Desborough Study: Transcriptions
Extract from
Northamptonshire Notes and Queries, 1890
509.—The Poulton Family of Desborough (468).
509.—In The Life and Miraculous Conversion from Popery of
Joseph Perry, Written by Himself, 1727, is this reference to the Poultons of Desborough :—
"When I came to Cransly, which I suppose might be the eleventh Year of my Age, Sir
Henry Robinson put me into a blue Livery ; I used to go with him when he went abroad, to
wait upon him ; Sir Henry was a strong Roman Catholick, but his Lady was a Church of
England Woman. We had a Priest sometimes in the House with us, yet we often went to
Desborough, about a Mile off Rowel, to one Mr. Polton, a great Roman Catholick, who was
made a Justice of Peace in King James the 2d's Time. Here we used to go to Mass and
Confession of Sin. Here used to be sometimes a Jesuit to preach ; to this Place Sir Henry
Robinson and went often, there being none in the Family, nor, as I know of, in the Town,
that did profess to be Roman Catholicks, but he and I, only sometimes we had a Priest with
us ; but at Desborough there was Mr. Polton's whole Family Papists, with some others in
the Town, so that there we had several met together."
F. T.
Source: Northamptonshire Notes and Queries, an illustrated quarterly
journal, devoted to The Antiquities, Family History, Traditions, Parochial Records, Folk-Lore, Quaint Customs,
&c., of the County. Edited by John Taylor. vol. III. Northampton: The Dryden Press, Taylor & Son, 9 College
Street, 1890.