1557 - John Litle John of Ashburton
| Record | |
|---|---|
| Date | 1557/56/57 |
| Topic | Payment to John Litle John for press [cupboard] in the vestry. |
By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2015-08-25. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-08.
Record
26s.8d. to John Litle John for the presse in the vestre.[1]
Source notes
This entry figures in the accounts for 1557-58 under the heading "Paid".
IRHB comments
Men surnamed Littlejohn are found in the records too often to be of much interest unless they have something else to recommend them. This Littlejohn is found in Ashburton almost 70 years later than a John Little (see section 'Also see' below). Ashburton was (and is) a small town; was John Littlejohn a descendant of John Little? There is at least one considerably earlier example of a John Little appearing at a locality years before a person surnamed Littlejohn.[2] Although two examples are hardly enough to build a hypothesis on, it does seem likely that Littlejohn arose as a surname for people whose father was named John Little. John Littlejohn of Ashburton is also mentioned in the accounts for 1555-56. There were Robin Hood-related entertainments of some sort at Ashburton (see Cross-references below), but there is no concrete reason to think that John Littlejohn owed his name to playing Little John in these.
Lists
- Not included in Sussex, Lucy, compil. 'References to Robin Hood up to 1600', in: Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 262-88.
Sources
Background
Also see
- 1487 - John Lyttell of Ashburton
- 1489 - John Littell of Ashburton
- 1555 - John Littlejohn of Ashburton
- Ashburton festivals
Notes
- ↑ Hanham, Alison, ed. Churchwardens' Accounts of Ashburton, 1479-1580 edited with an introduction by Alison Hanham (Devon and Cornwall Record Society, New series, vol. 15) (Torquay, 1970), p. 138.
- ↑ Reaney, P.H., compil.; Wilson, Richard Middlewood, compil. A Dictionary of British Surnames (London, 1976), s.n. 'Littlejohn'.