Richard Benbow and Elizabeth Cowtley

St Dunstan & All Saints, Stepney
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © John Salmon - geograph.org.uk/p/3477077
This beautiful church is often spoken of as the Mother Church of the East End. It is, of course, one of the 'Oranges and Lemons' churches, ("When will that be/ Said the bells of Stepney").

Richard Benbow of Ratt. (Ratcliff), Bricklayer, and Elizabeth Cowtley, a pair of my 7th Great-Grandparents, married on 18 Sep 1714 at the parish church of St Dunstan's, Stepney. Elizabeth Cowtley, daughter of John Cowtley and Mary Pateman, was said to be 21, but her baptism in 1696, would suggest that she was a minor, only around 18, at the time of her marriage.

Less than six months later, on 4 Mar 1715, under Burials in the Parish of Stepney, we find listed the burial of Richard Benbow, Ratt, Bricklayer.

Their only child Elizabeth Benbow, was born in 1715 - one imagines posthumously - and baptised on 5 Aug 1716 at St Dunstan's, Stepney, listed as Elizabeth [daughter] of Richard and Elizabeth Benbow, Ratt, Bricklayer.

I've found no further records for Elizabeth Benbow (née Cowtley), so I cannot [yet] say what happened to her or whether perhaps she remarried.

Richard Benbow's age was listed as 24 at the time of his marriage in 1714, which would take his birth to 1690 and that could be an approximation. It is reputed that his father was John Benbow and suggested that his baptism was that on 7 Nov 1693, at St Paul's, Deptford, which thus makes him the son of then Captain John Benbow. If true, it would make the infamous Admiral my 8x Great-Grandfather.