Jack Priestley’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Jack’s as (1)
JAMES PARKINSON and SUSANAH STOTHARD (10)
JAMES PARKINSON. James married in 1693, giving him a probable birth date around 1668.
There are two possible baptism for him. One is in the village of Blyborough, nine miles south of Broughton and five miles from Blyton, where he married Susanah. But we believe that Susanah was born in Appleby, much closer to Broughton, so this may not be significant.
Baptism. Blyborough.
1666 Mar 4 James son of James Parkinson and his wife Alice.
He would have been 27 when he married.
Another possible baptism is in Brocklesby, 11 miles east of Broughton.
Baptism, Brocklesby.
1668 Jul 26, James son of Thos: Parkinson and Fortune.
This James would have married at 25.
James called his oldest son Thomas. Brocklesby is a considerable distance from Blyton, but James is likely to have moved to Broughton by the time of his marriage. This would bring him somewhat closer.
At the time of his death he was labourer, and probably came from a labouring family.
SUSANAH STOTHARD. Susanah’s name has been mistakenly transcribed on FMP as Scothard, but a scan of the original shows the name to be Stothard. No other Scothards have been found in Lincolnshire, but there were other Stothards in Blyton where Susanah married.
There is a probable baptism for Susanah in the village of Appleby, four miles north of Broughton.
Baptism. Appleby.
1666 Dec 22 Susanna daughter of John Stothard.
There are records of Stothards in Appleby in the early 17th century, but then a gap of 50 years before Susanah’s baptism.
John Stothard was buried there in 1669. We have found no other Stothard baptisms in Appleby around this time.
Susanah may be the daughter of John Stothard and Anne Smyth, who married in Barton on Humber in 1648 and had at least three children there in the 1650s. There is a burial there for John Stothard also in 1669, but this could be an older man.
It may be that the family left Barton on Humber and continued to have children elsewhere.
We have not found a burial for Susanah’s mother.
The most likely marriage for James and Susanah is in 1693, two years before the birth of their first child. It took place in the village of Blyton, eleven miles SW of Broughton. It was in Broughton that they brought up their family.
Marriage. Blyton.
1693 Nov 20 James Parkinson and Susanna Scothard
Broughton by Brigg is on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds. It was once a market town, but declined in importance, giving way to the larger town of Brigg.
The antiquarian Abraham de la Pryme was curate there from1695 to 1697. He kept a diary from the age of 12. On his arrival in Broughton he wrote: “Broughton is as much as to say Burrow town from the vast plenty conney borrows that are round about it.” [1]
The name, in fact, has nothing to do with rabbits, but means an enclosure on a hill. But there were rabbits in plenty, both wild and farmed. The Parkinsons’ granddaughter Mary married a warren-keeper.
Pryme tells us of a dramatic thunderstorm in Broughton the year after the Parkinsons married.
“Madm Anderson told me that about three years ago the thunder fell upon their house, or rather hall, at Broughton where they live. Part of the lightning flew in at a chamber window as a woman was shutting the casement, and scorched all the length of one side of her arm, and felld her down and almost stifled her. At the same time it came down through the chimney into the kitchin, where the family was all set, and rebounding from the ground, part of it flew in a huge flame betwixt some of the people out of the south window, without breaking a bitt of the glass or making any hole and the other part flew to the north side of the kitchin, and so into the little room, and through the north window thereof, makeing a large hole. For all this nobody was hurt in the house but the aforesaid woman servant. But there was so great a smook therein, and so great a smell of gunpowder or brimston, that they were almost choked. Some that saw this lightning fall upon this hall compared it to a whole river of fire falling out of the air, and the hall seem’d to be totaly encompassed with flames.”
The following year Pryme remarked: “They have boar’d for coals oft here in this parish of Broughton, and other parts of Lincolnshire, and found that there was coals in the soyl, but that they lay so exceeding deep that they were discourag’d from proceeding on in their work.”
In April of 1696 he was curious about the local fossils. “I was with an old experienced fellow today, and I was shewing him several great stones, as we walked, full of petrified shell-fish, such as are common at Brumbe, etc. He sayd he believed that they grew ith’ stone, and that they were never fish. The I ask’d him what they call’d ’em: he answer’d milner’s thumbs, and adds that they are the excellentest things in the whole world, being burnt and beat into powder for a horse’s sore back: it cures them in two or three days. He says that there has carryers’ men come out of Yorkshire to fetch the fish thither for the sayd purpose. So I have heard that some midwifes will give anything to get these sorts of shell-fish that [are] coclites, etc, which they beat into powder, and give to their sick women, as an exceeding great medicine ad constringendas partes post partum.
We can only wonder whether Susanah was treated in this way at the births of her five children
In the early 18th century register the date of birth is given rather than the baptism.
Baptisms. Broughton.
1695 Thomas son of James and Susanah Parkinson bapt May 5.
1697 Mary daughter of James Parkinson bapt Sep 18
1700 Susan daughter of James and Susanah Parkinson borne June 4
1702/3 Jane daughter of James and Susanah Parkinson borne Jan 28
1704 James the son of James and Susanah Parkinson was borne Aprill the 16th
The nearby market town of Brigg is famed for its horse fair, second only to the one at Appleby in Westmorland. The travelling community flock to it from all over the country. It dates from 1235 and is a major event in the calendar. The farming community of Broughton may well have flocked to see it in James and Susanah’s time.
At some point, their younger son James junior moved from labouring to become a farmer.
Burials. Broughton.
1729/30 Susanah Parkinson wife of James Parkinson was buried Jan 30.
If we have the right baptism for her, she was 63,
1750 Apr 9 James Parkinson Labourer.
James would have been 82 or 83.
[1] Abraham de la Pryme, The Diary of Abraham de la Pryme. Forgotten Books 2015.
[2] https://www.lincolnshire.org/wp-content/uploads/horse_fair-798×360.jpg
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