The Mystery of the Family carved in wood from 1662
In 1755, William Rawlinson Earle (WRE) was one of two MP's for the town of Cricklade and became a Trustee of the Faringdon to Acton Turville Turnpike road which went via Cricklade instead of Purton. This was the start of the decline of the North Wessex Way. You can read more about it here.
WRE lived at Eastcourt House, a few miles north-west of Malmesbury. He lived there with his father Gyles Earle and they were both Members of Parliament for Malmesbury from 1727 to 1747. As part of my research into WRE and the Earle family, I got in touch with the current owner of Eastcourt House, James Reed, to see if he had any information. He mentioned there was a wooden carving in one of the rooms, that was related to the Earle family. He kindly gave me a guided tour, and showed me the carving (pictured above).
It has the date 1662, the initials GE, a ship, a coat of arms, an impression of Eastcourt House and a family group of figures. James knew that Gyles Earle had been the owner of the house in 1662, but didn't know the names of the others in the carving or the significance of the ship and coat of arms. This was a mystery begging to be solved!
The easy bit of the research was the date 1662 and the initial GE. At that time, Eastcourt House was owned by Gyles Earle, a lawyer from Bristol who worked in the shipping trade. There is a good record of the Earle family tree to be found online, and that shows that Gyles died, without any children, in 1677. He left Eastcourt House to his nephew Sir Thomas Earle.
Both Gyles and Sir Thomas made their fortunes in the shipping industry in Bristol. Sir Thomas was renowned for trading between Bristol, the Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and the colony in New England. This explains the ship in the carving, symbolising their shared business interests. On the coat of arms there are three scallop shells. In heraldry, scallop shells signify 'journey to a distant land', thus telling us about their trade across the Atlantic.
In the family scene, we see the main figure standing on a plinth, with his left hand on the head of the other man, who is kneeling. The main figure is Gyles Earle, and this carving depicts and celebrates the moment he anoints Sir Thomas Earle as his heir. Although Gyles doesn't die for another 15 years, it appears that he decided to make his nephew his heir in the year 1662. This makes sense as they are both heavily involved in the same trade in Bristol.
In 1662, Sir Thomas Earle and his wife Elenor, had four childen. Three of them are depicted standing next to their father, and a fourth is a babe in arms with his mother, standing on the other side of Gyles. The four children in order of age were Gyles, Joseph, Thomas and William. Sir Thomas and Elenor went on to have 12 children in total. The oldest son Gyles, died in Vitoria in the north of Spain, in his early 20s. Maybe he was there working for his father? The next son to be born, in 1678 was also called Gyles and he went on to inherit Eastcourt House after the death of Sir Thomas in 1696.