BRADDON, Stephen, of Treworgey, St. Gennys, Cornw. and Hunshawe, Devon.

This Member, who founded the Cornish branch of his family at St. Gennys, about ten miles from Bossiney, was presumably related to the Braddons of Sutcombe, Devon. He himself had property at Hunshawe in that county, and claimed the manor of Yarnscombe, Devon, by grant from Sir John St. Leger. A Chancery case which he brought between 1580 and 1587 accused two of the neighbouring gentry of unlawfully evicting him from part of Yarnscombe, and from land in the parish of St. Thomas, adjoining Exeter, which he had bought from John Bellew. Another Chancery case refers to him as a ‘counsellor at law’, probably about the year 1567. The only mention of him in the Inner Temple records—giving no christian name—is as steward for the reader’s dinner during the Lent vacation of 1573. His membership for Bossiney was possibly due to friendship with the St. Legers and Chichesters, who in turn were supporters of the 2nd Earl of Bedford. At the time of his return he may have been already betrothed to Alice Bellew, whose brothers married into both of these influential families.

No date for Braddon’s death has been found. In April 1577 he leased several tenements to his brother-in-law John Addington, the wording of whose will suggests that Braddon was alive when the will was made in March 1583.2Vis. Devon (Harl. Soc. vi), 87, 242; J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, ii. 267-8; C3/205/23; C21/L19/10; Burke; C. S. Gilbert, Hist. Surv. Cornw. ii. 37. The William Braddon who was buried at St. Gennys in 1600 was probably his son. This William’s son, also William, was a parliamentary commander in the Civil War.3PCC 30 Windsor, ex. inf. Mr. H. N. W. Toms.