Dear Totally Leicr,
Are you still stuck with the Gibbinses? I have been digging into them lately and I believe the key to your George, Ann (Bishop/Hughes) and Henry - and a Thomas - lie in the two P.C.C. Gibbins wills, one for Thomas Gibbins of Hallaton died 1796, and one for Henry Gibbins died 1838. You can download them direct from NAO. The Archdeaconry mainly don't help to unscramble your particular logjam with the Johnsons, but the PCC Thomas 1796 I think does.
Basically I think Thomas Gibbins (d 1796) married Elizabeth Ward 24 March 1753 at Blaston, and had Elizabeth (1755), Thomas (1756), William (1759), Jane (1761), Mary (1763), Henry (1765 - who died in 1838 and wrote a will), John (1767), Sarah (1770) and Robert (1772) - ! Elizabeth m Francis Osborn 1792: Jane married William Greenwood and had four children, the first three of them at Stamford, Lincs (1781) and the fourth, (James), at Ketton by Tixover in Rutland: Sarah had an unofficial son Richard and Robert had a son William.
The two important children of old Thomas for you are
(1) Thomas 1756, who married Elizabeth (I think it must be Elizabeth Dixon) at Hallaton in 1781 and had a huge string of children starting in 1782 - something like 17 of them - of whom nearly all died in infancy. However the second and third are George (bp 2 Feb 1783 Hallaton) and Ann (bp 14 Apr 1784) (I think, later Ann Hughes, then Ann Bishop), Thomas (bp 23 May 1788) and HENRY (you were looking for a Henry there, and I said we'd have to invent him!!) baptized 21 Dec 1800. [Ann 1782 was the first child and a mortality 1782, and there was an infant Henry in 1793]. The Thos & Eliz infant mortalities come right down in a continuous annual run to January 1800, so there is no problem with the gap in date between Thomas and Henry. In 1796, old Thomas in his will (codicil) refers to his three grandchildren by his eldest son Thomas, namely George Ann and Thomas - evidently as Henry is not yet born.
(2) Then there is Old Thomas's daughter Mary (1763). She made two marriages, both in Hallaton. The first is to John Ward a farmer (8 July 1783), and there are 7 children, mostly girls, of whom the only male to survive is Bryan (25 April 1791). He lived til 1855. But John Ward died around 1796 (Jane 1795 is his last child), and then Mary Gibbins (really by then, WARD, but married using her maiden name) married Thomas Johnson on 26 Nov 1798, and they had four children as well, namely Thomas (14 July 1799), William (5 Oct 1800), Ann Jane (27. June 1802) and Lucy (23 June 1805 - she died in 1839).
Then according to Henry Gibbins's will of 1838, (i.e. Mary Gibbins/Ward/Johnson's brother) his nephew Thomas Johnson (1799) also had a daughter called Ann Johnson.
For Ann Gibbins to be the aunt of your George Gibbins who is the miller at Thurmaston, George's father Henry has to be Ann's (much) younger brother Henry Gibbins (21.Xii.1800) and therefore his wife is Ann Jane Johnson (27,VI.1802).
It would therefore go like this:
* Old Thomas is the grandfather
* Thomas (1756) his son married Elizabeth Dixon 1781, Ann 1784 was their daughter, and Henry 1800 their much younger son.
* Mary (1763) sister of Thos 1756 married Thomas Johnson (her second husband) Hallaton 1798, and Ann Jane 1802 was her daughter.
* Henry son of Thomas and Elizabeth married his first cousin Ann Jane Johnson daughter of Thomas and Mary.
* George the miller of Thurmaston was the son of Henry and Ann Jane, and therefore the nephew of Ann (Gibbins/Hughes/Bishop), his father's elder sister.
Q.E.D.?
If you go for this, I THINK I can link you back to Henry Gibbins who died 1672.
PS Having said all that, it is still not DEFINITE that that is who Henry was. The 1838 Testator (Uncle Henry) makes a bequest to Ann Jane (Johnson) Gibbins his niece, but protects it from her husband's use or Coverture specifically. He names the husband as Henry Gibbins, Grazier, of Hallaton, but doesn't leave him anything, though he does make bequests to Ann Bishop - whom he identifies as his brother Thomas Gibbins's daughter - and to her brother Thomas, but not to her brother George. So Henry, if he was indeed that brother of Ann's, doesn't get his own bequest, and is prevented from making use of Ann Jane's little windfall. She, on the other hand, gets quite a good mention as she not only has the annual dividends from an investment of £150, for life, or until she chooses to dissolve the investment, not liable to the controul, debts or engagements of her present or any future husband, but later on in the will she also gets a separate lump sum bequest of £50.
All this doesn't rule out Henry being Ann's younger brother, but it does pose the question why uncle Henry didn't leave him anything if so. Perhaps he was inclined to debt and they preferred to make sure that Ann Jane was going to be provided for.
Anyhow there is much to ponder and follow up here.
