KG1 Family Lineage of The Kingdom Sisters

The Family Lineage of The Kingdom Sisters

Mary, Ann, Elizabeth, Sarah and Sophia

The Final Story of Their Family Trilogy

They Called Launceston Cornwall Home

Discover Launceston

Walk around the narrow streets of Launceston and you get a real sense of the town’s ancient history. Up on the hill is a Norman castle and nearby prison, where notables including George Fox of the Quaker movement was imprisoned. Overlooking the rolling countryside, you can see remains of the defensive wall that once circled the town, there’s a 14th century gatehouse into the old town and tucked away below the castle is a row of grand houses that Sir John Betjeman described as the loveliest Georgian street in Cornwall.

https://www.visitcornwall.com/places/launceston

The Kingdom Family of Launceston Cornwall

The arms of Kingdon - Arg. a chev. sa. between three magpies ppr. appear on one of the shields of the coffins in church at Quithiock

The Kingdon family are an old and respectable family of the counties of Cornwall and Devon.  Their most ancient residence, of which there is now any authentic account, was at Trehunsey, in the parish of Quithiock, Cornwall, where they flourished in the 12th, 13th 14th and 15th centuries.  In the parish church of Quithiock is a cross aisle, on the southern side belonging to the ancient mansior and manor of Trehunscy, with the family vault underneath, near which stands and antique marble monument on which are the brass effigies of Roger Kingdon, who died 1402, Joanna, his wife, and fifteen children, then sons and five daughters, with four shields of arms.

The younger sons of this numerous family dispersed and branched forth into several parishes in the counties of Cornwall and Devon.

William Kingdon, son of Roger was one of the representatives in parliament for the Borough of Liskcard, in the 31st Henry VI, and Edward Kingdon, his eldest son was in the first year of the reign of Edward IV, appointed bailie or praefect of the county of Surrey.  This Edward was subsequently elected M.P. for Liskeard, a borough he continued to represent in many successive parliaments.

Descendants of Roger Kingdon

The names were spelt in the old style, with many variations.

The earliest records in the Launceston area of Cornwall refer to Gawyn Kingdon, born 1540, who married Emme Cosen.   Early research indicates he was the son of Richard Kingdon.

Their children were

1.     1.        Thomas Kingdon                     1579
2.      Richard Kingdon                      1569
3.      Sampson Kingdon                    1574
4.      Honour Kingdon                       1576
5.      John Kingdon                           1571

John Kingdon married Alice Sergent  1544 - 1623, and their son Thomas Kingdon begins this lineage.

Thomas Kingdon was born 1590 in Cornwall and died 1672 

Their children were

1.    1.     Richard Kingdon          1617     1709                 m         Edith Martin
2.      Beaton Kingdon           1618     1689                 m         Chris Garrensee
3.      John Kingdon               1620     1684                 m         Sarah Orchard
4.      Jone Kingdom              1623                             m         Peter Palmer
5.      Elizabeth Kingdon        1625                             m         Thomas Gache

John Kingdon and Sarah Orchard 1622 - 1684

Their children were

1.   1.       John Kingdon               1645     1645
2.      Thomas Kingdome       1646 -   1700    m         Esther Langdon
3.      Lewis Kingdome           1650  -  1731
4.      Walter Kingdon                        1653 -   1731    m  Thomasine Harvey
5.      Elizabeth Kingdon        1655     1657
6.      Sara Kingdome             1657     1657

Walter Kingdon m Thomasine Harvey

Their children

1.   1.      Thomasine Kingdon                 1675
2.      Mary Kingdon                          1680
3.      Alice Kingdon                          1682
4.      Sarah Kingdon                          1684
5.      John Kingdom                          1689 - 1749

.

John Kingdom m Jane Barriball  1688 - 1762

Their children were

1.      1.     Mary Kingdom             1715
2.      Jane Kingdom              1716
3.      Walter Kingdom           1717 -  1749
4.      William Kingdom         1717    1783   m  Joan Sprye   -  The Kingdom Sisters Lineage
5.      John Kingdom              1719     1739

Jane Barriball was the daughter of Henry Barriball and Ann Cernicke.  The family centered around Northill Cornwall.

William Barriball                      1587 - 1634    married Grace Kirbye  1588 -  1626

Their son Henry Barriball          c 1620

His    son Henry Barriball          c 1650  married Ann Cernicke 

The family were shopkeepers in the 1900s.

The lineage in Cornwall can be confirmed in an online book  - The Kingdom Family

and the early history at "A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain, Volume 2 By John Burke   1849

www.idealectic.com/idealectic/KingdonFamily.pdf

Background

Being able to place different members of the Kingdom family into the lineage, is rather difficult, unless reference is made to records and books written in the 1800's, and without the help of a family tree.

A search of Kingdom, provides hundreds of references, to a Kingdom! 

The Kingdoms in Launceston were ship owners, or involved in shipping, and merchants.  That seems to have followed down the lineages, to William Kingdom.

Some unaccounted Kingdoms reveal that in the 1560's some were Yoemen, some the Constable of the Launceston Castle, others Carpenters, and a William Kingdom born 1760 was in the Third Royal Veterans Battalion, discharged in 1811.  But every lineage followed naming patters, resulting in cousins being named the same from each family.

William Kingdom was a member of Plymouth Dock Freemasons after 1768

By researching each of the lineages of Sprye, Mudge and Kingdom, there appears at different times, cross links to various family members.

Without the benefit of the extended family tree, those links would go unnoticed.

One such link is between Katherine Archer 1770 who married John Williams.

Their daughter was Ann Eva Williams who married William Kingdom Rains. His mother was Ann Kingdom who was the sister of Sarah Kingdom.  William Rains was the first cousin of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Mudge Marchant.

Then Katherine Archer's cousin was Lieut Colonel Edward Archer of the 3rd Foot Guards. His son, her second cousins was Lieut Edward Archer was born 8 November 1816. Educated at Oriel College, Oxford (matriculated 1834). DL and JP for Cornwall. Colonel of Duke of Cornwall's Rifle Volunteers. Chairman of the South Devon Railway.

The Launceston and South Devon Railway Company remained independent until 1873 when it was amalgamated with the South Devon Railway Company. The South Devon Railway‘s dalliance with Brunel’s ill fated atmospheric railway from Exeter to Totness in 1847 nearly bankrupted the company and from then onwards always struggled financially . The London and South Western Railway’s opening of a competing route between Exeter and Plymouth in 1874 prompted the South Devon Railway to seek a merger with the Great Western Railway in 1876.

However, Katherine's cousin Lieut Colonel Edward Archer was the son of Dorothy Ayre Yonge who was the sister of Rev. James Yonge.  His wife was Ann Mudge b 1748 was the daughter of Dr John Mudge and Mary Bulteel and she married Rev. James Yonge.

 She was the niece of Thomas Mudge the inventor b 1717.

Certainly strong family ties!

Robert Mudge Marchant (1820-1902) was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's assistant from 1838 to 1846 (Great Western, Bristol, Exeter and South Devon Railways); from 1846-49 he was on the Oxford-Worcester and Wolverhampton Railways. He was elected A.M. Inst. C.E. in 1849. From 1849-1855 he was a contractor for railway and hydraulic works; from 1855 to 1860 he was superintending and later Engineer-in-Chief for railways in Brazil. From 1860-63 he was Railways Supervisor in Victoria (Australia). He was Railway Engineer for Southland Railways (NZ) early in 1863 and on 1 March 1863 was also Town Board Engineer, Invercargill.

Things did not go to plan, and Robert Marchant was almost bankrupted over the event.  He had outlaid enormous sums, which were not being paid.  The result was a riot!

The opening of the line (Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton) southward from Evesham had been delayed, not by the fighting but by the extraordinary floods of the 1882-3 winter, which had caused serious damage to the timber bridge over the Avon at Aldington and large slips at several places, the worst near the Mickleton Tunnel. This tunnel had been a constant trouble from its commencement in the summer of 1846. A few months later Brunel had to install a new contractor, and when the works were suspended in 1849 only a heading had been carried through and the brickwork begun at each end.

In June 1851, not long after their resumption, the same contractor, who was again employed, had a dispute with the Company and stopped work. The Company decided to take possession of the works and plant and hand them over to Messrs Peto & Betts to complete with the rest of the line, whereupon the Contractor defied them and kept his men on guard. Sundry skirmishes took place, and eventually, on a Friday afternoon towards the end of July, Brunel himself with his resident assistant, R. Varden, came with a considerable body of men to take possession.

Having had notice of his intention, the Contractor got two magistrates to attend, as he expected a fight. After a conference with them Brunel postponed action till the next day, ‘when the magistrates were early on the ground, attended by a large body of police armed with cutlasses. Mr Brunel was there with his men, and Mr Marchant, the Contractor, also appeared at the head of a formidable body of navigators. A conflict was expected, but happily through the prompt action of the magistrates, who twice read the Riot Act to the men, they were dispersed.’

During Sunday, Peto & Betts’ men were collected from other parts of the line, and some even from the works of the Birmingham & Oxford Railway at Warwick and elsewhere which they were constructing for the Great Western, and marched during Sunday night to the scene of action, the idea being to overawe the refractory Marchant by an overwhelming display of strength and take possession before the arrival of the Gloucestershire magistrates to spoil the fun.

The first contingent from Evesham, some 200 strong, arrived at the north end of the tunnel at 3 a.m. on Monday, and the Battle of Mickleton began. It is difficult to gather from contemporary narratives just what did occur in the course of the argument, during which reinforcements to Brunel’s Army kept pouring in from all quarters till at last it was 2,000 strong.

According to one account several heads and limbs were broken, some shoulders dislocated, and one hero, who produced a pistol, ’was seized upon and his skull nearly severed in two’ with a shovel.

 However, no one seems to have been killed, and eventually ’Marchant finding that all attempts at resistance were useless, from the vast majority in numbers of his opponents, gave in, and he and Mr Brunel adjourned in order to come to some amicable settlement’; and arbitration by Messrs Stephenson and Cubitt was agreed upon.

So the battle was over before the arrival of the troops from Coventry, who had been sent for to aid the police. In their August Report the Directors asserted that they had taken possession of Contract ’without absolute violence or injury to any individual, though the menacing conduct of the Contractor at one time rendered such an issue probable’.

The tunnel was at last completed in the spring of 1852.

The Battle of Mickleton Tunnel took place in the Vale of Evesham in 1851 when Brunel's private army of 3,000 navvies fought the army of a disgruntled contractor who was backed by the forces of the local magistrates and armed police. The contractor, Mudge-Marchant, had stopped work on the tunnel as he was owed £34,000 by the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway (commonly known as “The Old Worse and Worse”). Brunel, as company engineer, had been instructed to evict Mudge-Marchant and his men who had commandeered the site

Reference  “History of the Great Western Railway Volume I 1833-1863” by E.T. MacDermot

Another  strong fact has emerged from researching the relationships with the Spry Family and then the Mudge Family, and that is that when contemplating a marriage partner, that consideration was given to one's "social" standing.    Military marriages were extremely common, sons and daughters of Generals and Admirals, or other high officials, were sought after, as were members of the clergy.

But in the case of William Kingdom's daughters, that transcended into inventors, engineers, and spouses who made a tremendous contribution to World social history.  Their achievements are so well known, their names held in very high regard within their chosen fields.  Buildings and other structures are named in their honour.

The Kingdom sisters are

1.     1.      Jane                 1757
2.      Mary                1762 - 1856                  m  Dr Thomas Stewart   Eminent Surgeon
3.      Ann                  1764 - 1853                  m Captain Stephen Rains
4.      Elizabeth          1768 - 1856                  m Thomas Mudge
5.      Sarah                1772 - 1861                  m Thomas Dutton
6.      Sophia              1775 - 1858                  m Marc Isambard Brunel

They were the children of William Kingdom and his wife Joan Spry.

They also had five brothers

1.    1.       Edward                         1760 - 1848      was a solicitor and died at Bath UK
2.      William                        1763 - 1837      m  Hephzibah Dutton
3.      John                             1767 - 1851      m  Mary Sparshott   (no information) maybe a Tailor
4.      Benny Spry Kingdom   1768 - 1779
5.      Samuel                         1769 - 1788

All the children were baptised at St Andrew's Church Plymouth, the same Church that Dr John Mudge and Rev Zachariah Mudge were buried, and no doubt, all were known and acquainted with, in the Parish.

The Kingdom sisters were the daughter of William Kingdom. Their father was Chief Clerk of the Victualling office in London.

In the 17th century a Victualling Yard was established, independent of but adjacent to the main dockyard, to supply and victual the navy's warships. In 1743 the Victualling Commissioners took the decision to move their main depot to Deptford from Tower Hill, and they embarked on the construction of new facilities on the site: a cooperage, storehouses, slaughterhouses and facilities for baking and brewing.

In 1858 it was renamed the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard.

The whole family married "well", so one might ask, how did that come about?  William Kingdom, must have been a man of social standing within the Plymouth area.  He also held substantial land holdings.