Pracy Family History from Tudor Times to the 1920S
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Pracy family history: the origins, growth and scattering of a Wiltshire and East London family from Tudor times to the 1920s, 5th edition (illustrated) by David Pracy (b. 1946) List of illustrations and captions ..................................................................................... 2 Note: what’s new ............................................................................................................ 5 Part 1: Wiltshire ............................................................................................................. 6 1. Presseys, Precys and Pracys ................................................................................... 7 2. Bishopstone ............................................................................................................ 8 3. The early Precys ................................................................................................... 11 4. The two Samuels .................................................................................................. 15 5. The decline of the Precys in Bishopstone ............................................................ 20 Part 2: The move to London ......................................................................................... 23 6. Edward Prascey (1707-1780) and his sister Elizabeth’s descendants .................. 23 7. Three London apprentices and their families........................................................ 34 8. Edmund the baker (1705-1763) and his family ................................................... 36 9. Edmund the carman (1744-1803) and his daughters ........................................... 44 10. Rosetta Terry, née Rosey Pracey (1770-1858) .................................................. 55 11. The Pracy heartland ............................................................................................ 64 Part 3: John William Pracy (1779-1831) and his descendants .................................... 69 12. Edmund James, Elizabeth Jane, Mary Ann and her descendants, Ellen Lucy ... 71 13. John William Pracy (1810-1868) and his descendants ...................................... 74 14. George Thomas Pracy (1812-1853) and his descendants .................................. 81 15. George T Pracy of San Francisco and his descendants...................................... 85 16. Thomas Richard Pracy (1818-1888) and his descendants ................................. 89 17. Joseph William Pracy (1820-1879) and his descendants ................................... 90 18. Henry Charles Pracy (1827-1909) and his descendants .................................. 109 19. Linking the two halves of the family, and refuting one of its myths ............... 116 Part 4: Thomas Pracy (1781-1846) and his descendants ........................................... 117 20. Thomas Edmund (1810-1840) and William Charles (1827-1869) and their descendants; Mary, David, Ann, Henry .................................................................. 120 21. John Pracy (1813-1867) and his descendants .................................................. 124 22. Richard Pracy (1817-1852) and his descendants ............................................. 134 23. Why my grandfather went to prison: the Pollard divorce case ......................... 144 The First World War and after .................................................................................... 156 Postscript ..................................................................................................................... 157 Main sources ............................................................................................................... 158 1 List of illustrations and captions 1. View of Bishopstone from the south. Mike Barratt, 2006. ..................................... 9 2. Bishopsgate pond. Mike Barratt, 2006. ................................................................. 10 3. Lynchets above Bishopstone. Mike Barratt, 2006. ............................................... 11 4. Two views of Bishopstone church (Martin Pracy) ................................................ 12 5. Highworth High Street looking west, c.1905. From Highworth Historical Society website ............................................................................................................................. 18 6. The Red Lion was extensively rebuilt in 1889 but is still an attractive building. Photo by permission of Russ Hamer under licence.................................................. 25 7. The River Thames at Pangbourne. ......................................................................... 27 8. The bridge from Pangbourne to Whitchurch, built shortly after Edward Prascey’s death. ............................................................................................................. 28 9. Henley in 1690, with the Red Lion to the right of the bridge and the Angel on the Bridge to the left. The scene would have been familiar to Edward Prascey almost a century later, but already in his time the bridge was falling into disrepair, and shortly after his death it was demolished and replaced with the present structure. .......................................................................................................................... 28 10. A painter and his apprentice – possibly George Scharf himself with his son – are leaving Mr Allen’s, the Colourman, in St. Martin’s Lane. The small wooden cask on his shoulder may well be 28lb of white lead paste. http://patrickbaty.co.uk/2012/08/01/white-lead/# ....................................................... 30 11. Interior of St Benet Paul’s Wharf, the only unaltered Wren church in London and now the official Welsh church in the capital. ...................................................... 31 12. The path up from Bishopstone to the Ridgeway. ............................................... 35 13. When they first arrived in London, the Pracy brothers used St Giles Cripplegate for baptisms, burials and a marriage. It was restored after the Second World War according to plans from 1545. Now entirely surrounded by modern buildings, it is Grade I listed. .......................................................................... 37 14. St Luke’s Old Street in the late 18th century, when members of our family were baptised, married and buried there. .................................................................. 39 15. Caricature of a Fleet marriage ............................................................................... 41 16. Statue of Alfred the Great in Wantage Market Place ......................................... 42 17. St Leonard’s Shoreditch features in the old nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons: ‘…When I am rich, say the bells of Shoreditch…’ This is an 18th-century print of the present church, built around 1740. The marriage of ‘Edman Preacy’ and Lucy Carlton was the first of many Pracy family events there. ....................... 45 18. The City of London Lying In Hospital c1830, engraved from an original print by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd ..................................................................................... 46 19. Two Pracy churches in Southwark – St George the Martyr (left) and St Mary Newington ........................................................................................................................ 47 20. The Old Bailey in 1808, by Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin ......... 50 21. With a rather sad symmetry, Christ Church Newgate Street was built by Wren after the Great Fire and gutted as a result of enemy action during the Second World War. The church tower and part of the walls survive. An information board gives details about the church and a garden that has been laid out on the site of the nave. The parish was united to St Sepulchre’s in 1954. ................................... 52 2 22. Now numbered 366 City Road, 16 Dalby Terrace seems to be used mostly for offices. Martin Hagger stands in front. .................................................................. 53 23. Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824),Governor of New South Wales 1 January 1810 – 30 November 1821. .......................................................................................... 60 24 Rosetta Madden née Pracey was a wealthy woman in her own right even before 1810 when she married Samuel Terry (1778-1838), ‘the Botany Bay Rothschild’.. ..................................................................................................................... 61 25 The pace of change was brilliantly illustrated by George Cruikshank in his cartoon London going out of Town; or, the March of Bricks and Mortar. .............. 65 26 Three men of letters in Bunhill Fields. John Bunyan's tomb (foreground) with a memorial to Daniel Defoe (obelisk, left) and Willam Blake's grave (right) in background. Wikipedia ................................................................................................. 70 27. Victoria Park Cemetery was opened by a private company in 1845 and closed in 1876. For a while it fell into neglect but in 1894 was laid out as a ‘bright, useful, little park called Meath Garden’. ..................................................................... 71 28 St Leonard's Hospital Kingsland Road, formerly Shoreditch Workhouse ....... 80 29. Les Pracy's possum research camp in the Orongorongo, 1966. ..................... 83 30. Mike Schmeer found this wonderful photo among Beverly (Pracy) Hosmon’s belongings. It is a daguerreotype possibly taken about 1850 but