Dr. John Waller (1645-1716) My 8th Great Grandfather on My Father’s Side

Surgeon's tools from the Barber-Surgeons Company. This
image from the Science Museum in the United Kingdom

Compared to the other Waller men I have researched, I have found remarkably little information about my eighth great-grandfather Dr. John Waller. Almost all of the information I have found comes from a single source, which is not good from a genealogical perspective. On the other hand, it is a good source - a book titled, Genealogies of Virginia Families written by R.M. Glencross, a London Genealogists, published in 2006 in the William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine Vol. 5.

John was born about 1645 in England, in a place called Newport Pagnell which is in Buckinghamshire. This is the same year that the Rainbow sailed to Africa from Boston to acquire slaves – the first ship to do so. John was the son of Thomas Waller and Anne Keate. According to an essay written by Eugenia Waller, John had at least two brothers who were named Thomas and William.

Image from the Barber-Surgeons college from the Science
Museum Brought to Life

When John was only thirteen he started an apprenticeship program at the Barber Surgeon Company. He was admitted to St. Catherine's College in Cambridge in 1664, and on 6 Feb 1665, he was “admitted to Freedom” which meant that he was entitled to practice as a medical doctor. According to Wikipedia, “A barber-surgeon was a person who could perform minor surgical procedures such as bloodletting, cupping therapy or pulling teeth. Barbers could also bathe, cut hair, shave or trim facial hair, and give enemas.” St. Catharine’s College was founded in 1473 and continues to educate students currently.

This is St. Catherine's College at Cambridge which is still active today. Permission to use given by the college.

John married Mary Pomfret on January 13, 1669, when John was 24 and Mary was 21. There is a lengthy story written about Mary Pomfret Waller in the book The Spirit in the South Stories of Our Grandmothers’ Spirits by Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde and Anne Curtis Terry, J.D. and Cousins. John and Mary had eight children.

Rule book from the Barber Surgeons
Company, printed in 1831

As a young man John practiced as a surgeon, but by 1711 he had apparently given up medicine and was working as an attorney. The source of this information is from a document dated June 23, 1711, in which he “presented his son William to the rectory” of the Church of St. Michael in Walton Parish in Newport Pagnell. In the document, John identified himself as an attorney.

Dr. John Waller died on August 21, 1716, and is buried at Newport Pagnell in a tomb that he designed himself. Regrettably, I have not found a photo of the tomb. His will was proved on August 21, 1723, and was recorded in Prerogative Court, an ecclesiastical court at Canterbury. According to Eugenia Waller's essay, "he was a man of substantial means. He lavished gifts of houses, jewelry, land, and money. The text of his will breathes a warm personality:

1) I give and devise unto my son John Waller who liveth in Virginia, over and above what I have already given and lent him, the legacy or sum of twenty pounds, to his eldest daughter Mary (Lewis) Ten pounds and to the rest of his children five pounds apiece... 274

2) I give and devise unto my brother Thomas Waller who liveth in Virginia the legacy or sum of twenty pounds... 275 

Another example of a surgeon's medical tools in John
Waller's time

3) My body I comitt (sic) to the Earth to be decently interred and laid in the Vault of Monument which I cause to be built on the South side of the Church of Newport Pagnell, aforesaid, at the bottom of the Grille neer (sic) the River Wall...”

Sources for this post: Family History; FindAGrave website; Wikipedia; Genealogies of Virginia Families by R.M. Glencross, a London Genealogist published in the William and Mary College Quarterly Magazine; Geni.com website; The Spirit In The South by Forde and Terry.