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Reverend William ADAMTHWAITE (1779 – 1849) son of Thomas
Adamthwaite and his wife Mary (Pearson)
In 1826
Rev. William Adamthwaite was the Vicar of West Stockwith, a pleasant
village on the West bank of the Trent – 4 miles NNW of Gainsborough
at the southern extremity of the Isle of Axholme. It contained 90
houses & 618 inhabitants. A fair was held annually on the 4 (wk??)
of September for horses and horned cattle. In 1714 a ships’
carpenter left by will certain lands and 740 pounds in money for the
purpose of building a Chapel of Ease for the maintenance of a
minister and for erecting 10 cottages for the village, each to
receive 10 pounds per annum. He also directed the sum of 5 pounds
to be paid to a schoolmaster for the children of shipwrights and
seamen to read and write. In 1826 there were William Farr shipsmith,
William Cullwood, Mariner, Robert Brown mariner in the village.
In 1841 the Rev. W. Adamthwaite was still the Vicar.
There were
Bomforth and Taylor boat builders, Thomas Wagstaff boat owner and
Wm. Waterhouse wharfinger.
In 1826 Goods
carried by water to Retford Wed. & Sat. 5am returning ˝ past 8 in the
evening. Gainsborough Tuesday and Thursday 8am to 6pm. Goods also
conveyed by the Chesterfield Canal to Retford.
But as
well as his parish, Rev William also had an interest in the
Academy at Winton, run by his brother, Rev
John Adamthwaite, or so it appears from
the advertisements placed in the Times (see Press articles).
In 1818,
William married Sarah Flower in Misterton, and they had three children: Edwin,
Emma and William (though the youngest, William, died at the age of
three). It is possible that the two older children were named
after the ill-fated lovers in the then popular 'Ballad of Edwin and
Emma' by David Mallett.
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The tragedy was based on a real life event which took place
in Bowes (where Rev William's brother Rev Joseph was curate
from 1797 to 1810) and the young lovers are buried in Bowes
churchyard.
The Bowes Parish Records record the real-life tragedy thus:
"Roger Wrightson, jun and Martha Railton, both of Bowes,
buried on one grave; he died in a fever; and upon hearing
his passing bell, she cried out, My heart is broke, and in a
few hours expired supposed thro' love, March 15th 1714, aged
about 20 years each"
You can read the Ballad of Edwin and
Emma, courtesy of Google Books,
here.
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From census information, it
looks as if Sarah and William may have separated, as in the 1841
census Rev William is living in West Stockwith, but his wife
Sarah was living in Frances St, Kingston upon Hull with her married
daughter Emma Raynes and her son Edwin was also living there.
Sarah Adamthwaite died
at 2 Bickley Road in
Rotherhithe, London in January 1846 aged 56 years, the cause of
death was 'Hypertrophy of the heart, several years' and the person
who reported her death was Mary Thorndike, present at the death, of
Cow Lane Rotherhithe. Perhaps she was living in Rotherhithe
with her daughter, as Emma's son William Adamthwaite Raynes was born
in Rotherhithe the following year.
Rev William died in May 1949 at
West Stockwith aged 69 years, occupation Clergyman, cause of death
decay of nature. The death was reported by his daughter Emma
Raynes, present at the death.
Whilst Emma went on to a life in
America (see Miscellany 3) her brother Edwin seems to have been
passed around the family! In 1851 he was living in Winton
with his aunt Hannah Burrell. We have not found him in the
1861 census, but we did find an Edwin Adamthwaite of the right
age on a passenger ship to America in September of 1851. Did he
travel to visit his sister?
In 1871
Edwin was back in England living
with his cousin Ann Lord in Winton and in 1881 with his
cousin William Burrell in Winton (in all these entries he was
described as an annuitant, or of 'independent means' - so clearly
his father left him financially independent - see Rev William's
will.
By the time of the 1891
census, Edwin was a patient in St Cuthbert's Lunatic Asylum in
Whitehaven, Cumberland and later that year he died there.
We have found a reference to a
poem written 'to Edwin Adamthwaite Esquire' by a Jarvis William
Close (who was also a patient at St Cuthberts), and have requested a
copy from the Bodleian Library Oxford.
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