First a note on pronunciation. The name RADE is very often given interchangeably with READ, so perhaps the name was pronounced to rhyme with "raid" or at least "red." It was also sometimes spelled REED, so we are giving both versions.

The parents of FRANCIS GOWARD'S wife MARY RADE were found by Amy VanCott, and their children's names and dates were sent to her in 1967 by the vicar of Easton parish, the Rev. Harold Willmot Smith. I confirmed this information in the Easton Archdeacon's Transcripts (Film no.1526811) and parish registers (Film no.1657203), and in addition found MARY'S likely grandparents, also named WILLIAM and MARY READ. Though we have no external proof of this parentage, it fits by date, and no other William Read was recorded in Easton parish. Moreover, the first names given to their children by both couples are strikingly similar (Film nos.1526811, 1657203).

A large parallel Read family appeared in Barnham Broome parish as descendants of "John Read yeoman" who died on 9 June 1726, before the birth of his daughter Hannah on 20 November 1726 (Film no.1526810 unit 13). Conceivably he was a brother or cousin of our earliest WILLIAM READ in Easton, who was also having children in 1726 (Film no.1657203). But no proof of blood relation was found yet, and "Read" is a common name, so I have not included the Reads of Barnham Broome.

The fact that John Read was a yeoman, however, suggests that all the local Reads as an extended family may have originally been landowners, or at least they enjoyed hereditary leases. In the late Middle Ages only about ten percent of the whole population were yeomen or franklins, i.e. free owners or hereditary lessees of medium-sized farms (Davies 265-66). The Latin term franklin or "freeman" gave way to the Anglo-Saxon yeoman, but both terms referred to men who held title to their land, could take their complaints to the royal court, could serve as jurors, and had an established legal status:

the free tenant stood below the knight and esquire because of his lack of wealth rather than from any inferiority of birth or blood or legal privilege; for he was free-born and eligible to become a knight if he had the means (Campbell 11).

Socially yeoman were in a pivotal class, their status and power often depending upon the competition against them:

Whether their position was that of an upper or lower middle class depended largely on the character of the community in which they lived.... in parishes where there were few or no resident gentry, the yeomen were the obvious leaders in the community. (Campbell 61)

But by the 18th century when our known READS were living, yeomen's sons had often become tradesmen and laborers instead of working the land. We see this status in the only relative whose occupation was written, i.e. Martha RADE'S husband "Samuel Browne labourer" in 1794-1813 in Easton (Film no.1657203). I have not searched for wills of our people, nor any other local or occupational records, and leave that research for other family historians. Also, perhaps the economic history of eastern Norfolk county will cast light on the social position of our own RADES/READS. Certainly they would probably not be well educated. At MARY RADE'S marriage to FRANCIS GOWARD in 1791, she signed by X mark (unable to sign her name), as did her sisters Sarah in 1784 and Elizabeth in 1786 (Film no.1657203 item 27). This was not unusual for English working-class families even much later in the mid-1800s.

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© Copyright Norma Leigh Rudinsky  2005, 2007