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Philip Doddridge Marries Mercy Maris from Soley's Orchard at Upton-Upon

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Philip Doddridge Marries Mercy Maris from Soley's Orchard at Upton-Upon Philip Doddridge marries Mercy Maris from Soley’s Orchard at Upton-upon- Severn, 22nd December, 1730 Philip Doddridge (1701 – 1752) is described by Paul Langford in A Polite and Commercial People as “the celebrated Dissenting educationist”, but he was far more than just the Principal of one of the most important Dissenting Academies of the first half of the eighteenth century. As well as educating many who became the most important dissenting ministers, he wrote hymns which are still to be found in Roman Catholic and Anglican Hymn books as well as those of the non- conformists. He was, from 1729 until his death, the minister of the flourishing Castle Hill Church, Northampton: he published his sermons and pamphlets and was politically influential. In December 1730 he married Mercy Maris who was living with her “uncle”, Ebenezer Hankins, at Soley’s Orchard in Upton-upon-Severn. It has been said that she, like Doddridge, was an orphan. Biographers of Philip and Mercy Doddridge have, however, relied too heavily on the editorial gloss put on the 1730 letters of Philip Doddridge by J. D. Humphreys, their great-grandson, in the 1820s and on the comments which he had copied from a “memorandum written” by Mrs Doddridge. When Mercy Maris married Philip Doddridge in Upton in 1730 she was not an orphan: both Mr and Mrs Maris were alive. At the end of the letter to Mrs Owen at whose Coventry house Doddridge and Mercy had met, Doddridge says that his “humble service waits on Mr and Mrs Maris”. After the death of Ebenezer Hankins a marginal note to his will states that “On the twenty first day of February in the year of our Lord 1737 power was granted to Richard Maris the curator or guardian lawfully assigned to William Hankins and Elizabeth Hankins, minors…” In August 1743 a succession of letters between Doddridge and Mercy Doddridge are concerned with the severe illness of, “your poor mother”, Mrs Maris. In May 1748 Doddridge writes to his daughter Polly at Mrs Linton’s in Foregate Street, Worcester sending compliments to….”your Grandpappa” and he writes similarly to his daughter Mercy in August 1748 and September 1749. Richard Maris’s 1750 will was proved at Worcester on 6th March 1752. He leaves a gold ring to his “daughter, Mercy Doddridge” and names Philip Doddridge as one of the trustees, although, by the time of Maris’s death, Doddridge himself had died. The will also suggests a reason why Mercy Maris was living with Ebenezer Hankins at the time of her marriage. Richard Maris requests Mercy Doddridge to “take care of her brother the said Samuel Maris and to take him to live with her if it shall please God to restore him to his right mind…” He also asks that Richard Maris, the eldest son, will take him (my son, George Maris) under his care immediately on my decease, but he to be paid for his maintenance.” It seems that in the 1720s the Maris household may not have been one in which her parents would have been happy for their daughter to have lived. It also explains the references to concerns about “Sammy” in letters between the Doddridges and the comment in Job Orton’s chapter about “His Private Character” in his 1766 biography of Doddridge that Doddridge “kindly interested himself in the concerns of her (Mercy’s) Relations and when some of them were in Circumstances of very great Affliction, he exerted himself for their Assistance and Relief.” (Job Orton, formerly one of Doddridge’s pupils, was by then himself a prominent dissenting minister.) The relationship of the Maris family to the Hankins is not as straightforward as usually presented. Richard Maris, Mercy’s father, married Elizabeth Brindley in Upton-upon-Severn on December 25th, 1701. The entry refers to “Richard Mayris Baker”, at a time when the clerk was putting occupations as well as names in the register, and to “Elizabeth Brindle of this parish”. Richard Maris had been married before: the will of his first wife, Hannah (nee Hamilton), who is mentioned in a 1699 deed, was proved at Worcester on 10th May 1701. Meanwhile Mrs Mary Brindley, Elizabeth Brindley’s mother and the widow of “Richard Brindley late of London, Hosier, deceased,” married William Hankins of Upton-upon-Severn in January 1701/2. William Hankins is recorded in I Will Build my Church by Colin T. Rogers as one of the early pastors (1693 – 1723) of Upton Baptist Church. This marriage is the background to the statements recorded by J. D. Humphreys as being in the memorandum written by Mercy Doddridge about her grandmother that following her grandfather’s death her grandmother had been left £10.000. If the sum is accurate, the Hankins made good use of the money. In 1711 they purchased the Pool House Estate at Hanley Castle and then Soley’s Orchard in Upton-upon-Severn. The date of the latter deal is not known, but when a marriage settlement was drawn up in 1722 on the marriage of Ebenezer Hankins, “son and heir apparent of William Hankins”, to Mary Avenant of Coventry, Soley’s Orchard was mentioned as a property which had been purchased from Benjamin Bound, citizen and stationer of London. Both sides of the marriage brought a considerable estate to the settlement. Not all the Hankins lands had been recently acquired; some had been inherited from William’s father, Edward. Richard and Elizabeth Maris of Worcester were involved in this settlement. The true nature of the relationship of “Uncle” Ebenezer Hankins to Mercy Maris appears to be that his father (he died in 1725 and is buried at Dymock) had been married to Mercy’s grandmother, who is possibly the Elizabeth Hankins buried at Dymock in May 1729. The same registers record the burial of “Ann, wife of Willi Hankins of Donnington” in November 1694. She may well have been the first wife of William Hankins and the mother of Ebenezer. The Hankins family owned property – “The Upper House” – in the small community of Donnington. Ebenezer and Mary Hankins had three children Elizabeth, baptised at Shelsey Walsh, where there had been Avenant family property, in 1726, D’Avenant baptised in 1727 and William who was baptised in 1729 both in Worcester at the Angel Street Independent Chapel. Ebenezer Hankins died in 1734 and was also buried at Dymock on 23rd May 1734. On 9th July 1735 Mrs Mary Hankins, Widow, married Dr George Legh, Vicar of Halifax, at Upton-upon-Severn. This wedding explains correspondence between the Doddridges regarding Legh’s concern about the guardianship of the Hankins’ children. In 1749 an indenture in Worcestershire County Record Office refers to the marriage of Mary Hankins and George Legh and states that she is now deceased. This is confirmed by the sad but humorous letter from Legh to Doddridge in 1750 when he says that, following his wife’s death, he does not require the house he had recently bought, but also saying that he is seeking a curate who “must be a person who can resist temptations to bigotry against protestant dissenters.” Dr Legh mentions the Hankins family in his will. He died in December 1775 aged 81. .
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