Robert Penrose

  Research Notes:

ROBERT PENROSE, JR., who settled in Richland in 1734, belonged to an ancient family of Yorkshire, England, where his great-grand parents Robert and Jane Penrose were living early in the 17th century. His grandfather Robert Penrose, son of Robert and Jane, removed from York­shire to County Wicklow, Ireland, prior to 1669, in which year he married, in Ireland, Anna Russell. Robert Penrose, a son of this marriage, born in 1670, married in 1695 Mary Clayton, by whom he had thirteen chil­dren. In 1717 this Robert Penrose of Ballykenny, County Wicklow, with his wife Mary, two daughters, Margaret and Ann, and sons Christopher and Robert, came to Philadelphia and brought certificates from the Two Weeks' Meeting at Dublin, which were deposited at Philadelphia Monthly Meeting 8 mo. 25, 1717. Another son William Penrose arrived about the same time, probably accompanying his parents, and in 1738 married, under the care of Exeter Monthly Meeting in Berks County, Ann Wiley. Robert and Mary (Clayton) Penrose resided for a time in Philadelphia, and then located in Marple Township, Chester, now Dela­ware County. Their son Christopher married at Middletown Meeting, now in Delaware County, in 1719, Ann Hunter. From these three sons, Christopher, Robert and William, has descended the numerous and widely scattered Penrose family. ¹

Robert married Mary Clayton, daughter of Christopher Clayton and Margaret Jolley, on 29 Mar 1695 in Ballycane, County Wicklow, Ireland. (Mary Clayton was born in Nov 1677 in Berks Ballycane, Wicklow, Ireland and died in 1724 in Pennsylvania, USA.)