Title:	A Note on the Family of the Reverend Edward Sparkes, Vicar of Clodock 1774-1813
Date:	1700s – 1800s

 

Edward Sparkes was vicar of Clodock from 1774 until his death in 1813.
 Genealogical research by David Robins on the Reverend Sparkes and his family
 is reproduced here with the author’s kind permission.

 

A Note on the Family of the Reverend Edward Sparkes

 

Nathaniel Winchcombe (1725[1] -1766[2] ), a wealthy mercer from Frampton-on-Severn, Gloucestershire[3] married, 7^th June 1756[4] , Ann Bell, ultimately the heiress to the Frampton Court estate.  She died 7^th August 1757[5] , leaving a son, Nathaniel Winchcombe II (1757[6] -1817[7] ), who inherited the family fortune and succeeded to Frampton Court, assuming the name and arms of Clifford by Royal Licence in 1801[8] .  His descendant, Rollo Clifford, is the present owner.

Nathaniel I re-married, at Dursley, Glos. 19^th June 1759[9] [10] , as her first husband, Ann Phillimore (1729[11] -1791, buried at Frampton 7^th May 1791[12] ), daughter of John Phillimore[13] , of Dursley[14] , and his wife Elizabeth[15] .  The couple had three children – Elizabeth (1760[16] ), Charlotte (1762[17] ) and Henry (1763[18] ) – before Nathaniel died in 1766.

The widowed Ann re-married at Frampton in 1772[19] Edward Sparkes, described as a ‘clerk’[20] .  Later events show this to have been the Edward Sparkes who in 1774 became Vicar of Clodock.  Sparkes was the son of another Edward Sparkes, clerk, of Gloucester[21] .  He was born in 1747[22] [23] and matriculated at Oxford (Merton College) on 6^th June 1766 (aged 18), receiving his BA in 1770[24] .  An Edward Sparks was married at Fretherne, a neighbouring parish to Frampton, in 1742, so could have been born in about 1717[25] .  If it is the same family, this could be the father.  The son’s date of death is recorded as 30^th November 1813, which would make him 66[26] .  Edward and Ann had at least one daughter, Mary Ann Sparkes, who was baptised at Frampton 8^th June 1773[27] , when Ann would have been about 44.

The family would have moved to Clodock on Sparkes’ appointment in 1774 and are next recorded when Charlotte Winchcombe of the parish married Henry Hicks there on 2^nd November 1784[28] .  Hicks was a mill-owner in the Stroud area who made his home at Eastington[29] [30] , between Stroud and Frampton.  In marrying Charlotte, he was continuing a tradition of inter-marriage among the clothing families of that district.  Remote Clodock may well have been but it does not seem to have disrupted roots. 

Henry and Charlotte’s children made medical history in about 1798 when Hicks allowed Dr Edward Jenner of Berkeley to vaccinate them[31] .  This was a coup for Jenner, who had begun his experiments on poorer people and clearly would have benefited from the endorsement of ‘persons of quality’.  Charlotte died in 1832[32] [33] or possibly 1837[34] .  Henry died 16^th June 1836[35] [36] [37] .

Although there had been since 1753[38] a requirement to use a pre-printed marriage register, Clodock did not start to use one until August 1784 and Charlotte’s marriage is only the third entry in the book.  It may be that the prospect of a prestigious marriage spurred Sparkes into buying it.  However, he did not conduct the ceremony, leaving this to his curate, Thomas Jones.  The witnesses were Henry Beavan, clerk and Mary Ann Sparkes.

Henry Beavan (1759[39] -1807[40] ) – the Rev. Henry Beavan – married Charlotte’s elder sister, Elizabeth Winchcombe, the following year.  While Charlotte was married in Herefordshire to a Gloucestershire man, her sister achieved the reverse.  The wedding was at Eastington on 29^th March 1785[41] , suggesting that she had already left the family home at Clodock to be with her sister and brother-in-law.  The groom was the son of Samuel Beavan, of Kington in Herefordshire.  (Newchurch[42] , Tyn-y-Cwm[43] and Whitton[44] , all Radnorshire, are also mentioned as the family home.)  These Beavans were related to the "wicked old Squire Beavan" mentioned by Francis Kilvert in his Diary of 1870-1879.  Henry was likely to be his uncle.[45]   Elizabeth died at Whitton in 1792[46] .  Henry died in 1807.

The youngest of the step-children, Henry Winchcombe, is the least well-documented.  He was baptised at Frampton on 8^th February 1763[47] and is mentioned in family Wills from 1767[48] , 1768[49] , 1778[50] , 1780[51] and 1824[52] .  He had a son, also called Henry, who was born at Llanbadoc[53] , Monm. in 1790[54] [55] [56] and who founded a large dynasty of Winchcombes, several with Phillimore as their middle name.  Henry (1790) gave the Census enumerator of 1851 the information that he was born at Llanbadoc but there is no record of his baptism there, nor at Usk, the town whose west bank lies in Llanbadoc parish.  There is a letter from Henry Hicks to Nathaniel Winchcombe II, prior to the surname change of 1801, in which he fears that a relative, ‘H.W.’ – presumably Henry (1763) – will be thinking of returning to England if money is not sent[57] .

The mother of Henry (1790) is unidentified.  Henry (1790) married Ann, the daughter of John and Catherine Davies, at Swansea, 25^th July 1812[58] .  Davies, another mill-owner, lived at Abergwili.  This Carmarthenshire village contains the former palace of the bishops of St Davids, in whose diocese Clodock was located until 1852[59] .  A Winchcombe connection could have come about if Henry (1763) had accompanied Sparkes there on ecclesiastical business, married a local girl, and then moved, either temporarily or permanently, to Llanbadoc, while retaining the family’s links with Abergwili.  This, however, is a theory that requires further investigation.

David Robins
1^st August 2011

 

 

 

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