Nat Gould

John Gould 1610-1644

Herbage Farm

View towards Herbage Barn

John Gould was born in about the year 1610 at Herbage, the ancestral farm of his family in the moorlands of north Staffordshire.

He was the son of William Gould of Herbage and his wife nee Joan Slack of Warslow in Staffordshire (1).

They probably also had a daughter Elizabeth Gould who died in 1613 (2). The Alstonefield burial register records her as the daughter of William Gould of Elkstone (3).

John Gould died in 1644 and was buried at Alstonefield on 27 August in that year. His widow Dorothy Gould died in 1668 and was buried there on 28 January 1668 (4).

Information concerning this family and the photographs illustrating this webpage were kindly provided by Ann and Michael Hanson whose extensive and scholarly work on the Goulds of Herbage has been carried out over many years. Origins of the Goulds of Pilsbury, near Hartington, Derbyshire (2009).
(1) No baptismal evidence has been found that John Gould 1628-1669 was the son of John Gould who died in 1644 and his wife Dorothy, but the family definitely lived at Herbage. The burial records of John Gould and of his wife state that they were of that place and that Dorothy was his widow.
(2) On 17 June 1599 Agnes Wodde (probably Wood), "servant to Agnes Goolde, of Harbacke" was married at Alstonefield church. Agnes Gould would perhaps have been twenty years old to have had her own servant, so she would have been born in 1570s if of full age when married in 1599. She may therefore have been an aunt of John Gould.
(3) A recurring problem with parish registers is incomplete coverage and loss of sections, as well as deliberate Civil War omissions. The Alstonefield registers record no burials from 1625 to 1638 nor marriages from 1612 to 1637 and from 1643 to 1650. So gaps in the lineage of the Gould family of Herbage are unavoidable.
(4) "Dorothe Gowld, wid., Goodwif of Herbatch bur".