KG4 Ann Kingdom and Stephen Rains - Their Children

Ann Kingdom and Stephen Rains - Their Children

Ann and Stephen Rains had a large family, and their life can be followed from where their children were baptised.

The SS Great Eastern harboured in Milford Haven, 1870s

1.   1.       John Soady Rains                    1786     Milford Haven Pembrokeshire
2.      William Kingdom Rains           1789     Milford Haven Pembrokeshire
3.      Sophia Kingdom Rains             1792     Deptford Kent
4.      Ann Sophia Rains                     1793     Deptford Kent
5.      Henry Rains                              1795     Deptford Kent
6.      Sarah Rains                               1797     Deptford Kent
7.      Frances Otway Rains                1799     Deptford Kent
8.      George Brown Rains                 1800     Deptford Kent
9.      Rupert Rains                             1802     Deptford Kent.

Ann was born 22 August 1764 and baptised at St Andrews Church.  She married Captain Stephen Rains  born 1766 on 15th July 1784 at Plymouth.

From there, Stephen was posted to Milford Haven, where a Naval Base was established.  Prior to the Navy establishing a base, it was a shipbuilding town, and called Milford.

The town of Milford Haven was founded in 1793 by Sir William Hamilton, who initially invited Quaker whalers from Nantucket to live in his town, and then, in 1797, the Navy Board to create a dockyard for building warships.  Milford Haven Waterway has a longer history as a staging point on sea journeys to Ireland, and was used as a shelter by Vikings.

In 1797 the Navy Board established a dockyard which produced warships. Seven royal vessels were eventually launched from the dockyard, including HMS Surprise and HMS Milford.

Two years later, in 1792, the family is living at Deptford in Kent, another Naval Dockyard.

With the increasing specialisation among the royal dockyards, Deptford concentrated on building smaller warships and was the headquarters of the naval transport service. Throughout the various wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the navy sought to relieve pressure on the main fleet bases by concentrating shipbuilding and fitting out at riverine docks like Chatham, Woolwich and Deptford, leaving the front-line dockyards at Portsmouth, Plymouth and the Nore for maintenance and repair.

By the 1790s Deptford had five slipways for building warships, and by 1807 was also served by one sheer hulk based at the yard. Deptford was associated with a large number of famous ships and people. Several of the ships used by James Cook on his voyages of exploration were refitted at the dockyard, including HMS Endeavour, HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, as were ships used by George Vancouver on his expedition between 1791 and 1795, HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham. HMS Bounty was refitted at the yard in 1787, as was HMS Providence, the vessel used by William Bligh on his second breadfruit expedition. Warships built at the yard include HMS Neptune and HMS Colossus, which fought under Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, and HMS Swiftsure, which was captured in 1801 and fought for the French at the battle.

The family lived there for at least 12 years, as their youngest son Rupert was born there in 1802.

1.   1.    John Soady Rains                        1786                    m        Cecilia Bell                    1784 - 1852
2.      William Kingdom Rains            1789     d  1874   m       Ann Eve Williams          1790 - 1883
3.      Sophia Kingdom Rains             1792     d  1833    m       Nathaniel Arthur Austin 1787 - 1841
4.      Ann Sophia Rains                     1793     d  1881    m       Robert Clark
5.      Henry Rains                              1795     d  1882             Maria Fullman               1800 - 1875
6.      Sarah Rains                               1797     d   1884
7.      Frances Otway Rains                1799     d   1836    m      George William Turner  1799 - 1836
8.      George Brown Rains                 1800     d   1823
9.      Rupert Rains                              1802     d   1875    m       Eliza Ann Clark

Amongst these children, are some incredible stories.  Stories that it is hard to believe happened.

 But they did.

All the children did not follow in their father's footsteps, quite the reverse.  Rebelled is a word that could best describe the situation in which they placed themselves.

John Soady Rains was admitted to the City of London in 1804, in the trade of a Lorimer, one who makes bridles and small riding equipment.

But later he had progressed into business.  He was in business as a biscuit baker, at 30, Wapping Wall in the County of Middlesex, with William Ritchie and the partnership was dissolved in 1810. That business failed and he was the subject of extensive legal argument in the Bankruptcy Court, in 1818.

Rather than face his creditors, he simply fled the country, never to seen again.  He absconded June 1818 went abroad, never heard from again.  Bankruptcy issued on 20th April 1818

According to a book written about his brother, he went to America around 1830, and one of his sons then was a Brigadier General in the Civil War.  That however is untrue.

There is an entry in 1821, for the arrival in America of John Rains, on the vessel Rufus King.  Given he wished to hide his true identity, and his mother did not mention him in her will, trying to connect him to anyone would be a case of speculation, without checking fact.

The Brigadier General Gabriel James Rains was born in 1803, and his parent were married in 1800.  

He was in fact, only a few years older than John Rains, and living on a different continent!

Gabriel James Rains was born in June 1803 in New Bern, North Carolina to cabinetmaker Gabriel Manigault Rains and Ester Ambrose. His younger brother, George Washington Rains, was also a brigadier general in the Georgia Militia, and the two were known as "the Bomb Brothers" for their creation and use of land mines, torpedoes, booby traps, and other explosives. Rains graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1827, 13th in his class. Among his classmates were Leonidas Polk, Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, and Philip St. George Cooke.

Gabriel Manigault Rains, is probably a  direct descendant of Peter Manigault, through his son Gabriel Manigault who had a son Gabriel Henry Manigault 1788 - 1834.  The use of family names in generations in those times, was very prevalent.   Given the French Huguenot influence, it is likely that the name Rains was the French spelling of Reinnes.

Gabriel Manigault (March 17, 1758 – November 4, 1809) was an American architect. Manigault was born in Charleston, South Carolina on March 17, 1758. He was the son of Elizabeth Wragg Manigault (1736–1773) and Peter Manigault (1731-1773), the wealthiest person in British North America in 1770. His great-grandfather was Pierre Manigault (1664-1729), a French Huguenot who was born in La Rochelle, France and settled in Charleston

Manigault was born in Charleston, South Carolina on March 17, 1758. He was the son of Elizabeth Wragg Manigault (1736–1773) and Peter Manigault (1731-1773), the wealthiest person in British North America in 1770.  His great-grandfather was Pierre Manigault (1664-1729), a French Huguenot who was born in La Rochelle, France and settled in Charleston

Other children of Ann and Stephen Rains

Ann Sophia Rains who married Robert Clark was living at 16 Crescent Road Tunbridge Wells in 1874.

The youngest son, Rupert was a solicitor and notary living at 25 Bucklesbury St London in 1843

The town of Milford was founded in 1793, after Sir William Hamilton obtained an Act of Parliament in 1790 to establish the port at Milford, and takes its name from the natural harbour of Milford Haven, which was used for several hundred years as a staging point on sea journeys to Ireland and as a shelter by Vikings. It was known as a safe port and is mentioned in Shakespeare's Cymbeline as "blessed Milford".It was used as the base for several military operations, such as Richard de Clare's invasion of Leinster in 1167, Henry II's Invasion of Ireland in 1171, John's continued subjugation of the Irish in 1185 and 1210 and Oliver Cromwell's 1649 invasion of Ireland;while forces which have disembarked at the point include Jean II de Rieux's 1405 reinforcement of the Glyndŵr Rising and Henry VII's 1485 landing at the waterway before marching on England. By the late 18th century the two local creeks were being used to load and unload goods, and surrounding settlements were established, including the medieval chapel, and Summer Hill Farm, the only man-made structures on the future site of Milford.

Sir William Hamilton, the town's founder, had acquired the land from his wife, Catherine Barlow of Slebech.^[ His nephew, the Hon. Charles Francis Greville, invited seven Quaker families from Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard to settle in the new town and develop a whaling fleet.They began by building a shipyard, and leased it to a Messrs. Harry and Joseph Jacob. In December 1796, in an unusual arrangement, the Admiralty (Navy operations) directed the Navy Board (administration and supplies) to contract Jacobs shipyard to build a frigate and later a 74-gun ship-of-the-line. However, due to a combined lack of local standing oak, access to supplies of timber from the Baltic, and local skills in volume, the Jacob operation soon went bankrupt.

In 1800, following the bankruptcy of the Jacobs & Sons, the Navy Board's overseer, Jean-Louis Barralier, was persuaded to lease the site for the Navy Board and develop a dockyard for building warships. Seven royal vessels were eventually launched from the dockyard, including HMS Surprise and HMS Milford. The town was built on a grid pattern, thought to have been to the design of Jean-Louis Barrallier, who remained in charge of shipbuilding there for the Navy Board. Between 1801 and 1803, the town and waterway were protected by temporary batteries at Hakin Point and south of St Katherine's Church, in response to the perceived threat following the Fishguard Invasion.

A church was consecrated in October 1808 and dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria in the underdeveloped eastern side of the town, it remained a chapel of ease until 1891 when Milford became a parish, until that time competing with St Peter and St Cewydd in Steynton.By the start of the 19th century, a mail coach was operating between London and Hubberston, and in 1800 the short lived Milford and Pembrokeshire Bank was established by Thomas Phillips, operating from a branch in the town. It collapsed in 1810.

On 11 October 1809, a naval commission recommended purchase of the Milford Haven facility and formal establishment of a Royal Navy dockyard. This was, according to the report, due to the fact that Millford built-ships had proved to be cheaper due to the cheap cost of supplies and abundant labour supply. It proposed purchase of the yard at £4,455. However, as this was after the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), when the need for naval ships was decreasing in the Napoleonic Wars, and in such a remote location, the proposal seemed perplexing. However, in light of the end of the Franco-Spanish naval engagement, and the merging of the two sides of the Royal Navy under the Admiralty Board, the fact that Frenchman Barallier would remain in charge strongly suggests to historians that the Royal Navy accepted that its ships manoeuvrability was inferior to those of the Franco-Spanish alliance. In an effort to rectify this state of affairs the Royal Navy's first School of Naval Architecture was opened in Portsmouth in 1810. Effectively then, Millford was to be set up as a model dockyard under French management, from which lessons could be learnt for implementation in other dockyards.

In 1814 the Royal Dockyard was transferred to Pembroke Dock; though, when Robert Fulke Greville inherited the estate in 1824, a commercial dock was started which became the home of a successful fishing industry.^[By 1849, the district of Hakin was described as a considerable centre of boat building,^[and by 1906, Milford had become the sixth largest fishing port in the UK, and its population rose. The Pembrokeshire Herald claimed in 1912 that "the fish trade is Milford's sole industry....the population of the town has doubled by means of it"