REV. JOHN MOSSOP'S FAMILY

LINCOLNSHIRE

PARISH CHURCH OF ST. PETER & ST. PAUL, MARKET OVERTON , RUTLAND

JOHN MOSSOP'S future wife, ANN BERRIDGE, was born at Market Overton, Rutland to John and Mary and baptised at the parish church on 27 April 1766.   She was therefore about twelve and a half years younger than her future husband.

Lucy Marshall, descended from Ann's brother Benjamin has been a great help in confirming and supplying details of the family as of course the Mossop and Berridge children were cousins, keeping up a close contact with each other.

Market Overton lies some 20 miles west of Deeping St. James which leads me to wonder how Rev. John, with his busy parochial schedule, met his wife.  Could it be that his former curacy was in this neighbourhood or was it on a more social occasion?

Ann's elder sister Mary had married Rev. John Freeman, Rector of Lydon, Rutland in 1780 so there may have been a clerical connection which brought them together.

JOHN and ANN were married on 30 April 1787 at Deeping St. James when she was just 21 years old and John 33.     They lived at Deeping St. James where their 15 children were born in the nearly 19 years of their married life.

MARY                     1788-1789 

Their eldest, died as a young child

MARY (2)              1789-1879       

In adulthood, Mary had lived in Bedford for many years with her sister Martha and died there unmarried aged 89.  She was buried at her brother Charles' church in Etton, Northamptonshire.

JOHN                        1791-1850       

John married Ann Jenkins and had about 8 children of whom 4 died young.    He farmed at Moulton, Lincolnshire.   Of their four surviving daughters, ANN married William CLARKE a Farmer and had 11 children, of whom John Mossop Clarke emigrated to Australia in 1853.   CATHERINE married Frederick L. L. HANSBERG a Goldsmith and Jeweller and had 2 daughters before dying young.  SARAH married Charles HARVEY, Solicitor of Spalding, and had 9 children including Mary Jane Lewis Harvey, of whom more later.   HANNAH married Thomas Mason ASHTON a Farmer at Deeping St. Nicholas and Asterby, Lincs and had 7 children.

CHARLES                  1792-1793

Died young

CHARLES (2)            1793-1883

Vicar of St. Botolph's, Helpston, Northants from 1817 to 1853 and then Rector of nearby St. Stephen's, Etton.   He married twice without children.    For more details see his own section.

MARTHA            1794-1862

Remained unmarried.     She had lived with her sister Mary at Bedford but died at Warmington where her brother Henry lived.   She was buried at Etton, Northamptonshire where her brother Charles was Rector.

SAMUEL            1795-1809

Reputed to have died in St. Lucia.    He seems young to have been so far from home unless he enlisted as a boy seafarer.   He survived his mother but not his father.

ANN                    1796-1797

Died as an infant

HENRY                1797-1878

He farmed at Warmington, Northamtonshire, a village where his uncle Benjamin Berridge had held Rectory Farm until his death in 1838.    He married Elizabeth Maydwell and although they had no children they frequently had relatives staying with them.    Henry died in October 1878 at the age of 81 whilst Elizabeth survived into her nineties dying in June 1991.    They are buried in Warmington churchyard between the graves of some of their Heys relations from Henry's sister Ann, below.

ANN (2)             1798-1876

Married James HEYS, a Doctor at Gedney Hill, Lincs.    They had three children MARY ANN, JAMES and JOHN.    James learned farming with his uncle Henry Mossop at Warmington and later held Rectory Farm, formerly held by his great-uncle Benjamin Berridge.    James and Ann are ancestors of Tom Heys who told me that James, Ann, Mary Ann and John are commemorated on a stone in Gedney Hill churchyard.    James junior married Sarah Ann Wallis who dedicated a window in Warmington church in memory of her husband and one of their daughters, Elizabeth Kate.   

SARAH                1800-1821

Survived her mother but not her father.

CATHERINE        1801-1894

Married SIR THOMAS ROBINSON WOOLFIELD, a very wealthy property developer, responsible for many major buildings in Cannes and its transformation from a fishing village into the playground of the rich and famous.     He built the first tennis court in France there in 1879 and these soon became all the rage.   He was also responsible, through his young gardener, for importing the first Eucalyptus tree from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.

19TH CENTURY CANNES

Courtesy of www.travelfactfile.com/france/riviera/old.cannes/apartment.rental.php

It appears that Thomas was born in 1800 in Birmingham but I have found no marriage for them either at home or abroad, though they were married before 2 February 1832 when her father made his will, nor have I found a record of any children.  

On the 1841 census they are at Loch Lomond, Scotland with her brother Rev. Charles and his stepdaughter Lucy Booth which must have been a rare visit as Thomas was certainly active in Cannes in the 1840s.  Thomas died in Cannes in 1888 but Catherine obviously returned to England where she died in Chelsea, London at the age of 93.    She was therefore by far the longest living of John and Ann's children.

BENJAMIN ADDENBROKE    1802-1883

A Miller, Merchant and Farmer of Spalding, Lincs.    He married first Janet Mears or Meyers by whom he is said to have had three daughters, two of whom died young.    After Janet's death he married Sarah Topp having a further 5 children, MARTHA, BENJAMIN, JANE, JOHN and SARAH.     MARTHA was briefly married to Thomas John Clarke before his early death and then married a widowed farmer ROBERT FLETCHER of Weston, Lincs by whom she had five children.   BENJAMIN married a widow ELEANOR MARY SHORT, nee TOTTERDELL and moved to London.   They had three daughters.   Robert and MARTHA FLETCHER  are ancestors of John Woodcock.   BENJAMIN and Eleanor Mary MOSSOP are ancestors of  Johanna (Jo) Cox.

JANE                1803-1868

Remained unmarried.    In the 1841 census she was living or staying with her brother Charles' wife Lucy in Helpston but was with her brother Henry and his wife at Warmington on the two following.    She died at Walton Cottage near Peterborough which may or may not have been the property her father left her at Maxey, then in Northamptonshire but now in Cambridgeshire.   Like her unmarried sisters, she was buried at Etton.

ROBERT            1805-1882

Solicitor, Land and Property owner of Long Sutton, Lincs.    He married Mary Elizabeth Peele, a local landowner's daughter.    They had 18 children and it is from them that most of the Lincolnshire family bearing the surname MOSSOP descend.     See separate section.

Tragically ANN MOSSOP nee Berridge died on 23 March 1806 aged only 39.    She left six sons and six daughters ranging in age from 17 to 1 years old.    There is no record of how her widower coped with this large family or what help he had in looking after them.    He never remarried.

After her death, two further children SAMUEL and SARAH also died.

By the time REV. JOHN MOSSOP died at Langtoft 14 July 1834 aged 80, his surviving children had either married or were comfortably settled.     He left several pieces of property amongst them.    28 acres of fenland at Tidd St. Giles, Ely was to be shared between his five sons and then to go between his two grandsons living when he made his will though one subsequently died before him.    16 acres in Deeping St. James was to go to Catherine but if she died childless it was to go to Ann and then her children.   A house and land at Deeping Gate, Maxey, Northampton was to go to Jane.    An estate at Newborough, Northants was to go to Rev. Charles.   He had originally left £500 apiece to Mary and Martha but later revoked this saying that he had provided for them in other ways.    The residue was to be shared between his children.    There was a bequest of 19 guineas to his female servant as well as the charitable bequests mentioned earlier.   The sole executor of his will was his son Rev. Charles Mossop.

So ended the first generation of Lincolnshire Mossops.

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