
Fay Sampson’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 30 generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from my own as (1)
THOMAS HINDMERSH and MARGARET ASHBY (13)
THOMAS HINDMERSH was the posthumous son of an older Thomas Hindmersh, born 8 months after his father died.
Baptism. St Peter, Sandwich.
1546 De 3 Thomas Hindmersh son of Thomas Hindmersh.
We have not been able to find his mother’s name.
He had at least five older siblings, though three brothers had died in the two years before Thomas’s birth. His parents were evidently married before 1538, when Henry VIII decreed that every parish should keep a register of its baptisms, weddings and burials.
He may well have come from a middle-class background, since as an adult he was competently literate.
The year after his birth, Henry VIII died. By the time Thomas reached adulthood, the boy king Edward VI and the Catholic Queen Mary I had come and gone. Elizabeth I was now on the throne.
There were three parish churches in Sandwich dating from Norman times: St Peter the Apostle, St Mary the Virgin and St Clement. The Hindmershes’ parish church was St Peter’s.
It was here that Thomas married at the age of 27.
MARGARET ASHBY. There were a number of Ashbys in Sandwich in the 16th century, but we have not found Margaret’s baptism.
Marriage. St Peter, Sandwich.
1574 Oct 12 Thomas Hindmershe and Margaret Ashbe
Their first two children were baptised at Thomas’s family church of St Peter’s, but the remainder at St Mary the Virgin.
Baptisms. St Peter, Sandwich.
1575 Aug 7 Mary
1576 Dec 22 Rychard
Usually when a family change their church it is because they have moved house. That may not be so in this case, The move of parish coincided with Thomas being appointed Parish Clerk of St Mary’s in 1577.
The role of parish clerk was typically handed down from father to son, but it could not be so in this case, because Thomas’s father was already dead when he was born. St Mary’s must have found themselves without a clerk and no obvious successor.
The duties of a parish clerk included attending nearly every service, writing the churchwardens’ and overseers of the poor’s accounts if they were illiterate, making fair copies of the church rates, assisting parish officers in their collection. He collected tolls on sheep pastured in the churchyard, on those who hung their washing there and on those who set up stalls along the churchyard path on market days. Clearly, it needed someone resourceful and omnicompetent, with a high degree of literacy and numeracy.
The parish clerk was paid a small salary.
A free grammar school for boys was founded in Sandwich in 1563, too late for Thomas. We do not know where he received his education.
He was 33 when he became parish clerk and he held this office for the rest of his life.
Thomas had not been in the post long when in 1580: “A great and terrible earthquake struck Sandwich which did shake and cleave St Mary’s Church”. At the time, its central tower remained standing, but it was so weakened that it collapsed in 1667.
“Beyond Sandwich the Dover Straits Earthquake of 1580 shook the whole Kent coast, London and parts of Europe. There was a landslip at the White Cliffs of Dover and buildings were damaged in Lille and Ghent. In the English Channel 165 ships sank with much loss of life. In Sandwich, St Mary’s resounded with a loud crack. However damage to the rest of the town was surprisingly light: the many wooden buildings were more flexible and therefore more earthquake resilient than the few stone ones.”[2]
The remainder of the Hindmersh baptisms took place at St Mary’s.
Baptisms. St Mary, Sandwich.
1580 Dec 4 John
1581 Nov 19 Elyzabeth
1583 Feb 11 Margarett
1585 Mar 13 Gabriell
1588 Mar 16 Roger
1593 Jan 18 Josaway (Joshua)
On 18 Jun 1597 fifteen-year-old Elizabeth was buried at St Mary’s.
23 Sep 1601 Thomas son of Thomas Hindmersh was also buried there.
Thomas and Margaret evidently provided a good education for their children – the boys, at least. Roger became the next parish clerk for St Mary’s, and Joshua became a schoolmaster.
Nine years after the death of Thomas junior, their mother died.
Burials. St Mary, Sandwich.
1610 Apr 17 Margert Hindmersh the wife of Thomas Hindmersh
Thomas survived her by another nine years. It is only at his burial that we learn his occupation.
1619 Nov 14 Thomas Hindmersh Parish Clerk 42 years. St Mary.
‘42 years’ refers to the length of his service, not his age. He was nearly 73.
His son Roger Hindmersh took over as Clerk of St Mary’s.
[1] St Mary Church burial ground, Sandwich, Kent.
[2] https://www.discoveringbritain.org/content/discoveringbritain/walk%20booklets/Sandwich%20walk%20-%20written%20guide.pdf
NEXT GENERATION: 12. HINDMERSH-MANWELL
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