Humphrey Swynnerton

Humphrey Swynnerton (ca. 1516 – 1562) was a Staffordshire landowner, a Member of the English Parliament and an Elizabethan recusant.

Swynnerton's father was Thomas Swynnerton of Swynnerton Hall and Hilton Hall, Staffordshire. His mother was Alice Stanley, daughter of Sir Humphrey Stanley of Pipe Ridware and Clifton Campville. Both his parents were from landed gentry families based in the southern half of Staffordshire. Of his grandparents, the most distinguished was Sir Humphrey Stanley, who was knighted by Henry VII after the Battle of Bosworth and made a banneret after the Battle of Stoke Field. A close associate of the king, he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

In 1537, Swynnerton became bailiff of the Black Ladies estate, near Brewood. It had been a small Benedictine nunnery, dissolved by the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act. The new owner was Thomas Giffard, who outmanoeuvred Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall to get it. Littleton had been married to Helen Swynnerton, Humphrey's aunt. Soon he made a family link to the Giffards too: by 1540 he had married Thomas's sister, Cassandra.

About 1541, shortly after marrying Cassandra Giffard, Swynnerton inherited the family estates on the death of his father. They fell into two quite distinct parts. Swynnerton, which had been in the family longest, is near Stone, Staffordshire. Hilton is about 30 km (20 miles) to the south, close to Wolverhampton. The family had also had an interest in the Littel Saredon estate in Shareshill, close to Hilton, possibly still did. Even further afield, there were also lands at Barrow, Cheshire. Swynnerton clearly found this dispersal uneconomic. Ownership of the Cheshire lands was disputed by Sir John Savage and, in 1555, Swynnerton came to an agreement and sold them to him. However, he divided his time between Hilton and Swynnerton, treating both as home. Hilton was assessed in 1545 as being worth only £20 annually.

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