The Friends of Historic Essex (FHE), the charity that supports the work of the ERO, has recently purchased for the ERO the will of Benjamin Chipperton of Little Bromley (to the north east of Colchester). While it is a modest will of a carpenter we are very pleased to receive it because we do not have a copy of his will in among the 70,000 or so wills that we look after. Thanks to their generosity it is now available for all to look at in the Searchroom. Since it arrived Archive Assistant Gail Sanders has been finding out more about Benjamin Chipperton…
After the purchase of Benjamin Chipperton’s will (Acc. A14021 Box 1) written on the 28th August 1795, I have been able to draw up a family tree and look into a small part of village and family life in the late 18th and early 19th century. As mentioned below this document could be one of a number of documents that have been split up and I have been unable to pinpoint the exactly location of the messuages and cottages owned and mentioned in the will.
Since there are so many Benjamin Chippertons involved in the tale below we shall refer to them as follows:
- Benjamin senior – our main Benjamin’s father
- Benjamin junior – the Benjamin who wrote the will at hand
- Benjamin III – Benjamin junior’s son
- Benjamin IV – Benjamin III’s son
Benjamin Chipperton junior was baptised on the 4th March 1738, the son of Benjamin Chipperton senior and his wife Elizabeth. Benjamin junior’s first wife was Susan Winter; together they had two sons, another Benjamin, and then James. Susan died a year after James’s birth. Benjamin junior remarried on 17 November 1774 to Hannah Cook of Little Bentley.
Benjamin junior’s will highlights his career as a carpenter, as the main items mentioned are his workshop and tools. It also makes clear his hope or expectation that his son Benjamin III would take over the business; he was left the family home, household goods, workshop and tools.
The will mentions only modest amounts of money: Benjamin junior left £1 to his wife for every year she lived but remained unmarried, and £5 to his second son James on the year of his death and the year after. The old money converter from the National Archives suggests that in the 1790s £1 was 6 days of a craftsman wages, and £5 was 33 days.
However, all was not to work out just as Benjamin junior might have planned. From the Little Bromley parish registers (viewable on Essex Ancestors) we learn that three generations of Chipperton men all died within five years: Benjamin Senior was buried on 23 September 1795, Benjamin junior died in 1798, and his son Benjamin III was buried on 15 June 1800.
Benjamin III was, however, survived by his son Benjamin IV (born 1799), with whom the family’s fortunes did revive a little. He survived to adulthood and married Maria Cook (her second husband) and went on to have a family of 7 children. He did, however, die in 1843 aged just 44. (Maria went on to marry her third husband, Robert Porter, and can be found on the 1851 census.)
If you have managed to keep up with all the Benjamins through to the end of this post then well done – and just as a bonus one of the witnesses to the will was also a Benjamin, although at least with a different last name (Carrington).
It appears that Benjamin junior’s will might be part of a bundle of documents that have been split up for sale, including a mortgage for a cottage and land in Little Bromley, 1795, and a lease for a carpenter’s workshop (now divided into two properties) and land in Great Bromley, 1827. Does anyone know of the whereabouts of these to help us add to the story of the Chipperton family? We’d love to hear from you! We can be contacted on ero.enquiry[@]essex.gov.uk
To support the work of the FHE, or if you would like to make a donation to their document purchase fund, please see: http://www.essexinfo.net/friends-of-historic-essex/
PS Remember that digital copies of more than half of our wills are now available to view on Essex Ancestors
