Peke, William

Notes:

Presumed brother of Richard (Pyke) Peke (c.1520-1570). He and his brother, John are mentioned in the Halwell Subsidy roll 1524/25 for goods, while a William Peke is shown in 1523/24 as assessed for land in Ashprington. John Peke is mentioned in the Blackawton Manor Court Roll for 1544 and may have been the John Peek of Halwell whose will was proved at Exeter in 1577. Both were probably married and had descendants, although no details are known.

Notes:

Probably husband of Joan Pyke. The Blackawton Manor Court Rolls show that in 1517 he occupied a tenement at Abbotsleigh belonging to William Erlyans. In 1517/18 the lease of this tenement was formally granted to him by the court with reversion. In May 1535 Richard Peke acted as a juror in the manorial court, and he may also have been the Richard Peke involved in a debt case in February 1540. He may, however, have died in the late 1530s at the time of the dissolution of Torre Abbey. He was certainly dead by 1543/44, when his presumed wife Joan died,she being then described as a widow. Richard Peke paid lay subsidy for goods in Halwell in1524 and 1525.

Richard married Pyke, Joan. Joan died in C 1543/44. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Probably wife of the Richard Peke. In Devon, as in certain other counties, there was a system of granting leases for three lives, the tenancy passing by lineal inheritance. The Bedford Estate Survey of the Manor of Blackawton dated 1585 reveals that Joan Pyke was the first of three lives to hold the tenancy of the Abbotsleigh farm and that when she died in 1543/44 the tenancy was claimed and granted to her son Richard Pyke (Peke) as the second of three lives on 23 March 1543/44. As the date of her husband's death is not known it is not clear when and in what circumstances Joan Pyke obtained the tenancy. When Torre Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538 the Manor of Blackawton was acquired (in 1539) by Lord John Russell, later first Earl of Bedford of the second creation. It is possible that the last Abbot of Torre, Simon Rede, granted the tenancy of the Abbotsleigh farm direct to Joan Pyke at the time of the dissolution on a three lives basis if, as is likely, her husband was already dead.