Alexander Lanyon married Philippa at Madron in 1614.
The parish registers have lots of gaps at this time so wills can be an additional source of information. John Lanyon’s 1634 will mentions numerous grandchildren and from that we can start to build a tree.
Anne and Maud were still alive in 1634 but there is no further trace of them. They may have married and their marriages have not been recorded or they may have died.
- Alexander aft. 1616-1624
- Anne 1616-aft. 1634
- Maud 1617-aft. 1634
- Peter 1622-bef. 1634
- Joane 1628-bef.1634
- Walter bef.1634-1715
- John bef.1634-1673
- Alexander aft. 1634-1660
- William -1624
The only children who have recorded marriages are Walter, John and Alexander.
Alexander Lanyon aft. 1634-1660
Alexander wasn’t mentioned in his grandfather’s will so must have been born after 1634. He and his wife died within nine months of one another in 1660. We don’t know what caused their deaths but given that they were both only in their twenties perhaps they both died of TB which killed so many young people. They had no children so this line died out.
Walter Lanyon bef. 1634-1715
Walter was the heir and he lived at the barton of Lanyon after his father. He married Mary and they had two sons:
- John 1665-1733 married Margery Ustick – one son John
- Thomas 1670-1723 married Alice Baynard – no children
Walter died 8 Sep 1715 at Madron and left a will.
The will gives his son John the barton of Lanyon, son Thomas half his goods and cattle and his wife Mary land in Boswednan, Madron and Boswarva and these lands to go to his grandson John after her death.
He also leaves his suit of ‘best apparel’ to Francis Lanyon of Penzance and £3 to his beloved henchman Richard Wallish.
Walter’s son John married Margery Ustick in 1691 and their only child John was born the following year. John died in 1733 and the estate passed to his son, Walter’s grandson.
John junior married Elizabeth Huthnance the daughter of Henry Huthnance, the vicar of Breage. They had a daughter, also called Elizabeth, born in 1718. John’s wife died but there is no record of her burial. John remarried in 1725 to a Lanyon cousin, Jane Andrew. (She was the daughter of Isabel Lanyon and Matthias Andrew of Sancreed.) They didn’t have any children.
In 1954 William Lamparter corresponded with Miss Dorothy E B Hichens, the niece of John Hichens, who was then aged 90 and the great grandson of Richard Hichens who held the lease at ‘Lanyon’. She stated “The only thing I can tell you about Elizabeth Lanyon is a story handed down the family and told to me by my grandmother – that Elizabeth’s mother having died, the child was neglected by her father and her mother’s family paid a gypsy to steal her. They brought her up after which she presumably returned and married my ?? grandfather.”
His only daughter Elizabeth married Richard Hutchens (Hichens), they had four children: Richard, Jane, Elizabeth and Thomas.
John Lanyon was without a male heir and when he died in 1784 aged 92 he left the barton of Lanyon to his favourite granddaughter, Jane Hutchens. John was the last Lanyon to live at the old ancestral home.
Jane Hutchens renounced the bequest and from 1784 Mr John Hosking of Landithy, Madron took a 99 years lease of Lanyon for his two sons John and Thomas who failed to make a success of the farm and Mrs Elizabeth Hutchens’ grand sons, Richard and Thomas took the remainder of the lease and much improved the Lanyon estate. The old manor house was pulled down and a new house built. Thomas’ son, Richard Hutchens, died at Lanyon in 1889.
This is the end of Walter’s line.
On 29 March 1927 Jane Veale Mitchell wrote the following:-
“Last Tuesday the weather improved and I went off to keep an appointment at Carne, in Morva with Mr John Hichens (St Ives family) whose great-grandfather Richard held Lanyon in Madron and Rissick in Madron, under 99 years lease or remainder. (For several weeks I have missed him when he came into Penzance; then we met and I went out). How glad I was, you can imagine when he brought in a great armful of oldish deed for me to see. Between us (and you too) we are sworn to secrecy in regard to these deeds, as the man would be pestered for them; as it is, he gave me the one I longed for and which explicitly explained what my instinct told me must be a fact i.e. that a Lanyon, as his fathers before him, lived and died at Lanyon in Madron in the year 1784, the very last one in the old Manor House, before Mr Hosking (who renewed the lease from Philip Rashleigh’s assigns) tore it down and built the present farmhouse.”
John Lanyon – bef. 1634-1673
John was the second surviving son of Alexander and Philippa. John Lanyon married Blanche about 1648, the marriage was not recorded but their first child was born about 1650.
They had seven children:
- Mary – 1654 died in infancy
- Margaret 1649-aft. 1673 no further trace
- Bennett abt. 1650-aft. 1673
- David 1650-1656 died in infancy
- Dorothie 1659-1732 she married Thomas Noye in 1678 – six children. Then in 1701 she married her cousin Francis Lanyon – they had one daughter Martha who died age 4.
- Rebecca 1661-1706 she married Humphrey Stodden – three children
- Philippa 1666-aft. 1673 no further trace
- Mary – 1654 died in infancy
We’re covered Dorothie in the post ‘Lanyons, Trewrens and Noys’.
Bennett Lanyon abt. 1650-aft. 1673
Bennett was born about 1650. He was the executor of his father’s will. We know he married but we don’t know his wife’s name. He had six children:
- Mary 1673-1673 died in infancy
- John 1673-1733 married Blanche Pendar
- Mary 1675-1676 died in infancy
- Ann 1677- married Alexander Johns in 1706 no further trace
- Blanch 1678- no trace
- Walter 1681- no trace
John Lanyon 1673-1733
John and Blanche married in 1723 when John was aged 50. His son John may have been from an earlier unrecorded marriage.
John died in 1733 and his will begins “being penitent and very sorry for my sins”. One wonders what he had done!
There is no record of John and Blanche’s son being baptised, married or buried. His father left him 1/- in his will which suggests he had already inherited. In 1752 he had the role of Accessionable Manor’s Commissioner and we know nothing else about him.
And this is where we must leave Alexander’s line, there are no more traceable Lanyon descendants.
Interestingly on 5 Mar 1781 an Alexander Lanyon died in Penzance aged 100. There is no record of any Alexander Lanyon being baptised about 100 years earlier. Could he be a descendant of this line?
The Lanyons 