The known facts about John Lock include the dates of his marriages, the baptisms of his children, and the dates of his death and burial. The earliest confirmed record of John appears in the parish registers of Langtoft, Lincolnshire, where he married Dorothy Roy on 27 October 1664. There is no record of John—or anyone with the surname Lock—in the Langtoft registers before this date. This suggests that John was the first member of the Lock family to settle in the parish and had probably come from elsewhere, either because of his marriage to Dorothy or in search of work.
John and Dorothy had a son, also named John, who was baptised at Langtoft on 26 November 1665. John junior was buried in 1670. The parish register also records that “Dorothy wife of John Locke was buryed on May ye 28th 1669.” Later that year, on 30 September 1669, John married his second wife, Alice Tory. Alice was buried on 25 May 1678, and on 14 November 1678 John married his third wife, Elizabeth Baines. The Langtoft registers record that John Lock died on 7 May 1682 and was buried on 14 May. His burial entry describes him as a labourer.
The only other reference to John Lock in the Langtoft parish records is the baptism of his second son, Alexander Lock.
John’s description as a labourer is significant because it raises questions about a family tradition dating from 1686, which claims that Alexander Lock inherited a deed granting the right to drive cattle through Stamford. If such a deed existed, the most likely person to have passed it on would have been Alexander’s father, John. However, John died two years before the alleged inheritance, and it is difficult to explain how a labourer would have acquired such a right. It is possible that Alexander inherited the deed from another relative, but this remains speculative and requires further investigation.
Determining John’s place of origin is more challenging, although there are several plausible possibilities. As he married in 1664, it is reasonable to assume that he was about twenty years old at the time, placing his birth around 1644.
One possible clue is the marriage of an Alexander Lock of Thurlby-by-Bourne to Rose Chessington in Stamford in 1654. Since John named his second son Alexander, this may indicate that Alexander was his father. Thurlby-by-Bourne lies only a few miles from Langtoft, making this a credible possibility. John would have been about ten years old when Alexander married Rose, but if this was Alexander’s second marriage, the chronology could still fit.
Another possibility is the baptism of a John Locke at Moulton, near Spalding, on 6 September 1629, the son of Ralph and Repentance Locke. Moulton is also within reasonable distance of Langtoft, making it another realistic candidate. The difficulty with this theory is that a John Locke married Elizabeth Collet at Moulton in 1655. Although the dates do not entirely rule out the possibility, accepting this identification would mean that John Lock married four times rather than the three marriages recorded at Langtoft.
At present, the available evidence is insufficient to determine John’s origins with certainty, and further research will be needed before any firm conclusion can be reached.
Wayne and Sandra's Family History 