Mildred Warner (February 20, 1671 — January 30, 1701), born Mildred Warner in the Colony of Virginia, was the paternal grandmother of George Washington, the first president of the United States of America. She was also born into a very prestigious Virginian family. Her grandfather had been acting governor of Virginia and her father Speaker of its House of Burgesses. She married into another important family in 1686 with the marriage to Lawrence Washington with whom she had three children John, Augustine and Mildred. Upon his death Lawrence gave Mildred and his children shares of his estate with the profits from their lands to be administered by Mildred for their education and upbringing.
In 1700 Mildred Washington then married George Gale who was part of a family of Whitehaven merchants trading with Virginia. The Gales were Irish dissenters who had fled Tralee and after suffering in Newcastle had set up in Whitehaven about 1665 under the more sympathetic wing of John Lowther. In fact John Gale appears to have lived on land originally occupied by the Wyberghs known as the Old Hall which probably became Christopher Lowther's first residence in Whitehaven.
Through her sister's descendant Henrietta Mildred Hodgson, she is an ancestral aunt of Queen Elizabeth II.
Early life[]
Mildred was born in 1671, at Warner Hall, the family home in Gloucester County, Virginia, the daughter of Augustine Warner, Jr. (1642-1681) and Elizabeth Reade. Her father-in-law was Augustine Warner.[1][2]
Family[]
The men of Mildred's family took an active part in the local government of colonial Virginia. Her father-in-law, Colonel Augustine Warner, was a justice, a Burgess and a member of the council of Gloucester County. Her maternal grandfather Colonel George Reade was also a member of the council.[2] Her father Colonel Augustine Warner was also a Burgess and Speaker of the House of Burgesses.[3]
She was one of three surviving Warner offspring, all females. The other two were Elizabeth Warner and Mary Warner. All three married and left children and descendants.[4]
First marriage[]
She married Lawrence Washington (also spelled Laurence Washington) in 1685, a union that produced three children John, Augustine and Mildred. Augustine would become the father of George Washington.[4] Lawrence died in 1698, bequeathing to Mildred and the children shares in his estate, the profits from which were to be spent on their education.
Second marriage[]
In 1700, she married George Gale of Whitehaven, England, a prominent merchant who helped forge trade links between Whitehaven, England and Virginia. She settled in Whitehaven and became pregnant. However, she contracted a fever and made her will before the baptism of her child. Mildred died on 30 January 1701. Her will placed care of the Washington children in the hands of George,[5] although this was later challenged in the Virginia courts by Lawrence's cousin John Washington, and their custody passed to him. Her will left most of the property she had inherited from her late husband to George Gale. John Washington challenged this in court also.[6]
Death[]
Mildred lies buried in the grounds of St. Nicholas' Church in Whitehaven. The exact whereabouts of her grave is unknown, due to several graveyard re-arrangements and a subsequent fire in the church in 1970, but a commemorative plaque is in the garden of the church.
Royal connections[]
Mildred Warner's sister Mary married John Smith, and their daughter Mildred married Robert Porteus, who in 1720 moved his family from Virginia to Yorkshire. Their granddaughter, another Mildred Porteus, married Robert Hodgson, of Congleton, and was the grandmother of Henrietta Mildred Hodgson ([tel:[tel:1805-1891 1805-1891] [tel:1805-1891 1805-1891]]), whose daughter Frances married Claude Bowes-Lyon, later Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and became the grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II.[7]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ warnerhall.com
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Virginia magazine of history and biography (Virginia Historical Society, 1894), p. 423 (Original from the University of California, digitized Jun 4, 2007)
- ↑ Annah Walker Robinson Watson, Some notable families of America (1898) p. 70 (Original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison; Digitized Feb 19, 2008)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Merrow Egerton Sorley, Lewis of Warner Hall: the history of a family (1979), p. 52
- ↑ James Simpson, Richard Saul Ferguson, William Gershom Collingwood, Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmoreland Antiquarian & Archeological Society (1888), pages 114-120 (Item notes: v.9 Original from the University of California Digitized Jul 24, 2007)
- ↑ Doug Wead, The Raising of a President: The Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation's Leaders (Simon and Schuster, 2005, ISBN 1-4165-1307-8, ISBN 978-1-4165-1307-0) p. 24
- ↑ Albert H. Spencer, Genealogy of the Spencer family (1956), p. v (snippet)