Stringer History, Heraldry, & Genealogy: Fifteenth Generation

Nicholas Stringer (Gentleman)

Birth: 1614 in Nottinghamshire, England

Death: Unknown

On the subject of Gentleman

John Selden, in Titles of Honour (1614), discussing the title gentleman, speaks of "our English use of it" as "convertible with nobilis" (an ambiguous word, like noble meaning elevated either by rank or by personal qualities) and describes in connection with it the forms of ennobling in various European countries.

To a degree, gentleman signified a man with an income derived from property, a legacy or some other source, and was thus independently wealthy and did not need to work. The term was particularly used of those who could not claim nobility or even the rank of esquire. Widening further, it became a politeness for all men, as in the phrase Ladies and Gentlemen,... and this was then used (often with the abbreviation Gents) to indicate where men could find a lavatory without the need to indicate precisely what was being described.
In modern speech, the term is usually democratised so as to include any man of good, courteous conduct, or even to all men (as in indications of gender-separated facilities, or as a sign of the speaker's own courtesy when addressing others).

Kilnwick-on-the-Wolds

Kilnwick (or Kilnwick-on-the-Wolds) is a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated in the Yorkshire Wolds approximately 5 miles (8 km) south of Driffield town centre and 7 miles (11 km) north of Beverley town centre. It lies 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the A614 road, and 2.8 miles (4.5 km) east of Middleton on the Wolds.

Kilnwick House

Kilnwick House is thought to have been developed on the site of a Medieval farm that was under the control of the Gilbertine Canons of nearby Watton Priory. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536–39, the Kilnwick Estate was granted to Robert Holgate, who later became Archbishop of York, and passed on his death to the Earl of Warwick. The oldest part of the House at the time of the sale and break-up of the Kilnwick Estate in 1951 was Jacobean, having likely been built in the early years of the 17th century by Richard Thekestone, who held the manor in 1599 or Nicholas Stringer, owner from 1614.