1685-1706

EARLY YEARS


The Gays were an old family, who settled in Devonshire when Gilbert le
Gay, through his marriage with the daughter and heiress of Curtoyse,
came into possession of the manor of Goldsworthy, in Parkham. This they
held until 1630, when it passed out of their hands to the Coffins.[1]
Subsequently they were associated with the parish of Frittelstock, near
Great Torrington. In the Parish Registers of Barnstaple the name appears
from time to time: in 1544 is recorded the death of Richard Gaye, and
later of John Gaye, "gentill man," and Johans Gay. From other sources it
is known that Richard Gay was Mayor of the town in 1533, and Anthony Gay
in 1638.[2] The records of the family have not been preserved, but at
some time early in the seventeenth century there was at Frittelstock one
John Gay, whose second son, William, was the father of the poet.

William Gay resided at Barnstaple, and since he lived in a large house,
called the Red Cross, at the corner of Joy Street, facing Holland
Street, it is reasonable to assume that he was in easy circumstances. He
married a daughter of Jonathan Hanmer, the leading Nonconformist divine
of the town, and by her had five children. The first-born was a girl,
who died in 1685; then came Katherine, born in 1676, who married
Anthony Baller, whose son Joseph issued in 1820 the slim volume bearing
the title of "Gay's Chair";[3]in 1778, Jonathan; and three years later,
Joanna, who married John Fortescue--possibly a relation of William
Fortescue, afterwards Master of the Rolls, who is still remembered as a
friend of Pope. The youngest child was John, the subject of this memoir,
stated by his earlier biographers to have been born in 1688, but now