Ignatius Jourdain, Mayor of Exeter

Bef 1561 - Bef 1640  (< 78 years)

• Name	Ignatius Jourdain  [1, 2]
  Suffix	Mayor of Exeter
  Birth	Bef 17 Aug 1561	Lyme Regis, Dorset, England   [3, 4, 5]
  Baptism	17 Aug 1561	Lyme Regis, Dorset, England   [3, 4, 5]
  Gender	Male
  Death	Bef 18 Jun 1640	Exeter, Devon, England   [3, 4]
  Burial	18 Jun 1640	Exeter, Devon, England   [3, 4]
  Person ID	I18367	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of JTS
  Last Modified	2 Dec 2018

  
  

  Father	William Jourdain,   b. of Lyme Regis, Dorset, England
  Family ID	F11395	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Elizabeth Baskerville   d. Bef 18 Oct 1649, Exeter, Devon, England
  Marriage	5 Aug 1593  [3, 4]
  Children	+ 1. Elizabeth Jourdain
  Family ID	F11391	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	5 Nov 2017

  
  

• Notes

  From Wikipedia: Ignatius Jordain was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1621 and 1629. Jordain was born at Lyme Regis, the son of William Jordain and his wife Elizabeth Ryder. He was baptised at Lyme Regis on 17 August 1561. When he was young he was sent by his friends to Exeter, to be brought up as merchant. In 1576, his employer sent him to Guernsey, where he was converted to puritanism. In 1599 he was appointed bailiff of Exeter. He became a member of the corporation in 1608 and was receiver of Exeter in 1610 and Sheriff of Exeter in 1611. In 1617 he became mayor of Exeter. He was also J.P. for 24 years. In 1621, he was elected Member of Parliament for Exeter. He was deputy mayor in 1624 when all the magistrates fled the city because of the plague. He was re-elected MP for Exeter in 1625, 1626 and 1628 and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. In parliament, Jourdain succeeded in having bills passed penalising adultery, Sabbath-breaking and swearing. Jordain was a devout puritan. He was said to have read the Bible at least 20 times and Acts and Monuments seven times. He attempted to introduce temperance legislation and was considered the scourge of the alehouses in Exeter. When the proclamation regarding rebellious practices in Scotland was read in Exeter Cathedral in 1639, he was one of three men who put their hats on in protest. Jordain was also indifferent to worldly wealth and proud of his humble origins. He claimed "I came, but with a six-pence in my purse to this city; if I had had a shilling in my purse, I had never been mayor of Exeter." He dismissed threats of lawsuits that would leave him with a groat by saying that would be only two pence less than he had when he arrived in the city.

  
  

• Sources

  [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011. [S1540] Epes Sargent of Gloucester and His Descendants by Emma Worcester Sargent and Charles Sprague Sargent. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1923. [S474] History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield by Donald Lines Jacobus. Fairfield, Connecticut, 1930-32. [S1783] Comstock-Thomas Ancestry of Richard Wilmot Comstock by H. Minot Pitman, assisted by Donald Lines Jacobus. H. M. Pitman, 1964. [S1470] Emory McClintock, "Thomas Trowbridge and Elizabeth Marshall." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 59:291, Jul 1905.