The point about this research is to see if he had connections with Augusta or Beaufort in his lifetime (he died in 1794), that would have persuaded his daughters to emigrate there after his death. I'm also keen to establish the relationship between Henry's wife Jane Lubbock, and Richard Lubbock who emigrated to Augusta in or around 1790.
Please contact Eric Avebury with information on these records in North America.
The Rev Henry Willis, b 1738, Rector of Little Sodbury
1788 and Vicar of Wapley, 1792, married
Jane Lubbock (b February 17, 1743) September 1, 1765
at Redlingfield, Suffolk
The WILLIS family and Richard LUBBOCK the emigrant Henry Willis’s forebears
Henry WILLIS was born in 1739. His father John WILLIS
lived at Redlingfield Hall near Eye, Suffolk
and married Temperance HAMES, a ward in Chancery after
the death of her father Sir Edward HAMES in July 1710. Sir Edward HAMES married Ann PACKER September
30, 1698, so the heiress Temperance was born after June 1699. She was ‘inveigled
from her guardian Dr WAUGH’ on May 21, 1713, for which ‘[John] WILLIS, the parson and the
agents were committed by the Master of the Rolls’, an order subsequently confirmed by Lord Harcourt,
who was Lord Chancellor 1710-1714. The elopement was clearly a well-planned operation, with
a Mr Knight giving the 13-year old bride away, a clergyman Bentham performing the marriage service
which was also certified by a Minister Stephen Hales and witnessed by three men named Grymes,
Fidder and Knight. Presumably Temperance was restored to the care of her guardian for
the time being, and there is no record of
when she resumed her married life. She had four other
children besides Henry, birth dates unknown.
Anne PACKER’s parents were John PACKER of Shelingford Manor and Anne STEPHENS his cousin, and Anne’s parents were Sir Edward STEPHENS Kt, born c 1583, of Lypiatt Park and Little Sodbury (which is likely to be more than pure coincidence), died 1670, and Anne CREWE. He was knighted by Charles II July 11, 1660.
Henry and the Royal Navy
Nothing is known of his education, but at the age of 21
he entered the Royal Navy, serving on the Royal Sovereign as Midshipman from November 10, 1761
(entered from ‘Sup list’), probably while it was in Portsmouth harbour as a depot ship. He was
discharged April 4 1762 to Danae, which was based in the West Indies. There it was engaged in convoy
duty from Jamaica, and in June, together with Superb (Captain Joshua Rowley) and Gosport (Captain
John Jervis) had a narrow escape from a French squadron of warships on their way to attack
St John’s, Newfoundland. They put up such a determined show of defiance that the French commander,
de Ternay, decided to stick to their original
objective, and the French did briefly occupy St John’s,
where they arrived on June 24.
On September 18, 1762, Captain Martin of the Danae saw a large French convoy off Cape Tiburon, standing into the Bite of Léogane. He fell in with the Fowey at that time and despatched her to Lord Albemarle, commander of the land forces at the siege and capture of Havana, with the account. Two of the French ships chased the Danae and Fowey, but were soon called off.
In a note from Port Royal of January 8, 1763, John Smith writes to Messrs Papley & Rogers, Joint Agents for the Richmond:
Gentlemen,
Please pay to Mr Henry Willis Masters Mate of His Majesty’s Ship Danae on his order one half of the Prize Money due to me for the Bon Intention a Dutch sloop with Negroes &c and also the same part that will arrive from the Sally Schooner both taken by His Majesty’s Ship Richmond & you will oblige
Your humble servant
Henry was discharged from Danae March 14, 1763 on the order of Rear Admiral Kepple, and this may have been the end of his brief naval career.
Henry’s first marriage
On September 1, 1765, Henry married Jane LUBBOCK (b February 17, 1743/44) at Redlingfield, Suffolk. She is described as ‘daughter of Richard and Jane LUBBOCK’ at her baptism in North Walsham on February 17, 1743/44. Her mother could have been visiting North Walsham at the time of her birth, as there is no Richard LUBBOCK with an appropriate birth date to be her father in the North Walsham parish records.
The most likely candidate for Jane’s father is Richard
LUBBOCK the wine merchant of
Bishopsgate Street, Norwich, born 1706 and baptised December
11, 1706 at St George’s, Colegate,
Norwich. That Richard married Jane ATTLESEY (baptised
April 12, 1720 Saint Helen,
Norwich), daughter of Peter ATTLESEY and Jane VERTUE,
on July 28, 1715 at St Mary in
the Marsh, Norwich, so that the mother’s first name would
correspond with the baptismal
parish record of Jane LUBBOCK. The date of Richard and
Jane’s marriage in East Anglian
Pedigrees is 1752, nine years after Jane’s birth, but
this is doubtful, because Jane ATTLESEY
is likely to have married before the age of 32. But if
Jane LUBBOCK’s father and mother were
both from Norwich, it needs to be explained why she was
born in North Walsham and why all
her children but one were born there. They are recorded
in the North Walsham parish register as:
1.Temperance Jane WILLIS baptised August
28, 1767
2.Amelia WILLIS baptised December 12, 1768
3.Richard Lubbock WILLIS baptised March
5, 1770
4.Harriot WILLIS baptised August 1, 1771
5.Sophia WILLIS born September 29, 1772,
died February 22, 1775
6.Henry Hames WILLIS baptised January 4,
1775
One more child, Ann Packer WILLIS, certainly existed, though not recorded. She could just have been fitted in between Sophia and Henry Hames, though more probably she was born in the spring of 1776. If so, since there are no more children after that, and the mother would only have been 33 at the time of Ann Packer’s birth, it may be conjectured that Jane died in childbirth.
Henry in the church
Henry was destined to a life in the church, his second cousin Dr Hartley having promised his father that he would give him the living of Bucklebury. He matriculated at Merton College December 12, 1778, aged 39; BA 1787, MA 1788. The archivist at Merton College, Julian Read (01865 276310), writes:
"it is clear that in the eighteenth century undergraduates were not officially permitted to be married, following the example of senior members of the university. Upon marriage, Fellows were supposed to resign their fellowships. However, there are documented cases in the eighteenth century of Fellows, and in at least one case a head of a college, marrying and not resigning their fellowships; their wives and any resulting children being kept a respectable distance from Oxford. I suppose it is possible that there were cases of undergraduates acting in a similar fashion but I have no evidence of it".
This tends to confirm that Henry was a widower during his time as an undergraduate at Oxford. We do know that he remarried before 1784, that his second wife Mary was a cousin, and that she died in 1792 after a short illness which was treated with ‘Liniment’, ‘Draught’ ‘Tulip’ and ‘Camphor’. She was buried at Sodbury July 16, 1792. The undertaker was Joseph WALLIS and the Rev NICHOLS officiated. WALLIS’s bill dated August 18, 1792 came to £19-18-6.
Henry was ordained Deacon by the Bishop of Lincoln on
February 24, 1777, and on the same
day was appointed curate in the Parish of Springthorpe,
Lincs. He was ordained priest by the
Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry on December 21, 1777.
He was appointed Rector of Newton
in the Archdeaconry of Lincoln January 13, 1778. He was
appointed Curate in the Parish of
Rangeworthy on May 31, 1781, and vicar of Wapley on the
same date, by the patron of
the living, Henry STEPHENS, probably a relation through
his great-grandmother Elizabeth
STEPHENS. There is also a nomination by Jane, Dowager
Lady BAMPFYLDE of
Bruton Street, Berkeley Square, who claims to be the
‘true and undoubted Patron of the Vicarage
of Wapley’, dated March 11, 1788, and it seems that there
was a change of Patron at the time
of that appointment. The Bishop had agreed to Henry’s
request that he be allowed to resign
the Wapley living and be reappointed to it after Little
Sodbury. The undated letter making
this request was written at Oxford, where Henry was keeping
his last term before his MA
degree, and he expects to finish by March 10 (1788).
On February 23, 1788, Henry also wrote to Lady BAMPFYLDE
repeating his request to be
allowed to resign Wapley and take it up again after Little
Sodbury, ‘my Motive that Sodbury
may stand me first & Wapley my last Living, which
will be of service to Me hereafter if by
getting another Living I am obliged to take a Dispensation’.
At present, he says, he is
‘Chaplain to my Friend Ld SUFFIELD’’ and is ready to
‘take a Dispensation whenever
wanted, but at present I mean to avoid the Expence..’.
It seems curious that his ordination
preceded his university career. On March 28, 1788 he
was appointed Rector of Little
Sodbury on the presentation of another relative, Winchcomb
Henry HARTLEY, and he
continued to hold the living of Wapley at the same time,
after the Bishop wrote to him on
March 5, giving permission for these arrangements without
a Dispensation. A curate was
appointed for Little Sodbury on November 30, 1788, at
a salary of £25 a year.
On November 8, 1792, on the presentation of his cousin Winchcombe Henry HARTLEY, Henry was appointed Rector of East Shefford, Berks.
Henry remarried for the third time, because on December 4, 1792 Charles MURRAY wrote to him from Norwich:
"I… shall be extremely glad when I have it in my power to introduce Mrs C MURRAY to yourself and Mrs W as two of my best Friends".
A letter from W H HARTLEY from Chesterfield Street dated August 4, 1792 may provide a clue to the third wife, as well as throwing light on Henry’s acquisition of the living at Shefford:
Dear Sir,
I have just received yours of yesterday from Chavenage.
A letter I have written to Mr Stephens,
if it arrived before you left Chavenage, will prevent
your having the trouble of coming again
and you will find by that, it would be to no purpose.
I write however now in answer to yours
by today’s post, that it may find you at Acton.
You have I am certain every reason to be
satisfied with what I have expressed upon the subject
of the Shefford living, and I shall sign
the presentation, when I am satisfied, and think proper.
A letter from Mr Ludlow tells me I have sufficiently empowered
yourself and Mrs Basset to
conduct the late Mrs Mary Willis’s affairs, which will
I am sure be settled by you both perfectly
according to her desire, and I am exceedingly happy that
you are both together to put her
will into execution.
Mrs Hartley and myself rejoice exceedingly at the good account of Mr and Mrs Stephens (.) Present ourselves to them when you write to or see them. Accept also the same for yourself and family and present them to Mrs Basset. We hope she was not fatigued with her long journey.
I am Dear Sir,
Yours Affectionately,
W H Hartley.
(547a/F34)
Henry’s wealth and the Black Sheep
Although Henry owned estates, and had expectations of
wealth if he had lived longer from his
grandfather Henry Packer – see extracts from the latter’s
will at Appendix III - his assets seem
to have been depleted by the extravagance of his son
Richard Lubbock WILLIS, who was
supposed to emigrate in June 1794 but missed the boat.
Perhaps he was being sent to Augusta
with his sisters, to start a new life under the tutelage
of his namesake and cousin Richard LUBBOCK,
who had gone there four years earlier. A letter from
John BULMAN of Brunswick Street,
Blackfriars Bridge, of June 16, 1794, addressed to the
Rev and Mrs WILLIS says:
I am informed by Mr Howard of Southampton Street to whom
I have made application that
you have given him Orders not to discharge at present
my small Bill delivered some tim ago
amounting to £(illegible) for Cloths made up for
your Son before his departure from England
– and the reason he assigns for this unexpected delay
of Payment is you think too high a
Charge has been made – in this particular I am confident
no Man in London would have
been more reasonable considering the very expensive manner
and the number of Buttons
&c – they were made up with and at the request of
your Son every thing is stated at
the very lowest price for present money, which he informed
me would be the Case, and
that Mr Howard had full directions to discharge those
small matters.
I should esteem it a particular favour if you would now give that Gentleman leave to settle –with me as I have several very pressing decisions which require all the money I can possibly raise and a Line for that purpose will much oblige.
The ‘small Bill’, for uniforms, came to £11-8-6.
There are indications that Henry was not well off. His will, dated Mayshill October 3, 1783
Having by some Indiscretions (but much more by disappointments) only a small matter to leave behind me My Will is that all my property whether real or personal be as soon as well can be converted into money by public sale or auction – out of which my Will is that all my Lawful Debts & funeral expences be first discharged and least from what may be thought affeectionate Reagrd to my memory too much may be expended where I think too little within the bounds of decency cannot - I order my remains to be interred wherever ot please God I die in the Parish Churchyard …. Six poor Industrious Men carrying me to my grave for which I wish them to have five shillings each The Balance of my…. I give unto my Wife for her natural life … to maintain & educate all the children I may leave by her to the best of her power untill they are married or engaged….
The wife referred to here is his second wife Mary, who is not recorded as having any children.
In a codicil dated August 30, 1791 Henry writes:
My eldest Son Richard Lubbock Willis having by his infamous Conduct forfeited my favour & affection I here cut him of [sic] from any Share of my Effects except one shilling to be paid Him a month after my decease by my Executors.
Richard Lubbock the emigrant
Richard LUBBOCK (b ca 1766), after whom the erring son
was probably named, emigrated
to Augusta Georgia from Norfolk in or about 1790, and
took the oath of citizenship May 29, 1798 in Augusta, recommended by
James Pearre and George Walker. He was one of 18 founding members of the Masonic
Social Lodge No 18, chartered in Augusta, Richmond County December
7, 1799 by the Grand Lodge of Georgia. He died in Hamburg, South Carolina February
9, 1826 and the masons erected a monument on his memory on Schultz’s
Hill there. His funeral was
reported in the Augusta Chronicle as being held at St
Paul’s Parish Church,
Augusta
(Richard was not the first LUBBOCK in the New World. Mariam LUBBOCK married Thomas KIRK at St Phillip’s Episcopalian Church February 6, 1748).
Richard married 13-year old Diana Sophia SANDWICH (baptised
April 11, 1777) in
Beaufort, South Carolina, soon after his arrival, and
their first child Henry Thomas WILLIS LUBBOCK was born July 24, 1792. Diana Sophia
was appointed executor of the will of Ann Packer WILLIS, "formerly
of Grovesend, Alverton, Gloucestershire, sister of Temperance Jane
WILLIS". Ann Packer describes Diana as her ‘Sister’ and ‘wife of my brother Richard’,
but the assumption that she is referring to the black sheep Richard Lubbock
WILLIS, who according to the Gloucester Record Office ‘had evidently dropped the name
of Willis after being disinherited’, is improbable. If they were first
cousins, Ann Packer might easily have referred to Richard colloquially as her brother.
The WILLIS black sheep,
on the other hand, was in England in June 1794, after
the birth of the first child of Richard LUBBOCK and Diana Sophia SANDWICH in Augusta
in July 1792. It is of course theoretically possible that the ‘infamous
conduct’ of which the Rev Henry complained was his son’s emigration, and that the son
returned to England after the child was born hoping that a grandson, named
after Henry, would get him
back into favour with his angry father. But the spendthrift
partygoer who was
Henry’s son is surely not the same as the pillar of the
community, mason and friend
of Schulz the founder of Hamburg, South Carolina. Richard
LUBBOCK was said to be 60 at the time of his death, so if that was
correct he was born in 1766, while Richard Lubbock WILLIS was born March 5,1770.
The WILLIS sisters in Augusta are undoubtedly the daughters of the Rev Henry WILLIS and his wife Jane Lubbock. They might have emigrated either with Richard LUBBOCK to Augusta Georgia in 1790, when Temperance Jane would have been 23 and Ann Packer about 14, or by themselves in 1794, after the Rev Henry died, leaving them as orphans – and probably homeless, because the church would have needed the rectory for Henry’s successor.
The Sandwich family
Diana Sophia’s parents Thomas S SANDWICH and Leah Langton BARRETT, who were married at St Giles’ Cripplegate on April 22, 1776, had emigrated to Augusta, some time before the birth of their third child Thomas Kirby, born January 15, 1785 in Augusta but after January 19, 1783 when their second child Leah Ann SANDWICH was baptised at St Giles Cripplegate. Leah Ann was taken to Augusta with her parents and married John E HARTRIDGE at the First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, December 27, 1807. He died November 4, 1817 and was buried in Willesden. (It is curious that he returned to England less than ten years after the marriage). She died in Jacksonville, Florida, on December 13, 1860.
Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781, two years before the emigration of the SANDWICH family. The war of independence was effectively over, but the Treaty of Paris was not signed until September 3, 1783, by which time the SANDWICH family was perhaps already in Augusta. During and immediately after the revolutionary war, there was no slackening on the rate of immigration into the state: in 1776, Georgia had 40,000 people, with a few more whites than blacks, and in 1790, the population was 82,000, 37% black. So about 30,000 whites arrived in those 14 years. It would be fascinating to know what the English arrivals felt about the politics of their migration.
According to Betty Jaekle, she was told both that Thomas Kirby SANDWICH was born in Augusta and that he was born at Harrow-on-the-Hill. He is said to have married in Augusta in 1810, but there are no further details of his life. He died July 8, 1831. If he was indeed born at Harrow, it is possible that Diana Sophia met Richard LUBBOCK on the journey out, and this would help to explain their marriage so soon after they all arrived in the New World. It would also account for the fact that the Augusta Chronicle has no record of the Sandwiches before 1795. At the beginning of that year, the Post Office in Augusta gave notice that a letter addressed to Mrs Sandwich would be returned to the General Post Office if not collected.
In early 1795, Mrs Sandwich opened a school for young ladies at the late residence of Dr Montgomery, where she proposed to give six boarders and an unspecified number of ‘day scholars’ lessons in reading, writing and needlework. The boarders were to be charge 25 guineas a term plus 5 guineas entrance, the day girls four dollars per quarter and one dollar entrance. The day scholars were to be charged $2 extra for writing and arithmetic, and $2 for geography and astronomy. Mrs Sandwich’s daughter was named as the other teacher.
This prompts the question of how the Sandwich family maintained themselves between their arrival in August c 1784, and the opening of the school eleven years later. It is also interesting that she was going to employ the 18-year old Diana Sophia as a teacher although she was looking after Henry Thomas Willis Lubbock , born July 24, 1792, and Richard Lubbock, born 1794.
By the middle of February 1795, when the same notice was still appearing in the Chronicle, Diana Sophia was offering her own teaching in a separate school at the Hermitage, near Brownsborough. Mrs Lubbock was undercutting her mother, charging boarders 15 guineas a term plus 5 guineas for French and music. This venture had been launched at the beginning of 1795, though it is hard to imagine how mother and daughter could actually have run two separate schools, while the daughter was supposed to be teaching at the mother’s school.
Competition between the Sandwiches and the Lubbocks on the pages of the Chronicle continues in the spring of 1795, with both advertising in the Chronicle of March 14, March 21, March 28 and April 4,. On April 11 a competitor EDMOND WALSH appears, who claims to have already met with encouragement as a teacher of children, and announces on April 11, 1795, that he is setting up a new school in the back part of Mr Edwards’ lot, opposite the house occupied by the reverend parson Boyd.
On May 16 and again on May 16 and May 30, Mr Sandwich
appears as an active
participant. He is presumably going to teach science,
and the school will admit
younger boys with their sisters. The school is to be
run according to the plan of Dr Rush
of Philadelphia. Then on June 13 Mrs Sandwich is able
to announce already
that ‘THE Public have further evinced their approbation
of Mr. And Mrs. SANDWICH’s
undertaking by fubfcribing for fix boarders, on the enlarged
Plans’. [ie
with the ‘SCIENTIFIC BRANCHES’] Parents and guardians
are exhorted to apply
immediately before the subscription is finally closed.
As recently as April 18
there had been vacancies for three boarders and four
day-scholars, and in May there
were still places for two of each, and apparently there
was no rush, because at
the end of October the Sandwiches and their daughter-in-law
joined forces. The
‘enlarged plan’ of education offered by the combined
team of Sandwiches and
Lubbocks includes the sciences, and young gentlemen,
though not young ladies,
are ro be prepared for Latin classes at the Academy.
Mr Sandwich does not teach
Latin, because the ‘public academy’ has a ‘respectable
Rector’.
>From this point onwards, there is no news of the educational venture. Either it had become so well known as to need no advertising, as the proprietors claimed, or it folded. Certainly in July, 1796, Mr Sandwich still had the time and energy to advertise for an apprentice in ‘Mufical Inftrument making, Tuning, and Cabinet making’.
Thomas Sandwich had other properties besides the school. On March 5 and 12, 1796, he was offering to let stabling for 39 horses, together with a separate lodging room if required, and a large corn loft and fodder house. On February 9, 1799, he advertised under the heading ‘To NEW SETTLERS’ an ‘excellent house, well furnished, and a good garden with or wiithout 150 acres of land well fenced, and ten working negroes, with the use of horses, cattle and a cotton gin’. The property is described as being ‘about 290 miles from Augusta’.
Richard Lubbock’s eldest son
Henry Thomas Willis LUBBOCK, the eldest son of Richard LUBBOCK the emigré, was born July 24, 1792 in Augusta. He studied literature at a school in Oxford, England in 1806 and graduated from the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1810. He practised as a doctor in Beaufort, South Carolina until 1819, then took a sea-captain’s licence and in 1822 became the captain and part owner with Henry SCHULTZ, a German immigrant who founded Hamburg on July 2, 1821, of the Commerce, plying between Charleston, Savannah and Augusta. In 1824 he was captain and part owner of the Henry Schultz, also part owner of the Macon. In 1825 the Henry Schultz caught fire and exploded in Augusta dock, and three years later the Commerce was holed and had to be sold as scrap on December 11, 1828. LUBBOCK took a lease of the City Hotel in Savannah in an attempt to rebuild his assets, but died there on February 15, 1830.
Henry married Susan Ann SALTUS, born May 16, 1793 in Beaufort, South Carolina, to Captain Francis SALTUS, who was also said to have emigrated in the early 1790s, and Sarah GRAYSON. They had seven children, all of whom survived to adulthood and married.
Chronology of the life of Henry Willis
1.Born 1738
2.Entered Royal Sovereign November 10, 1761
from ‘Sup list’
3.Discharged from Royal Sovereign, entered
Danae April 5, 1762
4.Appointed Master Mariner Danae May 7,
1762
5.Discharged from Danae on orders of Rear
Admiral Keppel March 14, 1763
6.Married Jane Lubbock September 1, 1765
at Redlingfield, Suffolk
7.Temperance Jane born August 28, 1767
8.Amelia Baptised December 21, 1768
9.Richard Lubbock born March 5, 1770
10.Harriot baptised August 1, 1771
11.Sophia born September 29, 1772
12.Henry Hames baptised January 4, 1775
13.Ann Packer born May 1776?
14.Death of Jane Lubbock 1776?
15.Ordained Deacon February 24, 1777
16.Rector of Newton, Lincs January 13, 1778
17.Matriculated at Merton College Oxford December
12, 1778
18.Vicar of Wapley May 31, 1781
19.Married Mary 1781?
20.Finishes his term at Oxford for MA March 1788
21.Reappointed vicar of Wapley by new patron of
the living March 1788
22.Appointed Rector of Little Sodbury March 31,
1788
23.Funeral of second wife Mary July 16, 1792
24.Henry settled Mary’s estate with ‘Mrs Bassett’
August 4, 1792
25.Rector of East Shefford, Berks November 8,
1792
26.Henry dies December 1794
Appendix I
Relationship between Rev Henry Willis and Winchcomb Henry Hartley, who presented him to the Living of Little Sodbury
Sir Edward Stephens
|
Anne Stephens = John Packer
|
John Packer = Elizabeth Stephens Sir Henry Winchcomb
|
Anne Packer = Sir Edward Hames Temperance = Thomas Gisborne Robert = ? Winchcomb
| ______|________ | |
Temperance = John Willis Dr Hartley= Elizabeth Henry Packer d Oct 1746
| __________|__________
Henry = Jane Lubbock Winchcomb Henry Mary
Appendix II Abstracts from Dr Hartley’s Letters concerning Bucklebury Living &c
Decr 17 1748 In answer to mine says we shall with pleasure come into yr design of giving Bucklebury to my 20 Son & will talk to Mr le Marchant about it but their present design if Mr Le Marchant & Mr Powney will give their leave is to get it for his old Tutor who is old & infirm about 55 thinks cannot stand in my way & he will not fail to prepare his son to lay it upon him as an obligation & desires to hear from me again upon ye subject
June 6 1749 In answer to mine says Dr Annesley died last Sunday & Mr Le Marchant gives them intire disposal of ye Living only says .. their intention for Master Harry be taken care of & doubts by a letter he recd about a fortnight ago whether his Tutor will take it & if so further says my Cousin desires .. Dr Barker (who was then very infirm) might have it however I this Case we shall not at all interpose but leave it to you to make ye Living secure to Master Harry at 24
June 20 49 Says He presumes Mrs Willis had recd my Cousins letter before that & that his Tutors Wife had been there & made proposals to have ye Living held that they might have sme benefit after his Tutors death but that was absolutely refusd & then very kindly advises me not to think of doing so myself both for my own & children’s sake &c
Abstract from Mr Le Marchant 8 June 49 says He supposes that I have heard from Dr Hartley who calld upon him on Thursday last & proposd as my son was very young a Friend of his might be Presented in ye mean time upon which he desird him to write to me & make it agreeable to me & He shoud (?) with ye concurrence of Mr Powney join in appointing anyone whom we two should approve.
Abstract of My Cousins Letter to Mrs Willis who wrote
to her upon ye Death of Dr
Annesley 15 June 1749 They had not heard from Mr Warham
who she
supposes will take some time to consider of it his health
being very indifferent but
thinks he will take it if otherwise kindly refuses Mr
Bosworths holding the Living &
proposes Dr Baker (if Mr Warham shoud refuse it) as a
fit person but cannot think
of Bonds od Resignation and therefore leaves it to me
& Mrs Willis to judge
whether it be agreeable to our securing it for Harry
at 24 years old & has not wrote
to him about it nor has any intention of pursuing that
thought then adds that Mr
Le Marchant had been with them yesterday wth a Letter
from Mr Powney
concerning a Mr Dodwell who had offerd a better Living
in Leicestershire in exchange &
supposes that woud do as well for my Son which they believd
woud & said so to
them & woud write to me about it & then says
if this takes place ye Leicestershire
Living will be held by Mr Warham or whoever succeeds
for my Son or if Mr Dodwell
drops tho he is young Buckelebury then falls again to
be presented to my
Cousin or for him.
July 13 1749 Mr Dodwell has recd his Presentation & as he has a good Character hopes all our wishes will be complied with & that Dr Baker is dead,
Abstract of Letters concerning Bucklebury Living being always intended for Me at 24 years old sent Me by Dr Bosworth in 1779 in his own Hand writing –
NB Dr Bosworth administered to my Father
Appendix III Extract from Henry Packer’s Will
Copy of an Extract from Mr Henry Packer’s Will (Gloucester Records Office 547a/F23)
Extracted from the Registry of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury
Part of the last Will of Henry Packer bearing Date the 2d October 1746 and now remaining in the said registry is as follows to wit
In the Name of God Amen I Henry Packer of Donington in
the County of Bucks
Esquire do make and declare my last Will and Testament
and thereby dispose of my Real and personal Estate in manner following that
is to say All my Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments whatsoever in the Countys
of Berks and
Middlesex and elsewhere which I have any Right or Power
to give or dispose of
I give and devise to my Friends Penniston Powney Esquire
and William La
Marchant Esquire and their Heirs untill my Nephew Winchcombe
Henry Heartly
Son of my Sister Elizabeth Heartly shall attain to his
Age of Twenty one years In
Trust for the only use and benefit of my said Nephew
Subject nevertheless to ….
Of One Thousand Pounds to my Niece Mary Heartley at her
Age of Twenty One
years and from and after that my said Nephew shall have
attained his full age I
give and devise my said real Estate to him my said Nephe3w
and his Heirs for ever But
in case my said Nephew shall dye on his Minority then
my Will is that my said
Trustees and their Heirs ahall from and immediately after
his decease Stand Seized of
the said Real Estates In Trust for my said Niece Mary
Heartly untill her Age of
Twenty one years and at her Age of Twenty one years I
give and devise the same to
her and her Heirs for ever But in case my Niece shall
dye in her Minority then I
give and devise my said real Estates to my said Trustees
and their Heirs in Trust for
such Child or Children of my said Sister Elizabeth Heartly
as shall be her Heir
or Heirs at law and his her or their Heirs for ever And
in Case my said Sister shall
have no other Child who shall attain the age of Twenty
one years then I give my
said Real Estates to my Sister for her Natural Life and
from and after her decease
my Will is that my said Real Estates shall go to the
Eldest Son of my Kinsman
John Willis of Ipswich on the County of Suffolk and to
his Heirs for ever
This Will was proved at London the Twenty Ninth October
1746 before the
Worshipful George Hay Doctor of Laws and Surrigate by
the Oaths of Peniston
Powley Esqr and William La Marchant Esquire the Executors
named in the said
Will to whom Administration was granted being first sworn
duly to administer
Considering that this Will was among Henry Willis’s papers, it seems likely that Henry Willis’s father John Willis was the ‘kinsman’ and that Henry inherited the Real Estates. This Henry Packer is the son of Robert Packer and ? Winchcomb, and his sister Elizabeth married Dr Hartley. Henry Packer and John Willis were fist cousins, their common grandparents being John Packer and Elizabeth Stephens.
There is a note by Mrs Mary Willis (D547a/F23) as follows:
Henry Stephens Esqr Fathers Sister married – Packer – by whom she left the following Children - - -- -
1.Robt Packer who married one of the Coheiresses
of Sr Henry Winchcomb by
whom He left an only daughter who married Dr Hartley
by whom she left a
Son & a Daughter
2.Ann Packer who married Dr Hannes (afterwards
Sr Edward) by whom she
left an only daughter who married Jno Willis Esq by whom
she left a Son and
three Daughters viz Henry Willis
Mary Willis Lucy Willis Elizabeth Willis
3.Temperance Packer who married Thos Gisborne
Esq by whom she left one
or two sons & two or three daughters - - - - - --
--
Mem: from Mrs Mary Willis Sodbury Jany 1782
(This confirms that Jane died and Henry had remarried
before 1782)
Please contact Eric Avebury with information on these records in North America.
Copyright ©2003, Eric Avebury, London. These documents
may be freely used
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-donated by: Frank CLARK
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