as collected by Richard Mundy in Harleian ms. no. 1551. (London, 1914).

Ormerod, George. Parentalia: Genealogical Memoirs. (1851).