ABSTRACT
The Bowyer family had long been established in that part of southern England where the counties of Sussex, Kent and Surrey become contigu ous. From at least the early sixteenth century they had been domiciled at Hartfield, Sussex where, apart from having sufficient land for farm ing, they were involved in the expanding and important sixteenth-century Wealden iron industry in which many of the armaments for contempo rary warfare were produced.1 As the century progressed, however, one branch of the family migrated westwards, first to East Grinstead and secondly to Charlwood on the Sussex-Surrey border north-west of Crawley.
