The Haycraft Family

A Short History of the Haycraft Family Tree from 1688 to 1990

from Julian Haycroft Dec 1990

To date our family can trace its origins back approximately eight generations or three hundred years

A family Crest was given to one of our ancestors, no doubt the father of John(1) (As shown on the tree supplied), by William the 3rd who when as William Prince of Orange, landed at Torbay on November 5th 1688. He warned William of a dangerous conspiracy designed to impede his progress to London.

The Haycraft Family had for long prior to 1700 been engaged in business connected with the ships of the navy which in those days had Plymouth and Torbay as its head-quarters, probably as ships chandlers or shipbuilders.
There is a record of him as a Gun carriage maker.

About 1700 John Haycraft(1)  came up from Devon and settled at Rotherhithe on the Thames, that part having now become the headquarters of the Navy. The ships were fitted out at what was known as the Viturlline Yard at Deptford.
That was John of Rotherhithe father ??


The following John was John of Rotherhithe
This John(1) owned a dock or Docks at Rotherhithe. His business was that of a ships carver and blockbuilder. Joseph, his third son, continued in his fathers business and added parent gun carriages etc. He married three times and had a penchant for ladies named Sarah. They had three sons, William Joseph and Samuel, William Tutin became a successful doctor and had a good practice in Greenwich.

He was educated at Edinburgh University. He was a linguist and proficient in Greek and Latin, he also dabbled in Engineering and invented such things as patent anchors, parts of marine and locomotive engines, the locomotive engine being in its infancy at that time.

William married Miss Berry of Birmingham and had six sons and one daughter.

William died on Febuary 15th 1856 at the age of 64. The eldest of William’s sons, John died very young; of the rest of this generation we know very little except that Samuel Willetts Haycraft, who moved to Sutton in Surrey and who was involved in the glass industry. He married and had three daughters and three sons, Willetts Bernard being the eldest son, Edith, Percy, Cecily, Gertrude and Stanley.

Stanley became a civil engineer and worked in numerous parts of the world, Willetts Bernard married a Swiss girl called Freda Hermine Binket from Bern in Switzerland. Of the remainder of this generation I have little knowledge.

Willetts and Freda lived also in Sutton until moving to Nottingham being employed and a representative for a private gas company called Radiation Gas. The issue of his marriage to Freda produced four sons and one daughter, Bernard, Percy (my Father) Cyril, Donald and Lorna.

Willetts Bernard died of the 17th Oct 1949, his wife Freda died January 1965.

Nottingham

Bernard his eldest son married and has two sons John and David, Percy the second son (my father) married Constance Mabel Foskett from Swannington in Leicester. Their issue being my elder brother Michael Lynton, and myself Julian. Cyril married a girl named Eileen, their issue being two daughters Jennifer and Alison. Donald married a girl named Kay, their issue being one son Richard. Lorna, the only daughter, married a Ken Mosey their issue being two daughters and one son Gillian, John and Hellen. My elder brother Michael Lynton married a girl called Jennifer Taylor from Malton in Yorkshire – they had one daughter Julie Rebeca who is in the Queens Regiment WRACS. Myself Julian married in 1974 Patricia Ann Todd from Morton near Lincoln, our issue being two sons and one daughter, Jonathan Daniel, Andrea Louise and Gavin Todd. The elder two Jonathan and Andrea being at secondary Modern School in Eagle.

My Father Percy Marcus died February 1974, my mother died at 69 re-married to a Mr Tommy Hatherick from Blyth in Northumberland. They still life in the Family home in Swinderby where we were brought up. My Brother also lives in Swinderby, my own little family living approximately three miles away in Eagle Lincs.

Julian Haycroft Dec 1990