Page last updated 27 January 2010.
Thanks for much of this information to Julian Gill (later generations) and to Tony O'Grady (extensive research on earlier generations). There are a few points of uncertainty so please don't take this page as proven - but contact me if you have an interest and we can look at the evidence.
14. John and Elizabeth SUMPTON (lived mid-16th century) of Wright Green, Dean. Elizabeth had been a PEARSON. More.
13a. William (lived later 16th-early 17th centuries) and Elizabeth (lived later 16th century) SUMPTON of Streetgate, Lamplugh. Elizabeth had been a CRAKEPLACE of Crakeplace Hall in Dean. More.
13b. William (lived later 16th-early 17th centuries) and Margaret (lived late 16th-early 17th centuries) SUMPTON of Dean.
12a. Tristram (1595-1663) and Agnes (d. 1623/24) SUMPTON of Wright Green. Agnes had been a PEARSON. More.
12b. Tristram (1595-1663) and Elizabeth (lived 17th century) SUMPTON of Wright Green.
11. Lancelot (1618-1696) and Eleanor (born first half of 17th century, died 1689 or later) SUMPTON of Wright Green. More.
10. Lancelot (1662-1730) and Rebecca (1668-1730) SUMPTON of Arlecdon. More.
9. Lancelot (abt 1695-1794) and Sarah (1710-1789) SUMPTON of Arlecdon. Sarah had been a HERD. More.
8. Lancelot (1750-1819) and Jane (1746-1803) SUMPTON of Ennerdale. Jane had been a STEEL. More.
7. William (1778-1843) and Mary SUMPTON of Ennerdale. Mary had been a ASHBURNER. More.
6. Sarah (1810-1879) SUMPTON who married Thomas PONSONBY. More.
John SUMPTON married Elizabeth PEARSON on 9 August 1548 in the parish of Dean in the western Lake District, Cumberland. They had three known children: John, William and Thomas. John is thought to have married and had three sons, and to have inherited the family property at Wright Green (one of the larger houses and lands of the parish, it seems) in the parish of Dean. He made a will and died in 1619. For William see below. I don't know anything of Thomas. Nor do I know what became of John and Elizabeth the parents.
William SUMPTON married Elizabeth CRAKEPLACE (pronounced to rhyme with maples) at Dean on 4 August 1582. She was the daughter of another of the well-off local families: the CRAKEPLACES of Crakeplace Hall. William and Elizabeth lived at a place called Streetgate, in the parish of Lamplugh to the south of Dean - this was otherwise the home of another family called DICKINSON, so it isn't quite clear what they were doing there, but they remained there while having their children:
John 1586 (died 1586 also)
Elizabeth 1587
John 1592 (may have been the John SUMPTON who is known to have been at Arlecdon in 1641, but maybe not)
Tristram 1595 (baptised 11 April at Lamplugh; the other children don't appear in the IGI; for his later life see below)
Elizabeth the mother apparently died some time between 1595 and 1606, leaving her widowed husband and children.
William obviously acquired a second wife, called Margaret, because they had a daughter, Jane, in 1606. Jane was baptised in Dean so it appears that they may have moved back there by this stage, or else that Margaret went there to relatives for her childbirth. William must have died by 1625, because his widow Margaret remarried, to one Thomas DICKINSON. She in turn died in or about 1632.
Tristram married Agnes PEARSON on 9 June 1616 at Dean. He was just 21; we don't know anything much about her. They lived at Wright Green - it isn't clear why they should be at Tristram's uncle John's place while he was still alive and had sons, but they were and the property somehow ended up with Tristram and his descendants. They had children, all baptised at Dean:
John (bapt 20 June 1617, died January 1623/24, about the same time as his mother)
Lancelot (bapt 27 September 1618; for later life see below)
Elizabeth (bapt 11 December 1620; seems probably to have married John DIXON)
Henry (bapt 26 May 1622, buried the following 25 January)
Tristram (bapt 26 December 1623, buried 31 December 1625)
Agnes their mother died in January 1623/4 (buried at Dean). There looks to have been a hard time of some sort in this family's life, and tragic: in January 1622/23 the infant son Henry died; about a year later both his older brother John and the mother Agnes died, leaving Tristram a widower with three surviving children. After nearly two years Tristram remarried (see below) but soon after that his youngest son and namesake also died.
Tristram married his second wife Elizabeth FEARON on 17 November 1625 at Dean. She was a widow (maiden name and birth details unknown) with at least two children from her previous marriage (Richard and Janet, ages unknown). Tristram and Elizabeth had at least two children of their own: Ellen and Christopher. Tristram died in 1663 and was survived by Elizabeth.
Lancelot SUMPTON had a wife called Eleanor. They also lived in Dean; in 1663 Lancelot inherited only token goods in his father Tristram's will, presumably showing that he had already taken his share of the family property; when he made his will in 1689 he described himself as 'of Wright Green'. Their children were William, Elizabeth, Sarah, Lancelot (born 1662) and Isaac (these are the ones known because they were still living in 1689 and were mentioned when Lancelot their father made his will; the parish registers for this period are incomplete). Elizabeth married a John PAILE, and Sarah married a Henry WOOD (both husbands also surviving in 1689). For Lancelot, see below.
Lancelot the father made his will in 1689; I believe that it was the custom at this period to make your will if you thought death was close, so he is likely to have been ill at this point. However he lived several more years and died in 1696.
The next Lancelot married his wife Rebecca in Arlecdon (to the west of Dean) in 1694. In 1695 he was named with 6 other men in a writ for the swearing-in of the Sheriff of Cumberland, so he looks to have been a man of substance. In 1696 he inherited just a token amount of cash and some husbandry gear from his father, which suggests that he had had his share of the inheritance already. Lancelot and Rebecca had children:
Lancelot about 1695 (see below)
John about 1700 (married Anne CROSTHWAITE 1729/30, buried Arlecdon 1759)
Ann about 1704 (probably married a cousin Isaac SUMPTON in 1726, had a family in Arlecdon and died 1792)
Maria about 1705 (married John FEARON 1728)
another daughter about 1706 (married Tom FREAR)
The parents Lancelot and Rebecca died within a week of each other in February 1730/31, and were buried at Arlecdon. Their memorial survives in the churchyard there.
Lancelot married Sarah HERD on 27 May 1736 at Arlecdon. She was about 26, 15 years younger than him. They had at least one son, Lancelot in 1750; my guess is that he was their last child, following William 1738, Sarah 1741, Anne 1744 and Hannah 1748, all also baptised in Arlecdon (I also wonder whether the same Lancelot was the father of Joseph, baptised Arlecdon in 1732, perhaps by a first wife). Both parents lived to old ages, with Sarah dying in 1789 and Lancelot in 1795.
Lancelot married Jane STEEL on 26 January 1777 in Ennerdale, south of Dean and Arlecdon. Jane was about 31 to Lancelot's 27. He was clerk of the chapel at
Ennerdale for 41 years - perhaps from shortly after his marriage until his death. Lancelot and Jane baptised three children at Ennerdale:
William bapt 8 November 1778
Mary bapt 15 January 1781
Joseph bapt 17 January 1783
They lived at a place called Low Waterside in the township of Kinniside, at least by the time Jane died in 1803. Joseph died too, and was buried only a week after his mother. Lancelot died in 1819. The family are commemorated in Ennerdale churchyard.
William married Mary ASHBURNER on 26 March 1808, at St James' church in Whitehaven, on the west coast of Cumberland. They baptised their children in Ennerdale:
Joseph bapt 8 January 1809, married Ann DIXON 1836, continued at Waterside which remained in the family until the 20th century
Lancelot and Sarah bapt 6 January 1811 - for Sarah see below
Jane bapt 19 March 1813
John bapt 15 December 1815
William bapt 27 April 1822
By 1829 William was listed in a directory as a yeoman, at Waterside - this may have been the same farm as Low Waterside where his father lived, or an adjacent one. William died in 1843 and is on the family gravestone in Ennerdale.
Sarah married Thomas PONSONBY in 1829 in Ennerdale. She was just 19; he was five years older and a neighbour, also of a yeoman farming family. See the Ponsonby page for her married life. She died in 1879 and is commemorated on the Ponsonby family gravestone in Ennerdale churchyard near to her ancestors.
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