{"id":5063,"date":"2026-04-10T08:30:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=5063"},"modified":"2026-04-01T08:49:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:49:50","slug":"the-chaplyn-family-of-wareham-and-the-merlini-anglici-ephermis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2026\/04\/10\/the-chaplyn-family-of-wareham-and-the-merlini-anglici-ephermis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chaplyn Family of Wareham and the Merlini Anglici Ephermis"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a series of three blogs about document D1-PH\/1<\/a>, a fascinating book that has been filled with notes by a family from Wareham.<\/p>\n

We came across this intriguing document whilst researching Thomas Chaplyn for a previous blog<\/a>. It is a copy of the book \u201cMerlini Anglici Ephermis or Astrological Judgments for 1666<\/em>\u201d by William Lilly that has also been used as a notebook by a doctor. Our catalogue entry suggested the person who wrote in it may have been John Chaplyn, probably a son of Thomas Chaplyn, but further investigation revealed that this wasn\u2019t the whole story.<\/p>\n

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D1-PH\/1<\/a>: “Merlini Anglici Ephemeris or Astrological Judgments for 1666” by William Lilly, with observations and predictions. 1667-1715<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The book was one of a series of annual almanacs published by William Lilly from 1647 to 1685. Lilly was one of the most important astrologers in England in the 1600s and his popular almanacs contained his predictions for the year to come. This may seem like a strange book to be owned by a doctor, but in the 17th<\/sup> century astrology was still a widely held belief, although scientific discoveries were creating growing scepticism among parts of the population and Lilly was a divisive and controversial figure.<\/p>\n

Handwritten notes fill the blank pages of the book, some of which are in a form of shorthand. A few of the notes have been signed by John Chaplyn, which is why his name appeared in our catalogue entry.<\/p>\n

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The earliest dated entry in the almanac is from March 17th<\/sup> 1667 or 1668. In the 1600s the new year was often recorded as beginning in April rather than January, a practice that is found in many of our parish registers. In the second note dated March 28th the seven in the year has been changed to an eight which, as the entries appear to follow on from each other, suggests that the entries may have both been from 1668, but originally dated using the old system.<\/p>\n

The early entries consist of notes about the sale of a house and a record of bonds paid. Names mentioned in these entries include Robert and William Chaplyn, probably the brothers of Thomas Chaplyn; and John Sampson, the brother of Dorothy Chaplyn. If we assume that the entries are from 1668, the year after Thomas\u2019s death, it seems likely that Dorothy made the notes as she dealt with Thomas\u2019s estate.<\/p>\n

The entries signed by John Chaplyn are dated from between 1682 and 1684, just after Dorothy\u2019s death in 1681, and record money connected to her estate that were paid to him by his sister Dorothy.<\/p>\n

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“Rcd this 4th day of May 1682 of my sister Miss Dorothy Chaplyn in full for the rent she received and for the inventory of the household good and cash being in all eighty and four pounds sixteen shillings to this day I say received by me Jn Chaplyn.”<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

John and his mother seem to have used the book to create a record of their financial transactions when acting as executors, but was John the doctor who used the book to record the accounts of his patients between 1695 and 1703? To discover this we needed to find out more about the family.<\/p>\n

There are no surviving registers from before the fire of 1762 for the Parish of Wareham, where any children of Thomas and Dorothy Chaplyn would probably have been baptised, so we had to look for other sources of information.<\/p>\n

A good place to start research when there are no surviving registers is by looking for wills and we were able to find the will of Dorothy Chaplyn of Priory House near Wareham from 1681 on the Ancestry website. This revealed that Thomas and Dorothy had eight children who were still living in 1681: John Chaplyn, Sampson Chaplyn, Ebenezer Chaplyn, Thomas Chaplyn, Margaret Ferris, Elizabeth Johnson, Dorothy Chaplyn, and Susanna Chaplyn. The will also mentioned Dorothy\u2019s sisters Susanna Palmer and Margaret Halse, her brother John Sampson and her son in law Anthony Ferris.<\/p>\n

Chaplyn is not a common surname and with Ebenezer and Sampson being unusual first names we quickly found their wills showing these brothers had both moved to London, where Ebenezer was a haberdasher and Sampson was a grocer. Their wills also revealed that Dorothy Chaplyn had married a Nathaniel Bartlett and mentioned the names of several of their nieces and nephews, some of whom had also moved to London.<\/p>\n

The rest of the family were harder to trace, partly because their names were more common and partly because some of them appeared to have stayed in Wareham where fewer records have survived. A search of our catalogue found deeds and a memorandum regarding land in or near Wareham that mention Elizabeth Johnson, who was a widow in 1702, and her son Robert Johnson, who was a tanner. Anthony Ferris, Margaret\u2019s husband, is mention in several other wills of Wareham residents, suggesting that they stayed in the town, but we struggled to find anything about John.<\/p>\n

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D-BOC\/UA\/Accession889\/Box17\/Bc6<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had been working on the assumption that John had made the medical notes and therefore that he had died after 1710, the last year mentioned in the book, but when we broadened our search we found a will for him from 1694. This revealed that he was a haberdasher from the parish of St Clement Danes in London who had two children, Dorothy and John.<\/p>\n

John must have died before 28th January 1694, when probate was granted, so he couldn\u2019t have been the person who wrote the doctor’s accounts that fill most of the book. So who was?<\/p>\n

The clue to begin answering this was discovered after an internet search brought up a record of a Nathaniel Bartlet of Wareham being made an Extra-Licentiate of the College of Physicians in London on 15 February 1685\/6. Further research confirmed that this was Dorothy\u2019s husband and that he was the doctor who had owned the book. To find out more about Nathaniel look out for the next blog in this series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a series of three blogs about document D1-PH\/1, a fascinating book that has been filled with notes by a family from Wareham. We came across this intriguing document whilst researching Thomas Chaplyn for a previous blog. It is a copy of the book \u201cMerlini Anglici Ephermis or Astrological Judgments for… Read more The Chaplyn Family of Wareham and the Merlini Anglici Ephermis<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[82,736,605,109],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5069,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions\/5069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}