The Hillersdens of Elstow

Summary

THOMAS HILLERSDEN appears to have been the first of this family who settled in this county. The earliest mention—in local records—that I have come across, is the marriage, recorded in the parish registers of Toddington, of Thomas Hillersden with Joane, da. of Ralph Pottes of Chalgrave, gent, on the 23rd July 1558. The marriage is thus recorded:—” An’o D’ni 1558, Thomas Hillersden and Joahne Potts were married the xxiijth of Julie.” This Thomas Hillersden who was admitted at Gray’s Inn 17 Aug. 1594 under the name of “ Thomas Hilsden of Chalgrave, Beds, gent.,” was in all probability a member of a family of that name seated at a place named Memland (now Membland) in the Hundred of Armington, co. Devon, who entered their pedigree in the Herald’s Visitation of that county in the year 1620, since the arms borne by the Hillersdens of Elstow are identical with those of the Devonshire Hillersdens, and the mural tablet in Elstow church to the memory of Thomas Hillersden, great grandson of the above named Thomas, states that they were “ descended from the ancient family of the Hillersdens in Deuonsh,” but this pedigree does not show any connections. There is, also, a very inadequate pedigree of this family in “Additional Pedigrees,” p. 174 of the Visitations of Bedfordshire (Harl. Soc., Vol. xix.), but it is unreliable. Why they did not enter their pedigree in the Beds. Visitations of 1582 and 1634 is a matter for conjecture, and the same remark applies to the family of Potts of Chaigrave who likewise failed to register their pedigree in either Visitation, although their position in the county would have entitled them to have done so. The earliest settlement of the Hillersden family in this county appears to have been at Little Park, Ampthill, but they eventually migrated to Elstow on acquiring by purchase the abbey property from Sir Edward Radclyffe. I have not been able to discover the date of the death of Thomas Hillersden or that he left any Will; but he appears to have left issue by Joan his wife:—

• (1.) Thomas, of whom hereafter.