5
Alan March’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, and some go back many generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Alan’s as (1)(1)
JOHN NEWMAN and MARY ?LAWSON(7)
JOHN NEWMAN was born in the Cambridgeshire village of Bourn and christened there on 6 Jun 1762.
His father was John Newman/Newnham. His mother’s name is transcribed twice as Renny and twice as Ammery. In all other records she is Renny (or a variation of it). She was Renny Gray.
There were Newmans in Bourn at least as early as the 16th century, but John’s parents came from further south. They were both of Royston, 10 miles south of Bourn, when they married.
John was the oldest of eight children. He was thus the first of this family to be born in Bourn.
MARY ?LAWSON. We know from the baptismal register that John’s wife was Mary. No marriage has been found for John Newman and Mary within 5 miles of Bourn. Theirs could be the following:
Marriage. St Ives, Huntingdonshire.
1788 John Newman/Neumann and Mary Lawson.
No baptisms have been found for this couple within 5 miles of St Ives, so they could well have set up home in Bourn, 10 m south of St Ives.
We have not found a baptism for Mary which matches this.
Six children were baptised in Bourn to John and Mary Newman.
Baptisms. Bourn.
1792 Jun 10 Joshua
1793 Dec 2 John
1797 Dec 10 Rebecca
1800 Feb 27 James
1801 May 18 Richard
1805 Jul 21 Henrietta
The baptismal register does not tell us John’s occupation. Two of his sons became carpenters, and one a sawyer and then a cooper. This suggests that John too was a craftsman, most likely working with wood.
The principal building in Bourn was Bourn Hall. This was built in the early 17th century on the site of Bourn Castle, which was burned down in the 13th century.
Bourn Hall [1]
John and Mary raised their family in a period political anxiety and military threat. The American War of Independence and the French Revolution had called into question the monarchical style of government. England now feared invasion from Napoleon Bonaparte’s France, as the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars raged across Europe and beyond. Nelson and Wellington were national heroes. The Bourns would have shared in the national mourning when Nelson was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar, three months after Henrietta was baptised.
There is a burial for John Newman in 1809, but a more likely one is the following.
Burial. Bourn.
1830 Dec 8 John Newman.
He would have been 58.
We have not found a burial or a remarriage for Mary.
[1] Cambridgeshire Community Archives Network.
NEXT GENERATION: 6. NEWMAN-TRIPLOW
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: 8. NEWMAN-GRAY