In the BeginningLast updated May 1999 |
| Richard
& Peter Hitchcock
The Search for Origins |
Richard and Peter
Hitchcock
Every person living in Lancashire or Cheshire, named Hedgecock or Hedgcock and recorded in the 1881 census, with the exception of two individuals, one born in Yorkshire, the other in Middlesex, and one family originating in Hampshire, was descended from or related by marriage to either Peter or Richard Hitchcock both of whom were living in Warrington, Lancashire in the 1780s and 1790s.
Early Warrington Records From
the Warrington, St.Elphin burial details it appears that Peter Hitchcock
was born about 1756 and if Richard married in his early twenties he
would have been born in the early 1750s but there is no record of either
christening at St.Elphin’s. Peter
and Richard and their children however were not the only Hitchcocks
living in Warrington during the 18th.century.
The marriage of Elizabeth Hitchcock to Joseph Rylance, a
fisherman and mariner, is recorded at St.Elphin’s in 1771 and they had
six children, including twins, who were christened there by 1780, but
four of these died in early infancy.
If we assume that Elizabeth was in her late teens or early
twenties when she married, she was born in the late 1740s or early 1750s
and it is tempting to conclude that Elizabeth, Peter and Richard were
siblings. Again there is no
record of Elizabeth’s birth or christening. The
burials of two adults at St.Elphin’s are of interest. John Hitchcock, a fishmonger, died in 1782 aged 70 and Betty
Hitchcock, a widow aged 75, died in 1790.
There is no indication that John and Betty were married and their
ages suggest that they were rather old to have been the immediate
parents of Elizabeth, Peter and Richard. A
single entry appears for the christening of Mary Ann, daughter of Robert
Wilson Hitchcock and his wife Sarah in 1766.
In the bishop’s transcripts of St.Elphin Robert appears to have
the unlikely occupation of “comedien”.
There is no earlier record of this family and the impression is
of a family arriving in Warrington about this time.
If there is a relationship between Robert and Elizabeth, Peter
and Richard, is Robert the father bringing with him teenage children or
is he an older brother. Further
what if any is the relationship to John and Betty. In
the 1730s Thomas Hiscock and his wife Margaret had a son, Thomas, and
five Hiccock marriages were recorded between 1730 and 1758 but it
appears that the baptisms of the father or fathers of Peter, Richard and
Elizabeth must be found outside Warrington or at least outside
St.Elphin’s Top of PageThe Search for Origins How
then did Richard and Peter, Elizabeth and Robert arrive in the
Lancashire market town of Warrington in the second half of the 18th.century
and where were they born? It
seems logical to investigate the records in those localities close to
Warrington where Hitchcocks are to be found at the same time that
Richard and Peter were living in the town and earlier.
The town of Warrington is situated on the north bank of the
Mersey which formed the boundary at that time between the County
Palatines of Lancaster and Chester.
It is about midway between Manchester and Liverpool being about
15 miles from each. The regions adjacent therefore are Cheshire to the
south and the south west corner of Lancashire to the north. Richard
and Peter were raising families from the late 1770s to 1790s.
Their contemporaries included Daniel Hitchcock who married Hannah
Martin at the Cathedral Church of Manchester in 1789, Joshua who married
a widow, Mary Sanders, in 1790 also at the Cathedral where a year later
he married Sarah Ogden with whom he had three children in nearby
Wilmslow in Cheshire. The
Cathedral records also refer to a Thomas Hitchcock whose daughter Mary
was baptised in March 1793. A
Thomas Hitchcock and his wife Ann also had a child baptised at
St.Mary’s Church, Stockport, contiguous to Manchester, in October of
the same year, 1793, and a Thomas and Ann later had five children
baptised at the Cathedral between 1802 and 1811. Meanwhile
in neighbouring Cheshire a John Hitchcock and his wife Elizabeth had a
son, John, baptised at St.Michael’s Church, Macclesfield in 1773, and
in the parish of Acton by Nantwich a Robert Hitchcock married Mary
Watkin in 1786. Also about four miles from Nantwich at St.Margaret’s
Church in Wrenbury a Sophia Maria Hitchcock married Thomas Ashley in
1771. Even closer to Warrington the marriage of Joseph Hitchcock and
Betty Benson took place in 1798 in the parish of Winwick which is
virtually a suburb of Warrington on its northern border.
If born about 1778 Joseph could be an early son of Peter as we do
not know the date of his marriage to Rachel, nor if Thomas, born in
1781, was their first child. Of
a similar age to Richard and Peter would be Elizabeth Hitchcock,
baptised in 1757 in Ormskirk, some 20 miles north west of Warrington, to
parents Luke and Jane. 2. Earlier HitchcocksWhen we look for slightly earlier Hitchcocks we find a significant number around the Nantwich area in Cheshire. Robert and Sophia Maria have already been mentioned. In the Parish of Nantwich itself an Elizabeth Hitchcock married James Pemberton in 1750 and the baptism of one child was recorded. Mary Hitchcock married John Willett in 1748 and there are two known children of the union. Also Richard Hitchcock married Elizabeth Savage in 1744 and they had a daughter Sarah baptised in 1750, and finally in Nantwich Sarah, the wife of John Hitchcock, a soldier, died in 1742. In
nearby Spurstow in the Parish of Bunbury, Thomas Hitchcock, a yeoman
farmer, died in 1744 but while his will refers to several surviving
grand-children none bore the name Hitchcock.
It is interesting to note that although in his will he asks to be
buried in Bunbury Churchyard there is no evidence of his burial.
A stone confirming that Sarah the wife of Thomas Hitchcock of
Spurstow who died in 1728/9 was buried there adds to the mystery. It
is also of particular interest that the names John, Richard, Thomas,
Elizabeth and Mary, admittedly common Christian names at that time were
all used by Richard and Peter when naming their children. Meanwhile
in Lancashire, a Thomas Hitchcock had a daughter, Mary baptised in
1740/1 in West Derby, now a part of Liverpool and further north in
Leyland in 1727/8 a Mary Hitchcock had a daughter, also named Mary
baptised. In
the City of Chester at St.Peter’s Church a Thomas Hitchcock married
Sarah Finchett in 1758. An
earlier family of Hitchcocks were to be found in Frodsham in Cheshire
where Martha Hitchcock married Henry Abbott in 1722 and where much
earlier John Hitchcock married Anne Astbrooke in 1617 and had a son John
baptised in 1620.While there were many Hiccocks around Chester in the 17th.
and 18th.centuries I have not considered these as possible
ancestors. However, in view of the above records the marriage of Ellen
Hiccock and Joseph Asbrooke in Frodsham in 1583/4 may be significant. Finally in Burton in the Wirral, the strip of Cheshire between the Rivers Dee and Mersey, a Thomas Hitchcock married a Jahne Meloose in 1686.
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