The Twickenham Museum
People : Landowners and Gentry

William Chase
Of a Whitton landowning family
1544

Substantial land holdingsWilliam Chase had held, with his wife Rose, a lease of land forming part of Twickenham Manor, in Whitton. He, or his family may have lent their name to Chase Bridge and so to the Primary School. Another piece of pastureland amounting to 4 acres, described as Chase Close is also mentioned in contemporary documents. A further reference in 1570 describes the substantial holdings of Sir William Chase amounting to one capital messuage, 6 messuages, 5 cottages, 3 virgates of land containing 218.5 acres; a substantial holding all in the Manor of Isleworth Syon.

Ancestor in Isleworth?

The following (apparently re-used) brass inscription is/was in Isleworth Church:

Of yo charyte pray for the Soule of Willm Chase Esquyre
Sutyme sergeaunt to Kyng Henry the viii & of hys most honourable
Household of hys hall & woodyerd which decessed the viii day
Of maye yn the yer of oure lord god MCCCCC xliiii
Of whose soule & all crystyn sowles ihu have mercy amen



It is/was attached to an effigy of a knight whose armour has been dated to around 1450, about a century earlier and conceivably an ancestor of William.


Further reading:

G A Aungier, The History & Antiquities of Syon Monastery…Isleworth, 1840
H K Cameron, Brasses of Middlesex part 20, vol 31, 1980
Patent Roll 15 Elizabeth Part VI, 1573, Transcription in LBRUT Local Studies Library
Royal Commission for Historical Monuments: Middlesex, 1937

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