The Society’s MSS.—Chisledon and Drayeot. 137 
of interest to allude to a curious connexion which existed 
wween this, and many other families in Wiltshire, and a par- 
‘ ular college in the university of Oxford. ; 
The first, so far as appears, of his family to be sent to the 
university, was Thomas Stephens, legatee in the above will of the 
re rectory of Swindon. He was on the foundation of his college (St. 
John’s), BA., 25 June, 1577. We have already (p. 49) heard of 
a proposed purchase by bishop Buckeridge, of Rochester, of the 
advowson of Draycot for the benefit of St. John’s. The bishop 
iad himself been fellow and president of that college, and both he 
nd Thomas Stephens were entered there as “ consanguinei funda- 
ie 
or founder’s kin. The acquisition of wealth and the 
beneficent application of it to the furtherance of education do not 
jecessarily imply a long or distinguished line of ancestry, and the 
estriction by Sir Thomas White of some part of the advantages 
xf his foundation to his own kin, immediately invested with 
etrospective importance descents traced through a number of 
es at once prolific and of comparatively humble station in 
Much industry has been devoted to the discovery of Sir 
homas ’s kindred, with the result, so far as can be judged, that 
tims to the benefits of the foundation have been admitted upon 
vhat insufficient genealogical proof, to the advantage, . no 
of the college, whose authorities desired nothing more 
tly than to enlarge, rather than to confine, their field for 
on Be this as it may, one great channel of the true descent 
through the family of Kibblewhite, to which the founder’s 
- herself belonged. To explain the discrepancies between 
rious descents alleged of this name would be tiresome and, 
. absence of fresh proof to decide the matter, unprofitable. 
” I oof exists, probably, among the wills proved in the local 
ts for Berks and Wilts; meanwhile, the accompanying 
, from the Harley collections in the British Museum, is 
7 more correct than some others that have been put forward, 
vill serve to indicate the founder’s kin connexion between 
al families who oceur at Chisledon. 
ssibly, in the accompanying pedigree, a generation’ in the 
a, 
Sy 
way 
a 
