SUSSEX & SURREY PAYNES

The name of Orlando Payne in the early 1700s appears in records in several places – VA, NY, and early NC (Perquimans Co.). It appears to me now that the Orlando Payne in Westmoreland Co. and elsewhere probably came from the Petworth, Sussex area of England.

The Calendar of State Papers (PRO), Domestic Series, 1690-1691 (p. 397) contains info from a letter referring to an Orlando Payne who was an ensign in the late regiment of Sir Thomas Gower, and the nephew of Sir Thomas Vernon, London merchant. The letter was from the Earl of Nottingham to Lieut. Gen. Ginckle (probably in Ireland then) and said that Queen Mary requested that Orlando Payne be given an army vacancy. By the way, this Sir Thomas Vernon was an MP and a member or associated
with the Haberdasher’s, Royal Africa, Levant, and Eastland Companies. It appears from the LDS site that this Orlando Payne was born in 1666 as the son of a Thomas and Matilda Payne from Petworth. The site also shows the marriage in 1657 (Bentley, Hants) of a Thomas Payne to Matilda Vernon. It seems that this Matilda Vernon (born 1639 in Farnham, Sussex) was the sister of both Sir Thomas and Sir George Vernon and the daughter of a Henry Vernon. An Orlando Payn is also listed (p. 301) as being born in 1666 in the Register of Scholars Admitted into Merchant Taylor’s School.

Patrick Payne and others have described a Thomas Payne of Petworth who married Margaret Wheatley (1657 will) and had a son Thomas who probably came to Maryland and married Jane Smallpiece. An apparently different Thomas Payne of Petworth was a Middle Temple attorney who had connections to powerful merchants and officials, had a wife Matilda Vernon, a son Orlando, a daughter also named Matilda (married Charles
Elstob), and probably had several other children, such as a John and a William, who were born in Petworth from 1658-1670. I have been trying to discover more info on this Thomas Payne who seems to have been associated in law practice with Sir Thomas Bowyer and Henry Peckham and was probably closely related to the John Payne (also a Middle Temple attorney) who married Mary Woodroffe and appears on p. 125 in the
Visitation of Surrey (1662-8). Since the first name Orlando was not that common then, it seems likely to me that the Orlando described above was the one who was later in several American colonies.

I have not spent a lot of time yet trying to unravel the many pre-1700 Paynes in Sussex and Surrey, but I am finding a few linkages between some of these Paynes and others in the Bristol and Somerset areas. One connection may be that lands held by Paynes (and Bowyers) in a few places in Sussex (Runcton & North Mundham) were originally part of the Bruton Priory in Somerset that also involved land in Banwell, Somerset where a wealthy Payne family was located. On the Payne-L site, I earlier mentioned another of these east-west England connections involving a wardship dispute of a Thomas Payne in the Boley and Pagham area that involved a powerful and wealthy Berkeley family. There seem to be other of these east-west Payne
connections as well including iron mining operations by Paynes in Sussex and Bristol merchants and Atlantic traders from the Knight family who lived in both areas.

Update:

I suggested above that the Orlando Payne who is listed on multiple records in NC in the early 1700s, also in NY, and who died in Northumberland Co., VA was most likely the son of a Thomas & Matilda Payne of Petworth, Sussex. There were several wealthy Thomas Paynes from the Petworth area during the 1600s, and beyond those who Patrick
Payne has previously described (Thomas and Elizabeth Walker Payne and their son Thomas who married Margaret Wheatley).

The Thomas Payne from Petworth who married Matilda Vernon had a father, also named Thomas, who was a Middle Temple attorney along with his colleagues, Sir Thomas Barnard and Sir Henry Peckham, who also owned land and manors in that area. Also a Middle Temple attorney was a brother and son of these two Thomas Paynes by the name of John Payne. It seems likely to me now that this John Payne was the husband of Mary Woodruffe (daughter of Robert Woodruffe whose family line appears in
the Visitation of Sussex, 1633/34, p. 125) and he was connected with that Woodruffe family in at least one land transaction in Ireland. There were many land transactions in parts of Sussex and Surrey in which these Thomas Paynes, and other Paynes related to them, seem to be involved. Some of these transactions relate to their claims on the manor of Ebernowe/ Ibernowe (and various other spellings). The
question for me has been, and still is, from where do these additional Petworth Paynes derive?

One possibility seems that the Thomas Paynes of Petworth that Patrick has described and the other Thomas Paynes of Petworth that I have been studying recently were all descendants of John and Alice Dryland Payne of Fulham. While Patrick has profiled some of the offsprings of the first two sons (William and Thomas) of John and Alice Dryland Payne, there was a third son George (listed in John's will, but of which much less is known). Was he the George Payne who married Christian Browne at Kensington (very near Fulham and Hammersmith) in 1576?? Various Brownes were engaged decades later in lawsuits and transactions involving the manor of Ebernowe and these Thomas Paynes, but I haven't found enough evidence yet to make this case.