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 rom 1837 until 1850 there were well over 100 Pavitts in Essex, more than forty in London, six at Yeovil and only three or four elsewhere.
The precise figure depends on how liberally allowance is made for variations in the spelling of the name. This focuses attention on Essex as the Pavitt home ground.
A leap into the more distant past can be made with the aid of the International Genealogical Index. The furthest this goes is the sixteenth century when there were a dozen Pavitt births in Essex, a couple just over the border in Hertfordshire and none elsewhere, though there were one or two marriages in London and in Surrey. This confirms Essex as the Pavitt homeland.
There are good collections of books in Essex, in Public Libraries and they have provided a rich harvest of references to Essex Pavitts.
One of the most colourful appears in Emmison's Elizabethan Life and Disorder and again in Brentwood Assizes 15 March 1567.
Two weeks earlier a game of football had taken place at Branton Mead, Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex. Henry Ingolde, a husbandman of White Roothing and Thomas Paviott of Hatfield Broad Oak had collided while chasing the ball. Both had fallen. As they arose, Thomas is said to have "lightly pushed without malice". Henry died that night, allegedly from over-exhaustion rather than from any injury caused by Thomas, who was therefore found not guilty on that account. However, all the participants were found guilty of having taken part in an illegal game of ill repute. (Nothing changes!) The yeomen, who should have known better were fined more heavily than the labourers.
Brentwood assizes, 19 March 1576, contains another interesting reference to the Essex Pavitts. Margery Pavett of High Roding was indicted for murder by witchcraft, having butchered Margaret Gudgin so that she languished for nine months and then died; and bewitched Elizabeth Burton so that she languished for three weeks "and her life was despaired of". Happily, Margery was acquitted.
The poor woman was probably a Herbalist or maybe a Healer.
A Margery Pavitt married, in Stanford Rivers, a George Poole on the 28th August 1580. Maybe the same Margery?…..
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