By the Rev. Canon Jackson, F.S.A. 



199 



son, Mr. Goddard Smith, leaving no issue, his sister Mary became 

 his heir, and married Mr. John Jacob, of The Rocks, near Colerne. 

 By a subsequent marriage with an heiress of the Jacob family Toeken- 

 ham descended to Sir Robert Jacob Buxton, Bart., of Shadwell Court, 

 Co. Norfolk. Mr. Goddard Smith had in his service John AylifFe, 

 Sen., of an illegitimate branch of the Grittenham family. He married 

 the housekeeper at Tockenham : and letters extant speak of them as 

 perfectly respectable and honest persons. They had a son, the un- 

 fortunate John AylifFe, whose career has to be described, and who 

 was born at Tockenham about 1718 or 1719. Whether he was in 

 any way taken up by the Grittenham family with the object of 

 being ultimately adopted, or whether it was intended that he should 

 be qualified to be a kind of companion to young Mr. Jacob, is not 

 clear : but he certainly received an education above the rank of his 

 birth, being sent to Harrow School. That school (founded in 

 1571) had then by no means approached its present celebrity; but 

 still it was one where a lad of humble connections would be sure to 

 form ideas and associations above his natural rank. After leaving 

 school, and having apparently not much immediate prospect, he 

 applied for the mastership of a newly-founded charity school at 

 Lyneham, close to his native place. He was at first thought too 

 young, but ultimately obtained it. 1 In May, 1738, being hardly 

 20 years old, he married Miss Sarah Brinsden, daughter of the then 

 Rector of Tockenham. Being very good-looking and of an ex- 

 travagant and aspiring turn of mind he began to play the fine 

 gentleman, and thereby earned among the neighbours the sobriquet 

 of "The Squire," Teaching the young clod-hoppers of Lyneham 

 how to spell was to his Harrovian tastes not nearly so fascinating 

 as the sports of the field, and the consequence was that the land- 

 owners round about Lyneham School soon began to complain of his 



1 The appointment was not of a very lucrative kind : about £10 a year. Ralph 

 Broome, by his will, bearing date 14th February, 1715-16, gave unto the parish 

 of Lyneham £450, to be laid out in lands, the income whereof to pay a school- 

 master, who should yearly teach not exceeding thirty poor children of that parish 

 to read, write and cast accounts ; and instruct them in morality and the principles 

 of the Christian religion, according to the Church of England gratis. 



