The Golden Falcon

Chapter XIX/1 - After

"From Paradise to Taprobane is forty leagues, there may be heard the sound of the Fountains of Paradise".  (Traditional reported by Friar Marignolli 1335).  "From India and the Golden Chersoness and utmost Indian isle Taprobane".  ("Paradise Regained" Book IV - John Milton).

Rev. Charles Winter's great grandfather James Winter, bricklayer of Walworth came from a family which was involved in the building trade.  He was listed in Pigot's Directory of 1827 as a bricklayer of 11 Bolingbroke Row, Walworth and in the same Directory in 1838 as resident at 10, Montpellier Street (now Pelier Street), Walworth Road.  His son George of Walworth was recorded as a shareholder of the ship "Vitoria", James was buried a St. Peter's Walworth where some of his children were baptised and married.

There was often a link between the building trade and the sea as smiths and carpenters were needed on the old wooden sailing ships.  The builder Thomas Cubitt, born in Norfolk on 2.5.2.1788, was the son of a carpenter who owned a little farm near Buxton.  When his father died in 1806, Thomas supported his mother, sister and three brothers.  He signed on as a ship's carpenter and went to India.  When he returned, he set up business in Eagle Street, Holborn about 1810/11 and trade was flourishing 4 years later when he was joined by his brothers William, a builder and Lewis, an architect.  He designed King's Cross station and built in Bloomsbury, Clapham, Brighton, Osborne, Pimlico and Belgravia.  He used soil brought from the excavations for St. Katherine's Dock beside the Tower of London to level the surface of Belgravia where he would dig clay and burn it into bricks on the site itself.  He negotiated for the land with Lord Grosvenor and the Lowndes family.  The Grosvenor estates comprised 3 squares, Belgrave, Eaton and Chester.  When Cubitt died in 1855, he was described as "The Builder" and "a great builder and a good man" in his obituary and Queen Victoria wrote that his death "was a national loss."

Katherine's Dock was built by Thomas Telford called "Laughing Tam" born in 1755 or 1757 at Westerkirk, in Eskdale on the West March of the Scottish Border.  He was buried in Westminster Abbey when he died and bequeathed a library of 6,000 books to his native parish.  ("Portrait of the Border Country" - N. Tranter).

Henry Crabb Robinson during Regency times describes how he fell in with a Master Bricklayer "whose appearance was that of a very low person" who turned out to be "enlightened by those principles of political economy which are indeed becoming common.  He did not talk of the books of Adam Smith but seemed imbued with their spirit" and he marvelled that "such ideas had descended on the hod and trowel."

At St. Peter's, Iver, Buckinghamshire where the arms of a Salter family can be found, is an epitaph for a bricklayer:

"Beneath this place lies interned the body of Venturus Mandey, bricklayer, son of Michael Mandey, bricklayer and grandson to Venturus Mandey of this parish, bricklayer, who had the honour of being bricklayer to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn from the year of our Lord 1667 to the day of his death.  He also translated into English "Directorium Generale Uranometricum and Trigonometrica Plana et Spherica, Linearis et Logarithmica".

He was not the only bricklayer connected with Lincoln's Inn for "when a little child, rare Ben Johnson lived in Hartshorn Lane near Charing Cross where his mother married a bricklayer for her second husband.  He was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge but for lack of money was fain to return to the trade of his father-in-law. And let not them blush that have, but those that have not a lawful calling.  He help'd in the building of the new structure of Lincoln's Inn when having a trowell in his hand, he had a book in his pocket."  ["Come Hither" - Walter de la Mare].

Not only were bricklayers an erudite lot in those times but even deposed royalty reputedly took to the trade!

"On 1.9.1735 Thomas Brett, L. L. D. wrote to William Warren, L. L. D., President of Trinity Hall of an account heard from Lord Heneage, Earl of Winchelsea at Eastwell House, of a bricklayer called Richard Plantagent, who according to Eastwell Church Register was buried on 22.12.1550 [Papers of Eastwell Place which belonged to Sir Thomas Moyle].  The bricklayer was studying Latin and said he was the son of Richard III.  As a child he was taken to a great house and a man dressed in the Star and Garter came to him.  He was asked to go to Bosworth Fields and told that if Richard lost the battle he must hide”.  [No. VIII, Desiderata Curiosa Lib. VII 1735].

When the Old Pretender's son was born the Jacobites wrote a ballad "The bricklayer's son has a son of his own".  The Stuarts and other Jacobites were responsible for the spead of freemasonry on the Continent.

Bricklaying and laundering were carried on in Cricklewood and South Acton, an areas in which bricklayers and laundresses traditionally intermarried.

Berkshire was another area where the brick industry flourished.  When bricklayers or "freemasons" demolished Reading Abbey during the Reformation, the remains were carefully listed and sold off, amongst which was a relic which was either the hand of Santiago (St. James, patron saint of Spain) or that of Adeliza of Louvain (widow of Henry I and wife of William d'Aubigny, earl of Arundel) which was well-preserved and had beautifully tapering fingers.

There were other Winters who were in the building trade but there is no known connection with any of them.

James Winter, Scottish architect and master mason (1743-4) was employed by the 2^nd Duke of Atholl to build a new stable block at Blair Castle, Perthshire in 1747-58.  He re-modelled the castle but the alterations were destroyed in 1869 when it was rebuilt.  A set of designs can be found at Blair "by Mr Winter 1743" as well as designs for the intended addition to Dunkeld House, Perthshire dated 1744 [D.2.14, 9-12].  In 1750 he contracted for masonry of Stewartfield House, Roxburghshire for John Scot [SRO. G. 237/213/3].  In 1756 he was named as arbitrator by Joseph Dodds over a dispute about the erection of the Town Hall at Berwick [Berwick Guildbooks 14.1.1756].

He was probably a relative of Thomas Winter, former mason employed by William Adam at Floors, Castle, Roxburghshire in 1726 [Accounts at Floors] and Aberuthven mausoleum in 1735 [SRO GD.220/6, Misc. 1684-1742 (1)] but Thomas Winter, a land surveyor and landscape gardener in Scotland in 1730-40, was an Englishman brought from Norfolk in 1726 by Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk [Monymusk Papers - edit H. Hamilton, Scottish, Hist. Soc., 1945]. – ["Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840" - H. Colvin].

Not only was there the family of Barningham Winter, Norfolk but there were 3 others families of the same surname in this county with no connection with each other.

In addition Thomas Winter of Fulham, Superintendent of the East India Company factory at Fort-St.-George, Masulipatam owned lands in Norfolk but nothing is mentioned of them in his Will.  If his illegitimate son Thomas Winter left descendants who worked in the building trade and James of Walworth was descended from them, this may explain the family legend that he was descended from Sir William Winter.

Thomas Winter alias Smith, a builder, worked for the Duke of Bedford and there are documents amongst the Theobald paper of the work he did in 1716 [IV/35/17?], 1717-18 [IV/35/18] and 1719-1720 [IV/35/20].  He was assisted by a James Winter.

There was a brick company called James Winter & Sons in Essex. in the 1800s but no connection can be found between them and the Winters of Clapham.

There was also an Australian firm of J. Winters of Sydney, probably Jacob Winters, government bricklayer, who was mustered at Bathurst in 1825.  ["The Second Fleet", p. 116 - Michael Flynn, Library of Australian History].

According to family legend James of Walworth was connected with Spital Square or more probably Spitalfields but the date and place of his birth are uncertain.

A James Winter, son of Robert and Anne is registered in 1764 at St. Leonard's Shoreditch, the church for Spital Square.  There was also a Robert Winter who married Elizabeth Bland in about 1800 whose brother William who married Sarah Miller but they are too late to be James's parents.  ["Familia Gentium Minorum"].

There were several James Winters born in the Spitafields area but there is no trace of a George, John or Hannah but they may have been cousins and not brothers and sister.

Baptisms - St. Leonards, Shoreditch, children of Robert & Anne Winter.

12.04.1764 - James Winter of New Inn Yard.

23.04.1764 - James Winter.

19.02.1767 - Susannah Winter of New Inn Yard.

19.03.1773 - Sarah Winter of Crown Alley.

20.12.1777 - John Winter of Hare Alley.

29.02.1780 - Sarah Winter of Hare Alley.

Baptism - at St. Dunstans, Stepney, children of Robert Winter, weaver of Mile End Old Town & his wife Anne.

25.08.1760 - James Winter.

12.06.1758 - Anne Winter.

16.02.1762 - William Winter.

James Winter of Worcester House, Mile End Old Town, captain in the East India Company and brother of Trinity House, was a famous Dissenter.  Dissenters comprised Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists (or Independents) and others who, in 1662, refused to take Communion in or to conform to the Church of England.  Between 1661-1665 they were penalised under various Parliamentary Acts like the Act of Uniformity (requiring the Book of Common Prayer to be used in all English churches) and the Five Mile Act, forbidding ministers, displaced by Act of Uniformity, coming within 5 miles of their former parishes, any town or city.  The Toleration Act of 1689 allowed Dissenters to hold services in licensed Meeting Houses in England and Wales.  But their preachers subjected to the Test Act until 1828, requiring all civil and military officers to receive Communion in the Church of England and take oaths of supremacy and allegiance.

The Independents, also known as Congregationalists (Oliver Cromwell was one), became prominent in the Victorian era.  By 1831 they over 3,000 churches and the Congregational Union of England and Wales was established.

There were Dissenting Academies at Daventry, Warrington, Hoxton, Hackney and Northampton where scholars like Joseph Priestley and Richard Price (who became known as Rational Dissenters) were taught.  Price and Priestley were also in contact with the Earl of Shelburne’s “Bowood Circle” of reformers between 1769-1779.

The link between Spitalfields, Walworth and the Independent or Dissenting movement was Richard Price (b. 1723, Langeinor, Glamorgan, d. 1791), the son of a Congregational minister.  He went to a London Dissenting Academy and became the Presbyterian minister at Newington Green, near Stoke Newington and Hackney.  Price and his friend, Joseph Priestly, became leaders of the Rational Dissenters or Unitarian Society. Price got to know John Howard, John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith.

The Dissenters supported the French Revolution and Richard Price preached a sermon at the Old Jewry meeting of the London Revolution Society on November 4^th, 1789, supporting the French Revolution and sent his congratulations to the French National Assembly.

In 1784 he met Mary Wollstonecraft who had a school in Newington Green.  Although an Anglican, she went to Price's Dissenting Chapel.  Mary Wollstonecraft (b. 1759 Spitalfields, d. 10.9.1797 of blood poisoning after childbirth) was the daughter of a handkerchief weaver and lived variously at Epping, Barking, Beverley, Hoxton, Walworth and Laugharne, Wales.  In 1784 she, her sister Eliza and her friend, Fanny Blood started a school in Newington Green.  The publication of her book “A Vindication of the Rights of Man” brought her in contact with the radicals Tom Paine, John Cartwright, John Horne Tooke, William Godwin (whom she married) and William Blake.

Joseph Priestley, (b. 13.3. 1733, Fieldhead, Birstal, Yorks, d. 6.2.1804, America), son of Jonas Priestley, a dresser and finisher of cloth and Mary Swift, a farmer's daughter was a chemist, scientist, mathematician, linguist and Dissenting minister.

When an infant he was sent to live at his maternal grandfather's farm and when aged 9 was adopted by his father's sister Sarah (Mrs. John Keighly) with whom he remained until her death in 1764.  The many Dissenting ministers who met at the Keighlys influenced him and he attended the Dissenting Academy at Daventry.  He was ordained a Dissenting minister a month before his marriage in 1762 to Mary, daughter of John Wilkinson.  During visits to London, he mixed with Liberals and Rational Dissenters like Richard Price and Benjamin Franklin.

He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1766 and became librarian to William Petty, 2^nd Earl of Shelburne and tutor to his sons.  He was offered a summer residence at Bowood House, Calne, Wiltshire, the Shelburnes’ home.  He accompanied Lord Shelburne on a tour of the continent and later left his employ with an annuity for the rest of his life and settled in Fairhill, outside Birmingham.

William Petty’s second son, Henry, was created Baron Shelburne in 1669.  His heir was John Fitzmaurice (d. 1761) who was the second son of Shelburne’s sister Anne, Countess of Kerry.  His son was William Petty Fitzmaurice (1737-1805), 2^nd Earl of Shelburne (1761), Marquis of Lansdowne and First Lord of the Treasury (1782-3).  Their original property was Loakes House or Wycombe Abbey.

Shelburne’s Bowood Circle included people like Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, the Dutchman Dr Ingen Housz, John Hunter and Benjamin Franklin.

Because of Priestley’s views, the New Meeting House and the Old Meeting House were sacked and burned.  He fled from Birmingham to London and settled first in Tottenham and then Hackney.  He was forced to resign his membership of the Royal Society.  His unemployed sons emigrated to America where he and his wife followed on 7.4.1794.

Another person who came under the influence of the teachings of Richard Price and became a Unitarian was George Courtauld (b. 1761), son of Samuel Courtauld (1720-65).  He entered the silk industry and after a seven-year apprenticeship with Peter Merzeau he set up his own business as a throwster in Spitalfields.  He became a radical and supported American Revolution.

He sold up went to America in 1785 where married Ruth Minton.  He bought a 300-acre farm in Kentucky but returned to England in 1793 and joined Peter Nouaille, a silk mill owner of Sevenoaks but the partnership came to end in 1797 bcause of their differences over the French Revolution.  Courtauld then bcame manager of a silk mill in Pebmarch, Essex.  He startd up his own silk mill in Braintree in 1809Courtauld mainly employed children in his mill.

In 1818 George's son, Samuel Courtauld, rook over the running of the silk mill, George Courtauld went to live in America where he died in 1823.

Shelburne encouraged Jeremy Bentham to take an interest in French politics.  He introduced him to Andre Marellet and 2 members of the Bowood Circle, Samuel Romilly (1727-1914) and Pierre Etienne Louis Dumont (1759-1829), tutor to Henry Petty Fitzmaurice (1780-1963) and translated Bentham’s writings into French, acted as intermediaries between Bentham and Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau (1749-91) a prominent Revolutionary of Italian Provençal origins.onor-e Gabriel RIqueti, COmte de Mirabeau (1740-91Ho  Bentham corresponded with other French politicians like Jacques Pierre Brisset de Warville (1754.93), a leading Girondin in the Legislative Assembly, Louis Alexandre, duc de la Rochfoucauld d’Enville (1742-92) on of h first nobles ot join the Third Estate in the National Assembly, Jean Phillipe Garran de Coulon (1749-1815), member of the Estates General and Legislative Assembly, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Perigord (1754-1831), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1799-1807), Jean Antoine de Gavain (1761-1828), President of the Tribunal (1802) and Secretary (1804) and Bon Albert Briois de Beaumer (1781-1801), President of th National Assembly (1790).

Bentham drafted a French Constitution and was elected a French citizen by the Legislative Association on 25^th August 1792.  [Editorial 17.37, www.oup.co.uk.pdf.0-19-924863-t-pdf].

Sir Samuel Romilly, (1757-1818), English legal reformer, was the second son of Peter Romilly, a watchmaker and jeweller in London.  Samuel’s grandfather came to England from Montpellier after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and married Margaret Garnault, another Huguenot refugee.  Samuel worked for a while in his father’s shop.  He became an articled clerk to a solicitor and clerk in Chancery with the help of a legacy of £2,000 from a relation.  In 1778 he entered Gray’s Inn and went to Geneva in 1781, where he met the chief democratic leaders, one of whom was including Etienne Dumont.  He was called to the bar in 1783.  He was a friend of Mirabeau, to whom he was introduced in 1784 and who introduced him to Lord Lansdowne.  Romilly visited Paris in 1789.  He was made a K. C. (in 1800).

He married Anne, daughter of Francis Garbett of Knill Court, Herefordshire (1798); and was appointed Chancellor of the County Palatine of Durham (1805).  He joined the Whigs, became a Minister (1806) and Solicitor General.  He was knighted and became MP for Queenborough, Horsham, Wareham and Arundel respectively.

Romilly supported William Wilberforce in his battle to abolish slavery and was a friend of Samuel Whitbread, a fellow M and reformer who began to suffer from depression and cut his throat with a razor.  When Lady Romilly died in the Isle of Wight in October 1818, Sir Samuel also committed suicide on the 2^nd of November at No.21, Russell Square.

Christchurch, Spitalfields.

29.4.1757 - James, son of Robert & Anne Winter.

My great great great grandfather James may have had 3 or 4 brothers, all bricklayers of Clapham, whose children were baptised either at Holy Trinity (built 1776), Clapham or the Independent Chapel at Stockwell, Lambeth.  They were George who married Sarah Carter at Fleet Street, John who married Charlotte Salter (probably Susannah's sister or relative) at Wapping, possibly Jacob Winter and a sister Hannah who married William Knight.  John and James were witnesses at Hannah's marriage at Holy Trinity, Clapham.

John Winter = Charlotte Salter at St. John's, Wapping on 11.9.1797.  Children:

Charles, b. 29.3.1798, bapt. 2.9.4.1798 at Holy Trinity, Clapham. (No. 3982).

Maria, b. 1.5.1800, bapt. 11.5.1800 (No. 4191, LCC), bur. 20.12.1801 at Clapham, Holy Trinity, of whooping cough.

James, bapt. 20.1.1805 Stockwell Independent (Mormon I. G. I.)

Maria, bapt. 15.10.1809 at Stockwell Independent. (I. G. I.).

John, b. 13.11.1811, bapt. 15.12.1811 Holy Trinity Clapham. (No. 6006, LCC).

John, bapt. 23.11.1814 Holy Trinity, Clapham (No. 4272, LCC).

Maria Winter bur. on 20.12.1801 at Holy Trinity, Clapham, died of whooping cough.

George Winter = Sarah Carter 13.5.1805 at St. Brides, Fleet Street - children:

Mary, 1st d., bapt. 18.7.1803, Holy Trinity Clapham.

Mary, b. 18.7.1805, bapt. 7.10.1805 Holy Trinity, Clapham (No. 4933, LCC).

Hariot, bapt. 24.5.1807 at Stockwell Independent (I. G. I.), bur. on 26.8.1807 at Clapham Holy Trinity.

Jemima, b. 31.7.1808, bapt. 4.9.1803, Holy Trinity, Clapham (No. 5412, LCC).

George, b. 3.3.1811, bapt. 31.3.1811, Holy Trinity, Clapham (No. 5859, LCC).

Sarah Carter Winter, b. 9.5.1813, bapt. 22.8.1813, Holy Trinity, Clapham (LCC).

Thomas Carter Winter of "The Rookery", 2nd son, b. 7.5.1815, bapt. 11.6.1815, Holy Trinity, Clapham (LCC).

George, son of Thomas Carter Winter and his wife Ellen, baptised 29.4.1860 at Clapham Holy Trinity.

02.2.1767 - Sarah Carter, d. of John and Sarah Carter of Brayant's Street at Leonards, Shoreditch.

George Winter of "The Rookery", bur. 6.10.1848 aged 69 at Holy Trinity, Clapham.

Sarah Winter of "The Rookery",  bur. 8.3.1852 aged 68 at Holy Trinity, Clapham.

In the examination of Thomas Carter: he is the son of Thomas and Mary Carter, born Clapham, 42 years ago (1791), in which parish his father served the office of Beadle for 25 years.  In March 1804, the examinant was bound apprentice by indenture to James John Winter of Clapham, bricklayer for seven years.  He served his master for 2 and half years during which time he slept at his father's house "The Rookery" in the parish of Clapham.  As his master became bankrupt, he left his service.  No subsequent settlement.  7th May, 1833 signed.  [1783-1801, 106-21, 1825-46 - St. Mary, Newington Settlement Examinations].

The following may have some connection with the above James John Winter, perhaps children:

James John, son of James & Sarah Winter bapt. 31.7.1831 at Walworth St. Peters.

James John, son of James & Kezia Winter bapt. 20.9.1831 at Newington St. Marys.

Several Carters seem to have been involved in building.  Additions to the church of St. Mary the Virgin and All Saints in Debden, Essex were made in 1793 from designs by John Carter, an architect.  A marble monument of 1777 in the Brocas chapel in the Church of St. James, Bramley, Hampshire is attributed to Thomas Carter amongst other sculptors and another dated 1730 at Celbridge Abbey, Kildare was sculpted by him.

Thomas Carter of Piccadilly circa 1727 was a member of the Master Masons Company and Roubiliac was his apprentice.  ["Refugee Sculptors" proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London ,Vol. XVIII No.3, p.260].

There is a Deed No. 4394 dated 17.5.1797 from the Marquis of Salisbury to Thomas Carter of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, builder, land on north side of Rotherhithe Wall.

William Flower and Elizabeth and Mary Winter owned stables in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen may have some connection with the great aunt of George (James) Winter who ran away with her riding master mentioned in a letter to Mr Ryland from Dorothea Winter (James Winter of Walworth's descendant).  The Flowers ae also connected with Mile End New Town, Spitalfields where Anne, daughter of William Flower, weaver and his wife Anne, was baptised on 8.10.1769, James, son of William Flower of Mile End New Town, weaver and Elizabeth was baptised on 24.10.1756 and Mary, daughter of John Flower and Elizabeth was baptised on 12.5.1760, all at St. Dunstan's.

The surname Flower may well be an anglisation of the French Fleur as White was of Le Blanc.

Thomas White (1707) was a sculptor whose work can be found at the Church of All Saints, Alrewas, Staffordshisre.

The following, also a bricklayer, may have been another brother or relative of James:

Jacob Winter = Susannah Everitt, children:

Hannah, d. of Jacob Winter, bapt. 14.5.1822 at Stockwell Independent (I. G. I.).

Isaac, bapt. 17.11.1816  Stockwell Independent (I. G. I.)

Hannah, bapt .14.5.1822 mentioned in Census Returns 1841 aged about 15 years.

Jacob, bapt. 2.7.1809 at Stockwell Independent (I. G. I.).

Abraham, b. 1810, bur. 26.5.1812 at Holy Trinity, Clapham (I. G. I.).

Joseph, bapt. 23.4.1815 Stockwell Independent (I. G. I.), his son Jacob Winter, also a bricklayer, married Rebecca and had George b. 1835, aged about 6 in 1841 (census), Rebecca, b. 1838, aged 3 in 1841 (census) and Thomas (b. 1840).

Hannah Winter = William Knight on 19.10.1801 at Clapham Holy Trinity.  Children:

William Knight, eldest son, of William deceased and Hannah Knight bapt. on 12.10.1803 at Clapham (No. 5008, LCC).

Lydia, d. of WIlliam Knight, labourer of Poplar and Maria 23.1.1761 at St. Dunstans, Stepney.

The Carters and Knights may have been intermarried:

10.1.1772 - Harriett Carter Knight, d. of Thomas & Susan Knight at St. James, Dukes, Place.

St. Leonards, Shoreditch baptisms:

16.03.1750 - William, son of William and Sarah Knight of Long Alley.

20.04.1757 - William, son of Thomas & Sarah Knight

19.11.1769 - William, son of William & Mary Knight of Worship Street.

Rev. Charles Winter's great grandfather James, the bricklayer of Walworth was married at St. Mary-in-Lambeth Church:

James Winter, a bachelor of this parish and Susannah Salter of the same parish, spinster, were married in the church by banns on this 18th day of May 1795 by me W. Battel, curate in the presence of John Gibbs, James Singleton.  W. Battel, curate.

Susannah may have been related to a family of Salters of Lambeth who were tobaconnists.

50 years previously a Dr Battell, dean of the Chapel Royal was mentioned during the Jacobite trials regarding lands in Spitalfields, the rents of which were sent to the exiled Stuarts.  ["Prisoners of the '45" - Arnot & Seton].

Susannah Salter's parents and relatives may have been Thames lightermen who plied their boats between ships and the shore:

St. Anne's, Limehouse: baptisms of the children of John Salter, lighterman and Mary his wife.

15.04.1764 -Susannah Salter (*).

10.11.1765 - Anne Salter.

05.01.1768 - John Salter.

Children of William Salter, waterman of Rose Lane & Hannah his wife.

17.10.1750 - Hannah Salter.

11.12.1755 - Elizabeth Salter.

Children of William Salter, waterman of Narrow & Elizabeth his wife.

04.12.1760 - William Salter.

18.04.1762 - Anne Salter.

16.02.1764 - Anne Salter.

08.03.1781 - Robert, s.of William & Elizabeth Salter of Salter's Rents at St. Leonards

                    Shoreditch.

28.01.1763 - Sarah, d. of John Salter, lighterman and Mary his wife.

10.03.1774 - Mary, d. of John & Mary Salter of Hoyland at St. Leonards, Shoreditch

James the bricklayer was buried at St. Peter's, Walworth.  This parish was created out of St. Mary, Newington in 1825 where several Winters recorded.

Burial Register of St. Peter's Church, Walworth No 394.

Name: James Winter

Aged: 70

Address: 10, Montpelier Street

Died: 13.1.1841 at 11 pm

Buried. 21.1.1841

Officiating: Rev. J.F. Russell

George Gill Lowne, Registrar.

Calculating his birth from the age given on his burial certificate (a very unreliable method in the days where birth certificates were non-existent) James Winter was born in 1771.

There is no information at all about the origins of James the bricklayer and he may well have come to London from elsewhere but there were Winters in Lambeth (where he was married).

There were 2 James Winters born in 1771 in Scotland.  One in Cortachy & Clova near Angus, Aberdeenshire and the other in Tannadice, Angus, Aberdeenshire but the ancestors of this family came from Holland and there is no known connection with James the bricklayer of Walworth.  A James Winter, born in 1770 at Taunton, was baptised by Rev. John Ward.  James Winter, son of James and Elizabeth was baptised on 3.3.1771 in Bishops Lydeard, Somerset and another in Cowden, Kent.

The north and west parts of Brockwell Park were sold to William Winter in 1789 [Newington Sessions House, Land Tax Books Nos. 46/8, 56/66 of St. Mary Lambeth, "Survey of London Vol. XXVI, Tulse Hill & Brockwell Park, parish of St . Mary Lambeth", p.3. - edit F.H.W. Shephard].  The inclosure map of 1810 shows William Winter as owner of land in Brixton Water Lane, Lambeth.  He purchased [Assessment book] in 1787-78, the north west section of Brockwell Park (16 miles from St. Mary's Lambeth church).

James & Susannah Winter (née Salter) had the following children:

Charles Winter, eldest son. b. 19.12.1796, bapt. 15.1.1797, bur. 26.4.1797 at Holy Trinity, Clapham (No.3833, LCC).

George Winter, 2^nd son, b. 18.2.1798, bapt. 18.3.1798, Holy Trinity, Clapham by John Venn (No.3871, LCC), died Galle, Ceylon 21.1.1853, bur. All Saints, Galle, Ceylon.

Records of Holy Trinity, Clapham No. 2371 Page 23: George Winter, b. 18.2.1798, bapt. 18.3.1798, 2nd son of James Winter, bricklayer and Susannah his wife, late Susannah Salter, by John Venn, rector.

This George, who married Sarah Cresse, was grandfather of Rev. Charles Winter.

John Winter, 3^rd son, b. 23.11.1800, bapt. 14.12.1800 at Clapham. (No.4727, LCC).

Hariot Winter, bapt. 2.8.3.1803 at Lambeth Stockwell (I. G. I.).

Nothing further is known about John nor Hariot but one son was said to have gone either to America or Ireland.

John Venn (who baptised George Winter) or a relative may have had connections with the West Indies.  There was a note in the family bible of Mr Brodbelt of Jamaica, regarding the connection between the Brodbelts of Nevis and Jamaica dated 10.5.1753 sworn before William Winter (probably of HM Council, Jamaica) and signed by John Venn, rector.

There were Winters who went to Barbados too. On  20.11.1635 “The Expedition” departed London for Barbados (Source: "Hotten's Lists", p.139).  Peter Blackler, Master, 205 passengers listed amongst whom was John Wynter [American Plantations & Colonies, Thomas Langford].

There were Venns baptised at St. Leonards, Shoreditch:

13.12.1771 - Mary, d. of Richard and Catherine Venn of Pitfield Street.

03.10.1775 - Catherine, d. of Richard & Catherine Venn of Old Street Road.

15.01.1776 - Thomas, son of Richard & Catherine Venn of Old Street Road.

A Rev. Richard Venn was buried on 20.2.1738 at St. Antholin's, Budge Street.

There were Winters and  Carters living in the parish of St. Mary, Magdalen, Bermondsey as well as William Flower so the folowing marriage is interesting:

John Venn = Elizabeth Winter at St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey in 1804.

The Venns were clergymen since the Reformation and were descendants of William Venn, vicar of Otterton, Devon (1600-1621).  Henry Venn and his son John were both vicars at Clapham which was a marsh drained in 1751 and the haunt of footpads and highwaymen.  Henry used to go on shooting trips on the Common and wrote:

"As soon as we were married we lived at Clapham in Surrey, a favourite village where many London merchants, having acquired fortunes, chose their country seats desiring in general only to enjoy themselves."

Henry and his son John were members of the Clapham Sect or Saints, one of whom was William Wilberforce.  Wilberforce's friend, Thomas Fowell Buxton (founder of the RSPCA) made a speech at Mansion House for distressed Spitalfields weavers who were put out of work owing to the import of Indian cotton and muslin.  There were mulberry trees at the parsonage at Clapham.

Henry Venn was vicar of Horsley, Clapham and Yelling.  The last was presented to him by Lady Smythe, widow of Chief Baron Smythe.  She left the advowson of Bidborough to his son John Venn and legacies to his children.  The Venns were related to the Elliots and also had relatives in Camberwells.  John Venn was born in Clapham and later moved back there in 1792.  He went to school in Hull where he met William Wilberforce of a Hull merchant family in 1773.  John Venn was tutor to Robert and Charles, sons of Charles Grant, Governor General of India. 

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