Kingsbury family

The Kingsbury family is a family descended from royal ancestors of medieval England, from the Kingdom of Mercia.^[1] They were involved in colonial and frontier settlement of the United States, and influential in England.

According to various sources which range from studies by historian Michael Jones,^[2] studies on knighthood in early English society by Peter Cross^[3] and others by the Royal Historical Society ^[4] including an early 20th-century genealogist, F. J. Kingsbury, the Kingsbury family is thought to be descendants of the Bracebridge family, whose ancestry is traced to Sir Ralf of Bracebridge, an English knight born in 975. This bloodline includes Lady Godiva and her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who was descended from the Saxon kings of the lordship of Kingsbury.^[5] The Kingsbury family is also purportedly related to William Shakespeare.^[6][7] The genealogical links with the Shakespeares have been explored and tabulated in an early volume on the dramatis personae of Shakespeare, by George Russell French.^[8]

The surname

The present-day Kingsbury family has had many spelling variants of its surname, including:

• de Kingsberry
• de Kingsbury
• de Kyngesburie
• de Kyngesbury
• de Kyngesburye
• Kingsberry
• Kingsbery
• Kingsbury
• Kyngesbury

There has been conjecture that the Kingsbury family also previously went by these surnames:

• Bracebridge
• de Bracebridge

History

900-1100

• The Kingsbury family's earliest known member is Sir Ralf of Bracebridge, who was born in 975 in Bracebridge, Lincolnshire, England.
• Kingsbury descendants in Warwickshire traced their ancestry to Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lady Godiva.^[9] The children of Leofric and Godiva include Ælfgār and possibly, Hereward the Wake. The Earl of Mercia is said to be descended from the Saxon kings of Mercia.^[10] He inherited their ancient seat.

1100-1300

• The Bracebridge family first appear in records of the town of Kingsbury, Warwickshire in circa 1115, when Sir Peter de Bracebridge and Amicia Arden were married there.
• The first-known family member to bear the surname "Kingsbury" was Adam de Kingsbury,' who was born about 1240 in Kingsbury, Warwickshire. His name meant only that he was from the locality of Kingsbury, before surnames were widely used.

1500-1700

• According to family genealogist F. J. Kingsbury, writing in 1905 when standards had not been established, William Shakespeare was a descendant of the Kingsbury family. Leofric's daughter married Turchil de Arden, one of William the Conqueror's Norman knights. Their granddaughter married Peter de Bracebridge, in whose family the lordship remained until the time of Queen Elizabeth I. A daughter of this side of the family married Sir John Arden, of Arden, who was the grandfather of Mary Arden, Shakespeare's mother. Kingsbury thinks Shakespeare referred to this in his lines:

'When nightingales in Arden sit and sing

Among the daintie dew-empearlèd flowers..'.^[11]

In his genealogical study on the Ardens and the Shakespeares, French also makes similar claims, tabulating the linkages between the Bracebridges, Kingsburys, Ardens and Shakespeares ^[12]

Kingsbury family in North America

• Some members of the Kingsbury family emigrated to North America in 1630, landing in Boston with the Winthrop Fleet. Among the party were Henry Kingsbury of Ipswich, his wife, and sons Joseph and Thomas. Henry Kingsbury signed the Boston City Charter and the Covenant of the First Church in Boston. Joseph Kingsbury was recorded as part of a search party of the Charles River in 1635. Sarah Kingsbury was the first family member born in the New World, in 1635 in Boston.
• The American politician Daniel Webster was a descendant on his mother's side of Henry Kingsbury of Ipswich.
• Ezra W. Kingsbury, a Union Cavalry officer, helped capture Confederate leader William T. Anderson during the American Civil War. In 1868, having moved to the West, he defeated "Wild Bill" Hickok to become sheriff of Ellsworth, Kansas.
• Brothers George W. and T. A. Kingsbury were elected to the Dakota Territorial Legislature and were active in affairs of what later became the state of South Dakota. Kingsbury County was named for them.^[13]

Kingsburys in the Antipodes

Members of the Kingsbury family also migrated to Australia and New Zealand in the mid and late 19th Century, leaving primarily from Somerset. The best known of this group was Bruce Steel Kingsbury, VC (8 January 1918 – 29 August 1942), an Australian soldier of the Second World War. Serving initially in the Middle East, he later gained renown for his actions during the Battle of Isurava, one of many battles forming the Kokoda Track Campaign in New Guinea. His bravery during the battle was recognised with the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces.

The principle point of Kingsbury migration was to the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, Australia, with a number of the family buried at the Drysdale cemetery overlooking Port Phillip Bay.^[14]

Professor Damien Kingsbury is also a member of this family.

See also

• Aston Hall
• Kingsbury Hall

References

Further reading

• Kingsbury Hall, the Genealogy of a Family, by Kenneth J. Kingsbury, Gateway Press, 2005.
• Lordship, Knighthood and Locality: A Study in English Society, c.1180–1280 Cross, Peter. Past and Present Publications. 2004
• The Domesday Book online: http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/warwickshire2.html
• Shakspeareana Genealogica: (In Two Parts.), Volume 2 By George Russell French, Macmillan and Company, 1869