The Diary of Nathaniel Bryceson Revisited

[Ruskie]

Yes, that one looks promising. He must have died because:

9 June 1803 -
John Shepard born
chr 3 July 1803
Old Church St Pancras
father: John, mother: Mary

This is Uncle John from Nat's diary.

It does make you wonder if Nathaniel would have known about any which had died in infancy. I suppose Granny Sheppard must have just told him she'd had 11? 

[Jo A]

Another interesting character here..

'There's a picture of my grandmother's parson, Mr William Huntington.

He was a labourer in Kent.  He was of a serious turn of mind and alarmed about his soul and salvation and all that - and when he and a few others used to meet on Sunday he discovered he had powers he wasn't aware of.

He became the greatest spokesman there and got looked up to.'

'He came to London and married the widow of a Lord Mayor.  My grandmother was never done telling me about him - he was before my chapel days - and she used to tell me how he carried on when his enemy John Wesley died. 'Now,' she heard him say, 'is the arch-dragon fallen!'

Think theres three sections to go now.

[alpinecottage]

There's this article in Wiki about William Huntington - not my cup of tea, but very popular in his day - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Huntington_%28preacher%29

[Ruskie]

This more or less confirms my theory that Nathaniel got religion later in life, because he mentions that Mr Huntington was "before his chapel days". As I said in an earlier post, I didn't get the impression that Nathaniel was a particularly keen churchgoer in 1846. He accompanied people to church and I remember reading that he "left before the service".

I'm off to read alpinecottage's wiki link. 
So Huntington 'saw the light'  - not surprising considering his early life. He's definitely not my cup of tea either. 

[Jo A]

If Huntington was a Baptist minister and grandmother became a Baptist, could this explain why there's no christenings recorded for any younger children?  Anyway here's another 'man of the cloth.'

'The Rev William Romaine, who was a minister at St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe Church, Blackfriars, marred my grandmother.

'The old church was burned in the Great Fire of London, and in the new one, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, a monument was erected to Romaine.'

[alpinecottage]

All you wanted to know about Rev Romaine and more besides; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Romaine

I meant to say before, Nathaniel seems to have been accurate in what he said about these gentlemen, judging by Wiki!, so  I imagine the other details he gives are accurate too.

[Ruskie]

Agree with you alpine. Nathaniel is spot on with everything he says.

And yes, we already know that Granny Sheppard married at St Andrew by the Wardrobe. 

I was going to ask if anyone can explain why Nathaniel refers to churches as 'chapels'? Is it non CofE churches? Jo A, it is a good idea to check other church records for the rest of Granny Sheppard's children. Would these be classed as non conformist?

[Jo A]

I'm pretty sure 'chapel' refers to non-Conformist churches.  If Granny Sheppard become a follower of William Huntington it looks like he set up a Baptist congregation and they wouldn't have christened their babies at all.  I don't know how this affects the birth records.  It looks as if Nathaniel may have become a chapel goer later in life.  I think as a self-taught scholar he would have found more recognition in a non-conformist setting than the more middle class Anglican world.

Here's the penultimate installment

A QUEEN ANNE WATCH

'Here are some more old things in this drawer.  There's my old school medal won in 1837.  Seems a long time ago!  Here's a Queen Anne watch - feel the weight of it.  What - two hundred years old.  Goes quite well now, and I got it for a dozen shillings.'

[Ruskie]

Thanks for that explanation Jo A. I think there must be some non conformist records available. Like you, I'm not sure whether or not their births would have been registered. I will have to post a question about it. I don't know anything about non-conformist records.

Today's snippet is very interesting. (What I wouldn't do to be able to go through Nathaniel's drawers -I can imagine the stuff he would have collected over the years ). We often speculated about Nathaniel's education. He was obviously bright and had received an education of some sort, but I think mainly self taught. We wondered if the Lea family had paid for his schooling. I am not at all surprised that he won a school medal in 1837. 

That's got me wondering about school records - depending on where he went to school -I suppose there may be records which have survived.