William Grindall

William Grindall "was a well to do farmer who lived in Hensingham in the Parish of Saint Bees, Cumberland, which is about a mile south of Whitehaven. That he was a prosperous man is evident from the fact that he was able to give his son Edmund sufficient education to prepare him for college, then send him on to Cambridge where he entered Magdalene College. Little is known of William Grindall. He was probably born about 1480 to 1490, presumably of a local family altho there is no record of the Grandall family in the area in that early period of scant records. Of the parish of Saint Bees where the Grindall family live, Archbishop Grindall described it in the 16th centur as 'the ignorantest par in religion, and most oppressed of covetous land lords of any part of this realm'. This criticism of land lords would seem to imply that William Grindall, relatively prosperous as he may have been, was nevertheless a tenant of some feudal lord. This was the case for most farmers of that time."187

"William Grindall, of St. Bees (or Beghs) in Cumberland, according to the visitation. See 'Extracts from the Parish Registers of St. Bees, with comments upon the same,' Cumberland and Westmoreland Anntiquarian and Archeological Society, 1(1866/73): 290-294; and 'Burgh Barony,' ibid., 9 (1886): 80, 81 for material on this family."

John Brooks Threlfall, "An Extension of the Sheafe Ancestry," New England Historical & Genealogical Register, Vol. 137, No. 1, October, 1983.