Sir John Wittewrong, 1st Baronet (1 November 1618 – 23 June 1693) was an English parliamentarian colonel and squire of
Rothamsted Manor
Rothamsted Manor is a former manor and current manor house, situated in Harpenden Rural in the English county of Hertfordshire. A Grade I listed building, dating in part from the 17th century, it is now an events venue, while the surrounding esta ...
.
Life
The Wittewrongs were a
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
Protestant family who in 1564 left
Ghent
Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...
in the
Spanish Netherlands
Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the Ha ...
for London.
Jacques Wittewrong came to London with his wife and two children. Most of the Wittewrong family followed Jacques, who made a career as a
public notary, and died in 1593.
John Wittewrong was a grandson of Jacques, and son of Jacob Wittewrong(le) (1558–1622) by his second wife Anna, daughter of Garrard Vanaker of
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, , a merchant. Jacob was a wealthy brewer.
On Jacob's death, Anna married
Thomas Myddelton, as his fourth wife, and survived him. Through his stepfather John gained a Welsh connection, and he was later
High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire The office of High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire was established in 1541 since then a High Sheriff was appointed annually until 1974 when the office was transformed into that of High Sheriff of Powys as part of the creation of Powys from the amalgama ...
for 1665 through the manor of
Talerddig
Talerddig is a village in Powys, mid Wales, located on the main A470 road between Llanbrynmair and Carno. It is part of Llanbrynmair community.
Talerddig cutting
Although the village no longer has a railway station, it is on the route of the 18 ...
.
He was knighted in 1640, and then fought on the side of Parliament in the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
as a colonel. He was
High Sheriff of Hertfordshire
The High Sheriff of Hertfordshire was an ancient Sheriff title originating in the time of the Angles, not long after the foundation of the Kingdom of England, which was in existence for around a thousand years. On 1 April 1974, under the provisio ...
in 1658. In religion he was an
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
, at one time a member of the congregation of
William Bridge
William Bridge (c. 1600 – 1670) was a leading English Independent minister, preacher, and religious and political writer.
Life
A native of Cambridgeshire, the Rev. William Bridge was probably born in or around the year 1600. He studied at Emm ...
, and later supported ministers of nonconforming views.,
He bought land at
Wheathampstead
Wheathampstead is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, north of St Albans. The population of the ward at the 2001 census was 6,058. Included within the parish is the small hamlet of Amwell.
History
Settlements in this area were ...
in 1649. He was created baronet in 1662, and in 1667 bought
Stantonbury
Stantonbury is a district and civil parish of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The toponym ''Stanton'' is derived from an Old English term for "stone-built farmstead" and the ''bury'' element from the French family who held it in 1235. ...
from
Sir John Temple, where he built a mansion of which only a few traces are left. He also owned
Rothamsted Manor
Rothamsted Manor is a former manor and current manor house, situated in Harpenden Rural in the English county of Hertfordshire. A Grade I listed building, dating in part from the 17th century, it is now an events venue, while the surrounding esta ...
;
[ the family had leased it from 1611, and purchased it in 1623, after which Sir John made many alterations.
John Witteronge was a weather diarist
]
The Diary
When the weather diary was written, the Julian Calendar (Old Style) was in use in England, and all dates are therefore 10 days behind the present calendar. To make Sir John's dates consistent with today's calendar 10 days must be added. Also the new year ‘began’ on 25 March although 1 January was often thought of as the start of the year. To avoid confusion dates from 1 January to 24 March were often written as (for example) 1684/5 and this was practised by Sir John in his Diary. (Williams & Stevenson (HRS)) 1999.
The diary records the weather on a regular basis. Sir John was one of the first private individuals to own a domestic barometer (Banfield 1978) or Weather Glass. The approximate relationship between the state of the weather and height of the mercury had been discovered by about 1644. The values in use at this time (1684) have remained generally unaltered to the present day[ The diary is the property of Hertfordshire County Council and is held at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS) ref HALS D/ELw/F19]
References
*Hertfordshire Record Society, Volume XV ''"Observations of Weather": the Weather Diary of Sir John Wittewronge of Rothamsted 1684-89''
*''The Copy of a Letter from Alisbury. Directed to Colonell Hampden, Colonell Goodwin, and read in both Houses of Parliament, May 18. 1643''. Thomason Collection, British Library E.102 5 A letter from Wittewrong, published in London, giving an account of the Royalists' burning of the town of Swanborne, in Buckinghamshire.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wittewrong, John
1618 births
1693 deaths
People from Harpenden
Roundheads
Baronets in the Baronetage of England
High Sheriffs of Hertfordshire
High Sheriffs of Montgomeryshire