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| Site of the former St James', Dukes Place cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Basher Eyre - geograph.org.uk/p/921191 A former church, demolished in 1874. |
Richard Benbow (b. 1659) Bachelor, married Grace Beer (b. 1663) Spinster, at the church of St James, Duke's Place, City of London, on 15 Aug 1686. Nicholas Poor is listed presumably as a witness to the marriage. Described variously as "Aldgate’s own version of Gretna Green" and the church that defied convention, St James's was "the place where people could get hitched while bypassing the irksome rules and regulations that would normally apply", with no need to wait for banns to be called; no need for a licence and, best of all, parental consent was not required to tie the knot there. Why this couple, a pair of my 8x great-grandparents, chose to marry there, isn't obvious.
They appear to have been the parents of at least four children:
- Richard Benbow b. around 1690
- Sarah Benbow b. around 1690
- James Benbow b. around 1699
- Samuel Benbow b. around 1699
Birth years are very approximate and mostly calculated from ages at death. There are no baptism records for any of their children, as they were Quakers and Quakers don't practice baptism. There could, therefore, have been other children, that we just don't encounter records for or cannot link to them.
We know that Richard Benbow is their child from a London Apprenticeship Abstract record, which lists him as the "son of Richard Bendbow (sic), Stepney, Middlesex, bricklayer". To confirm that link, James, also listed as son of Richard and a Bricklayer, later left three houses to Richard's daughter, Elizabeth Travally. Sarah is identified as his sister in James' will, as were his nieces Ann and Mary, daughters of Samuel. In the absense of the usual records, these are all we have to be able to glue this family together.
Richard Benbow, of Ratcliff, in the Parish of Stepney, in the County of Middlesex, Bricklayer, aged about 64 years, died the 26th day of the month called April, 1723. Buried in Friends Burying Ground Ratcliff. [In The London Burial Grounds, by Isabella M. Holmes, is the information "There was a little meeting-house with a burial-ground attached in Wapping Street, which seems to have been used until about 1779, but was then demolished, the worshippers moving to the meeting in Brook Street, Ratcliff."]. Richard Benbow was reported to have died "of a Dropsy" (Edema, also spelled oedema, also known as fluid retention, dropsy, hydropsy and swelling).
A tax record places Grace Benbow in Brooke Street, Ratcliff, in 1730.
Grace Benbow died, aged about 83, of old age. The record says she died (well, one version said she 'dyed' and one wonders what colour) on the 4th day of the 10th month called December and was buried on the 7th day of said month, 1746, also at the Friends Burying Ground at Ratcliff. (December was then the 10th month. Until 1752, the new year in England still began on Lady Day, March 25th. In addition, Quakers sometimes used a Calendar that differed from both the English custom of beginning the year on March 25 and from the Scottish custom of beginning the year on January 1. Many Quakers, such as George Fox and William Penn, began the year on March 1.)
