The birthplace of Judge Jeffreys should not be a matter of doubt. The old
house at Acton in which his father lived, was in the parish of Wrexham, and
close to the confines of that parish and Gresford. It was pulled down about
seventy years ago, about the time when the present mansion bearing that
same name was built. Twenty years ago there were several persons living in
the neighbourhood who remembered that it stood in the parish of Wrexham.
Lord Campbell, in his _Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England_, vol. iii.
p. 496., writes,--
"He (Judge Jeffreys) of whom such tales were to be told, was born in
his father's lowly dwelling at Acton in the year 1648."
And he subjoins the following note:
"This is generally given as the year of his birth, but I have tried in
vain to have it authenticated. There is no entry of his baptism, nor of
the baptism of his brothers, in the register of Wrexham, the parish in
which he was born, nor in the adjoining parish of Gresford, in which
part of the family property lies. I have had accurate researches made
in these registers by the kindness of my learned friend Serjeant
Atcherley, who has estates in the neighbourhood. It is not improbable
that, in spite of the Chancellor's great horror of dissenters, he may
have been baptized by 'a dissenting teacher.'"
The fact is, however, and it is a fact known certainly twenty years ago to
several of the inhabitants of Gresford and Wrexham, that no register has
been preserved in the parish of Wrexham for a period extending from 1644 to
1662; and none in the parish of Gresford from 1630 to 1660. I may add that
no such registers have been discovered up to this time.