12. HINDMERSH-MANWELL

Baker  Tree

 JOSUA HINDMARSH and SUSAN MANWELL (12)

 

JOSUA HINDMARSH was the youngest of the eight children of Thomas Hindmersh and Margaret Ashby.

Baptism. St Mary the Virgin, Sandwich
1593 Apr 3  Josaway Hindmersh sonne of Thomas Hindmersh.

His father was parish clerk of St Mary the Virgin in Sandwich, a town near the east Kent coast.

He was born in the last decade of Elizabeth I’s reign and came to adulthood under James I.

His parents evidently provided him with a good education, since Joshua became a schoolmaster.

In 1563, Roger Manwood, a local barrister and later baron of the Exchequer, founded a charity to provide a free grammar school for boys in Sandwich.[1] It is highly likely that the Hindmersh boys went there.
In its early years, the boys were taught by a schoolmaster and an usher. It was probably here that Joshua became a schoolmaster in his adult years.

 

SUSAN MANWELL. We have found no baptism for Susan, nor any other Manwells in the Sandwich area.

 Marriage. St Mary the Virgin, Sandwich
1626 Jul 26   Josua Hindmersh and Susan Manwell

Baptism. St Mary the Virgin, Sandwich.
1628 Sept 21  Margaret

On 20 Oct 1635 there is a burial at St Peter’s for a “chrisomer” child of Joshua and Susan Hindmersh. This was a baby who died within a month of baptism and was buried in its baptismal robes.

There is another baptism the following year.
Baptism. St Peter, Sandwich.
1636 Nov 27  Gabriel son of Joshua and Susan Hindmersh

Gabriel was buried on 10 March 1641, aged five.

There is a long gap between 1626 and 1635. It may that there were other children whose records have been lost.

We do not know when Joshua was appointed schoolmaster.

In 1635 there was a dispute over the master’s salary for the Roger Manwood School. His heirs refused to pay this. A lawsuit decided that they must pay the master out of the rents of properties he had set aside for that purpose. The salary was fixed at £20 pa.
In 1640, the will of Edward Parboe added another £4 to this, but it seems doubtful whether this money was ever paid.
The rules allowed for up to 12 scholars to live with the master in the school house.

Meanwhile, the country descended into civil war between King Charles I and Parliament. For the most part, Kent accepted Parliamentary control, though there were occasional Royalist uprisings. In one of these, Royalist leaders arrived in Sandwich, where “they found an impostor, who called, himself Prince of Wales”. [3]

Following this, Col. Hammond’s regiment marched on the East Kent ports of Deal, Walmer and Sandown. There they were welcomed by the garrisons of the three castles. They then marched on to Sandwich, and thence to Canterbury. In the end, the uprising fizzled out.

Charles I was captured, and beheaded in 1649.

Joshua would have been too old to fight in this war.

The following year, Joshua died. He was 57.

As with his father, it is only at his burial that we learn his occupation. 

Burials. St Mary the Virgin, Sandwich.
1650 Jun 9  Joshua Hindmersh  School Master

Susanna survived him by nearly a quarter of a century, living through Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Commonwealth and the Restoration of Charles II.

1673 Dec 19  Susanna Widdow of Joshua Hindmersh

  

[1] Edward Hasted, ‘The town and port of Sandwich’, in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 10, (Canterbury, 1800).
[2] Wikipedia: File:Sandwich – Manwood Close & Manwood Court 
[3] https://www.nonington.org.uk/nonington-the-kent-rebellion-of-1648-the-second-english-civil-war/