1557 - John Litle John of Ashburton

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Record
Date 1557/56/57
Topic Payment to John Litle John for press [cupboard] in the vestry.
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Ashburton.
Ashburton street view. West Street / Mike Crowe, Wikimedia Commons.

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

Sources

Background

Also see

Notes