Pritchard and Edmunds Family History
Matilda Cooper's Account
The following extract was sent to me by Bill Pritchard in Adelaide.It is a brief account of the ancestors of Joseph Pritchard, who came to South Australia in the sailing ship, HOOGLEY, in the year 1839, related by his wife Matilda whose maiden name was Cooper.
The account gave lots of clues for researching the origins of the Pritchard family. I visited the Wiltshire Record Office in October 2003 to search for Jacob Pritchard's birth in Salisbury with no success. Neither were there any records in Phillimore's Marriage Index. However another Australian researched noted a marriage of a Jacob Pritchard to Mary Pope in Sherfield English, Hampshire. This was a distance of 10 miles away.
I ordered the appropriate film from my local Family History Centre in Cardiff and waited with anticipation. The film showed a record of Banns between Jacob Pritchard, carpenter, and Mary Pope, spinster, both of this parish on 27/11/1757, 4/12/1757 and 11/12/1757. The couple were married on 13/12/1757 by Wm.Watkins, curate in the presence of Thos.Penny and Isaac Pope. According to the letter below Jacob would have been 23 years old.I found the date of Mary's birth in the baptism records as 21/2/1741, seven years after Jacob's birth, again tying in with the letter
The next clue was that on 13/1/1766 Isaac Pope, wheelwright, was married in the same parish. His first marriage had been on 3/2/1740 to Mary Jack and Mary was born a year later. Mary Pope died in 1749, leaving Isaac with 3 daughters, Mary, Elizabeth and Anne.
Between 1758 and 1763, the following baptisms are recorded in the Sherfield English records, children of Jacob Pritchard.
Although these are common names there seem enough clues to provide some circumstantial evidence that this is the same family when taking the other names and occupations into account. The letter goes on to say that circa 1770 the family moved to London. There are other Pritchard entries in the Sherfield English records. Jacob Pritchard, son of Jacob married Sarah Grant in Sherfield and a descendant of his has queried whether this is the same family. At present there is no real proof either way. Jacob's eldest son Jacob born 1758 may have stayed in Sherfield as an apprentice and then married there. The other siblings were perhaps born in London.
I have been attempting to trace the records in Middlesex and the references I have found so far are in the Gedcom and family tree on this site. The Henry referred to in the letter was born in 1816 and married Mary Coles in 1850 at St.Mary's, Lambeth. It is their family bible that came into our possession last year.My husband is descended from John and Frances Pritchard, then Joseph Pritchard.
'His (Joseph’s) Grandfather was named Jacob and was born in Salisbury, England, in the year 1734. He was apprenticed to a carpenter and wheelwright, who had an only daughter named Mary and as was customary in those days, he lived at the master’s house, being then termed an indoor apprentice. Mary was seven years younger than Jacob, and they played together as children; she could not say Jacob at first so called him Yarcup.
They married when she was about twenty. They had a very large family, several of whom died in infancy, but eleven grew to maturity- six sons and five daughters. The names of the sons were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, John and Jesse. The daughters amongst them these names, Elizabeth, Rachel, Rebecca and Mary Esther. The family went to live in London about the year 1770 but he was not very successful in business and died at the age of 77. His wife Mary died seven years later at her daughter Esther’s residence, George Street, Marylebone, England. Some of the sons went to sea and were never heard of again.
One son, John, a ships carpenter for a time, but the greater part of his life was spent in London, where he married Frances Woolley, only daughter of George Woolley, a Coach Proprietor. He was 35 when they married and there meeting was brought about by the following incident.
Hearing an unusual noise in the street, Frances Woolley went to see what it was all about when the door banged after her, locking her out. Seeing a carpenter coming along the street she sought his aid and he managed to open the door for her, thus the acquaintance and later the marriage.
Only two sons of the marriage lived beyond infancy, namely Joseph and Henry. Joseph was born September 20th, 1813 and was an indoor apprentice to his uncle Jacob, a chair maker. When he was eighteen years of age there came to the house a maid of fourteen years, as maid to his aunt. It so happened that he opened the door to her and it was a case of love at first sight. Her name was Matilda Cooper, the third daughter of William and Elizabeth Cooper (nee Harton) and was born July 11th 1817 and married Joseph Pritchard on March 14th 1836.
They left England on January 1st.1839, arriving in Adelaide at the end of June in the same year, thus talking a full six months on the trip. They brought with them two sons, Henry James, two and a half years and William, Eight months. They had eight children born in South Australia, one of whom died in infancy. Their names were Katherine, Frances Elizabeth, Frederick, Emma, Emily, Joseph, Edward and Stanley'.
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Catherine Pritchard East Barn, White Farm,Leckwith, Cardiff. UK. CF11 8AS.Updated: 23/04/2007
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