Peter Chamberlen the younger, Surgeon (Born 1572)

10^th Great Grandfather – FFFMFFMMFFFF¹

Peter or Pierre Chambrelan, Peter Chamberlen’s father was born in Southampton on 8^th February 1572², to William and Genevieve (nee Vingnon) Chambrelan. His parents had recently arrived from France. They were French Protestants or Huguenots escaping the persecutions due to their faith.

Peter’s baptism is not recorded in the French church in Southampton (see “St Julien’s Church, Southampton” 2022), unlike his elder brother Jacques and his sister Jeane, but in 1596, there was a deposition by Robert Flewrey and Martha Molin, that Peter was born in Southampton and baptised at the French Church. Peter needed this deposition as he was trying to become a member of the Company of Barber Surgeons, who had recently passed a resolution that to be a member you had to be born within one of “His Majesties Dominions”³.

The family adopted the english spelling Chamberlen rather than the french Chambrelan during the life of Peter the younger, although the family name is often spelt Chamberlain or Chamberlayne.

Sometime in the late 1590s Peter married Sarah de Laune, daughter of William de Laune. Their first recorded child was a son Peter who was baptised at St Anne Blackfriars on 18 Nov 1699⁴. He died after about six months, but a year later my 9^th great grandfather, also Peter, was baptised on 12^th May 1601, at the French Huguenot church on Treadneedle Street⁵. Peter’s birth was also recorded in the parish register of St Anne, Blackfriars⁶.

Peter and Sarah had 7 further children, many of whom were baptised at both the French Church on Threadneedle Street as well as St Anne’s in Blackfriars.

While he was accepted as a Surgeon, he often had conflict with the College of Physicians for illegal providing services in the jurisdiction of the Physicians. While it is believed that Peter’s older brother Peter the Elder was the first to use the obstetric forceps which the family is renowned for, Peter the younger supported the petition of the midwifes in 1616 to establish their own company.

Sarah died in 1621 and was buried at St Anne, Blackfriars on 1^st August 1621⁷.

Peter died 5 years later, and was buried at the parish of Downe in Kent on 16^th August 1626⁸. In his will he leaves most of his Estates to his oldest surviving son Peter, with legacies to all the children still alive at that time⁹.

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