The Society's 3£SS. — Chisledon and Draycot. 



137 



be of interest to allude to a curious coimexion which existed 

 between this, and many other families in Wiltshire, and a par- 

 ticular college in. the university of Oxford. 



The first, so far as appears, of his family to he sent to the 

 university, was Thomas Stephens, legatee in the above will of the 

 rectory of Swindon. He was on the foundation of his college (St. 

 John's), B A., 25 June, 1577. We have already (p. 49) heard of 

 a proposed purchase by bishop Buekeridge, of Rochester, of the. 

 advowson of Draycot for the benefit of St. John's. The bishop 

 had himself been fellow and president of that college, and both he 

 and Thomas Stephens were entered there as 4t consanguinei funda- 

 toris," or founder's kin. The acquisition of wealth and the 

 benefieent application of it to the furtherance of education do not 

 necessarily imply a long or distinguished line of ancestry, and the 

 restriction hy Sir Thomas White of some part of the advantages 

 of his foundation to his own kin, immediately invested with 

 retrospective importance descents traced through a number of 

 families at once prolific and of comparatively humble station in 

 life. Much industry has been devoted to the discovery of Sir 

 Thomas's kindred, with the result, so far as can be judged, that 

 claims to the benefits of the foundation have been admitted upon 

 somewhat insufficient genealogical proof, to the advantage, no 

 doubt, of the college, whose authorities desired nothing more 

 earnestly than to enlarge, rather than to confine, their field for 

 selection Be this as it may, one great channel of the true descent 

 was through the family of Kibblewhite, to which the founder's 

 mother herself belonged. To explain the discrepancies between 

 the various descents alleged of this name would be tiresome and, 

 in the absence of fresh proof to decide the matter, unprofitable. 

 Sueh proof exists, probably, among the wills proved in the local 

 courts for Berks and Wilts; meanwhile, the accompanying 

 pedigree, from the Harley collections in the British Museum, is 

 certainly more correct than some others that have been put forward, 

 and will serve to indicate the founder's kin connexion between 

 several families who occur at Chisledon. 



Possibly, in the accompanying pedigree, a. generation m the 



