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Horner
Horner Family History
The principle family of this name is descended from John Horner, Steward to the Abbot of Glastonbury at the dissolution of the monasteries and immortalised in the nursery rhyme:
"Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said 'What a good boy am I!"
The plum was, allegedly Mells Park, in somerset, the deeds to which John Horner was said to have found in a pie that Richard Whiting, the Abbot had asked him to carry to London. Though there is some evidence that John Horner acquired the estate from the Crown in 1543. However Burkes Landed Gentry (1879 edition) states that John Horner left two sons, Sir Thomas of Cloford (in 1540) who died without issue and John of Stoke St Michael. The elder son of this John Horner, Sir John Horner, was knighted and settled at Mells (presumably u[on succeeding his grandfather) and served as High sheriff in1564 and 1573. He was granted arms in 1584 and died in 1587.
There is an old somerset saying that:
"Horner, Popham, Wyndham and Thynne,
when the Abbot went our, they came in."
The family retained ownership of Mells Park until the death of Sir John Horner in 1929.