An infamous reverend?

St Vedast, Foster Lane

The church St Gregory in Fledborough, a hamlet by the banks of the River Trent seems a world away from our family's roots in southern and eastern England, and yet my journey back through time on the Sherwood branch of my father's side of the family has led me to this quiet backwater on the Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire border. The vicar of this remote parish was Reverend William Sweetapple, my 7x great-grandfather.

William, the son of John Sweetapple, and his wife, Amy; was born in London on 28th March 1688 and baptised at St Vedast, Foster Lane on 10th April. The church survived the Great Fire, but the damage sustained during the disaster was severe enough for repairs to be carried out between 1695 and 1701. Brother John born a year later and sister Amy the following year.During his childhood he would have witnessed the nearby edifice of St Paul's Cathedral slowly rising from the ashes of the fire to be completed in 1708

William was admitted to Balliol College, Oxford on 21st June 1705. He graduated in 1709 with a BA, but stayed on at Oxford and graduated with an MA on 16th January 1712 at the age of 23. His career in the church began later that year when he was ordained as a deacon at Christchurch cathedral, Oxford on 16th May. Six weeks later, on 29th June, he was at Bishopsthorpe Palace in York being ordained as a priest and he was appointed as the rector of Fledborough.

Family tree from great-grandmother, Charlotte Sherwood, back to to William Sweetapple

Fledborough's population of just 60 people meant he would have to wait until 1715 before performing his first marriages at the parish church of St Gregory. Two more marriages took place in 1717, and then on 23rd June 1721 his own marriage, to Elizabeth Chapman, took place there.

Their first son, William was born in 1724, but sadly died at the age of 2. He was buried in the churchyard on 13th 1726. That same year, they had a daughter, Amy and in the years that followed they had 3 more children; Elizabeth (1729), Edward (1731), Caroline (1733) and John.

His father died in 1727 and may have received a substantial inheritance. That same year he took local landowner and nobleman Evelyn Pierrepont, 2nd Duke of Kingston, to court in a dispute over tithes, glebe land and right of common. The action, brought at Serjeant's Inn in London's Fleet Street, succeeded and he was permitted to assert his right to the glebe land and right of common.

Legal action at Serjeant's Inn

Between his marriage and his death in 1755, Rev. Sweetapple performed a further 8 marriages for which the banns had been called conventionally in church, but during this period he also solemnised an astounding 488 marriages by means of licences which he had issued himself, having been empowered by the bishop to issue surrogate ecclesiastical marriage licences in 1728. As you can imagine, this ruffled a few feathers in within the church establishment. Writing in 1950, Frank West, the Archdeacon of Newark said ‘gradually it became known that in this snug little hamlet on the banks of the Trent, an ideal spot for a clandestine marriage, there was an obliging parson who would grant a licence without asking awkward questions at the rectory one moment, and perform the marriage ceremony in the church at the bottom of his garden ten minutes later…From Bawtry to Bingham and from Mansfield to Newark, every apprentice who was plotting to run away with his master’s daughter, every reckless young scapegrace who had persuaded an heiress to elope with him knew that he would find a willing accomplice in the…rascally Mr Sweetapple’.

Despite the accusations, research shows the truth may have been somewhat more prosaic. It is true that several spouses came from considerable distances to marry in Fledborough, such as William Belyeat from the Isle of Ely; Robert Slainey, a widowed brick-maker, from Bolsover; Francis Spencer, a joiner, from York, Lydia Style from Buckinghamshire and Anne Calvert from Doncaster. However, these were the exceptions. 33% of grooms and 38% of brides came from within five miles of Fledborough, and only 4% of grooms and 3% of brides originated from more than twenty miles distant. The average ages at which the licensees married was also fairly typical for the period, being 26 for men and 24 for women, so it was not the case that only young people were flocking to Fledborough. There were also relatively few of the gentry, and at the opposite end of the social spectrum, few labouring people – the majority of his clients appear to have been relatively local, middling farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen. Interestingly, there were 4 mariners, 2 ferrymen, a bargeman, a waterman, and a sea-captain, pointing to Fledborough’s location near the River Trent.

The marriages solemnised by Rev. Sweetapple were ‘clandestine’ in the strictest sense of the word, in that they probably breached aspects of matrimonial law, particularly the canon which stated that either the husband or wife should live in the parish where the wedding took place. The marriages he performed by licence infringed these rules, but the ecclesiastical authorities must have turned a ‘blind eye’ to his activities and he was never accused of malpractice.

The reason so many people went to the considerable trouble of marrying at Fledborough remains an enigma. Sweetapple may have a had a reputation for being more accomodating, or he may have charged less for the licence, but Outhwaite concludes that ‘it may also be the case that the chief attraction was Fledborough's relative isolation: it was off the beaten track. If privacy was the quality licence seekers most desired, then this lowly populated Trent-side parish could certainly offer it’. It's not clear how Sweetapple himself benefited. He died a relatively wealthy man and in his will left £500 and silver to his daughter Elizabeth, £200 and more silver to his daughter Caroline, silver to his son John and land to his son Edward and smaller monetary gifts to his son-in-law and grand-daughter.

Sweetapple died in 1755, the year after the surrogate power to issue ecclesiastical marriage licences had been withdrawn. He and his wife are buried in the church.

St Gregory, Fledborough, Nottinghamshire

From silk weaver to pewterer - the story of Matthew Collier

My 4× great-grandfather, Matthew Delves Collier was born on 14 November 1797 in Shoreditch, Middlesex, the first born child of William Delves Collier, a silk weaver, and his wife Eleanor. He was baptised on 18th September 1798 at St Leonard's church Shoreditch and at the time the family were living in Spencer Street off New Inn Yard.

Baptism record (St Leonard's church, Shoreditch)

In the years that followed, the family grew quickly with the arrival of siblings Sarah, Ann, Eleanor, John and Amelia by the time he was 7 years old. The following year, the family moved the short distance to the growing suburb of Bethnal Green, and by the time he was 16, in the year 1814, he had 5 more brothers and sisters: James, Thomas, George, Caroline and Jane. By then, Matthew was working at a pawnbrokers shop in Berwick Street, Soho owned by a Mr and Mrs Alders and his contribution to the family finances would have helped them keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. It must have been difficult to make ends meet and the temptation to make some easy money must have been strong. So strong that on 23rd October 1814 he stole a shirt, a handkerchief, a pair of gloves and a pipe reed from his employers. Three days after the incident, he was before a judge at the Old Bailey and was found guilty. However, after calling two witnesses that provided testament to his good character, he got away with a 1s fine and was discharged. The court transcript is below:

MATTHEW COLLIER was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 23rd of October , a shirt, value 4 s. a handkerchief, value 1 s. a pair of gloves, value 18 d. and a pipe reed, value 2 s. the property of Elizabeth Ann Alders and James Alders .

JAMES ALDERS . I am a pawnbroker . The prisoner was my journeyman . I lost the things, and on the 23rd of October I found them in the prisoner's possession; I missed them from Berwick-street, Soho. On the 12th of October, a person applied for a pair of stockings pledged with us, and on searching the book, it appeared redeemed; I could not find them. I sent for an officer, and the things were found in the prisoner's box.

WILLIAM CARVEN . I am an officer. I took the prisoner into custody. The shirt and handkerchief he had on, the other articles were in his box. This is the pipe reed. I produce the property.

Prosecutor. They are my property; the pipe reed was an article that we had in the window for sale.

The prisoner called two witnesses, who gave him a good character.

GUILTY , aged 16.

Fined 1 s. and Discharged.


Second Middlesex Jury, before Mr. Recorder.

It seems that his brush with the law put him off engaging in any further criminal enterprises and less than 5 years later he was married. He wed Elizabeth Richards at St Matthews, Bethnal Green on 1/08/1819 and the couple were soon blessed with children. Their first son, Matthew Delves, was born on 11th August 1820 and he was joined by Samuel on 27th December 1821. Both sons were baptised at St Matthews, Bethnal Green and at the time, Matthew was working as a weaver and the family were living in Hope Town, a newly-built area of Bethnal Green situated to the north of Church Road/Bethnal Green Road.

Extract from Greenwood's map 1827 showing Hope Town

The family doubled with the arrival of two daughters: Eliza Elizabeth on 2nd October 1824 and Clara Louisa on 12th May 1827.

At the time, the theft of recently buried corpses was prevalent in the area. In a bid to deter the body snatchers, a watchhouse was build at the corner of St Matthews churchyard in 1826. However, with corpses for dissection being in high demand at London's teaching hospitals, the crimes continued. Nova Scotia Gardens, just a few streets away from Matthew's home, became the centre of the most notorious case of body snatching in London. In 1831, a young boy thought to be of Italian descent was seen screaming and waving for help by John King and his 11 year old sister Martha as they hung the washing out at their home in Crabtree Road. The boy was thought to be Carlo Ferrero, and came to be known as the 'Italian Boy'. He was the first known victim of the 'London Burkers'. The gang were eventually caught and the ringleaders, John Bishop and Thomas Williams, were hanged outside Newgate Prison on 5th December 1831.

The Spitalfields Acts which had protected the local silk weaving industry were repealed in 1824. This lead to an influx of cheaper silk imports from the 1820/30s which undercut the local workforce and resulted in widespread poverty. In response to this, Matthew evidently retrained as a pewterer and by 6th June 1841, the family were living above the Jolly Weavers pub at 60 Wheeler Street, Spitalfields. Matthew, his wife Elizabeth and their children (Clara) Louisa and James lived there along with the landlady's family.  

1841 census

His wife, Elizabeth, died in late 1846 and was buried at St Matthews, Bethnal Green on 31st December. The whole area was going through enormous changes at this time. Several years earlier a new railway terminus for the Eastern Counties Railway was built on the eastern side of Bishopsgate and on the late 1840s the slum housing was cleared to make way for Commercial Street that ran northwards from Whitechapel. 

At the turn of the decade, Matthew remarried. His new wife, Susan Cooper was considerably younger than him at just 29 years old. The wedding took place at St Mark's church, on the corner of Old Street and City Road, on 10th March 1850. The census taken the following year shows the couple were living at 11 Charlotte Street.

Extract from 1851 census

In the autumn of the following year, the couple had a child. Susan Collier was baptised at St Bartholomew's church, Bethnal Green on 17th October 1852. By this time the family had moved to 4 Tapp Street, close to the railway station and two doors down from a pub called The Lion, which over a century later, became associated with the Kray Twins. By this time, Susan was already suffering frequent bouts of coughing due to Phthisis (Tuberculosis). Her illness worsened as autumn turned to winter and she died at home with Matthew by her side on 13th February 1853. She was laid to rest at St Bartholomew's church on 22nd February.  

Susan Collier death certificate

St Bartholomew the Less, Bethnal Green

The following year, Matthew married for the third time. His new bride, Mary Smith, was a widow and much closer to his own age. The wedding took place at St Bartholomew's in 17th April 1854. 

Seven years later, Matthew, his wife Mary and their 8 year old daughter were living a short distance away at 47 Wilmot Street. Matthew is incorrectly named 'Joseph' on the 1861 census, but it must be him because all the other details are correct.

In the years that followed, it's likely that Matthew became progressively more forgetful and may have struggled to undertake even basic tasks. Unable to cope, his wife approached the local poor law authorities for help. After assessing his case, Matthew was removed from his home at 18 Seabright Street in 1870 to the local workhouse infirmary and after a short stay there, was taken to he newly-built Leavesden Asylum in Hertfordshire. By October of the following year there were 739 male and 899 female patients. According to the 1881 census recorded a local population of 3,643.

1881 census - Leavesden Asylum

The 1881 census describes Matthew as a 'lunatic' and although this is a derogatory term by today's standards, in Victorian times it had more of a medical connotation. A lunatic was someone who sometimes had good and sound memory and understanding, and sometimes did not. Similarly, an imbecile was someone with the mental age of an infant.

Patients at the asylum who were capable of working were taken under strict supervision to various areas. The women worked in the laundry, needleroom and the female staff quarters. Men worked in the gardens, on the farm, in the shoemakers, tailors, upholsterers and paint shops, and in the laundry kitchen and bakehouse. Patients who were unsuitable for these jobs were employed on the wards scrubbing and corridors and stairs. 

Leavesden Asylum

Patient's clothing was made on the asylum premises: men's corduroy suits in the tailor's shop, and women's dresses in the needleroom. Neckerchiefs were issued to the men and bonnets and shawls to the women. At night, all clothing was taken out of the dormitory and kept in a room at the end of the ward. The men wore day shirts and vests at night. 

Recreation was considered an important part of the patient's life. However, discipline was strict. The sexes were segregated, apart from the weekly dance and chapel service, but even then, women were made to sit on one side and men on the other.

Register of death

The asylum was Matthew's world for the last 16 years of his life until his death due to bronchitis on 24th December 1886 at the age of 89. He had probably been suffering from dementia for around 20 years, a disease which may have been caused by working with pewter, which in those days, contained lead.