February 2018 – Edition 155

Welcome to our new layout. We have been using Constant Contact for our email provider since the first edition in June 2005. CC has been making regular upgrades to the software over the years.

Ray takes us on a revisit of churches and cathedrals that have been featured over the years in our Jerrems journey.

Enjoy!

Donald Jerrems, North Carolina

Ray Jerrems, Sydney

Churches and cathedrals have played an important part in the history of the Jerrems families, and they have been referred to in a number of Jerrems Journal articles in various contexts. This has led me to write an article which consolidates some of the different references and provides additional information.

In Jerrems history some churches are huge (for instance All Saints Church in Gainsborough and St Botolphs in Boston) and some are quite small (for instance St Helens in Willingham and St John the Baptist’s Church in Stainton By Langworth).

For this article I have chosen four churches which were relevant to varying degrees to early Jerrems extended families, as follows:

(a) St Helen’s Church, Willingham (attended by early Jerrems families, plus baptisms and funerals), Jerrems Journal of November 2011.

(b) John the Baptist’s Church, Stanton By Langworth, (Big Bill’s wedding), JJ of October 2009.

(c) St Mary’s Church, Sculcoates (wedding of Thomas Jerrems and Elizabeth Jepson after they eloped), JJ of July 2012.

(d) St Michael’s Church, Coningsby (new).

St Helen’s Church

Here is an old photo of St Helen’s Church.

I have started with this Church because it has featured extensively in the history of the local Jerrems families starting in the 1700s.

We know that Big Bill’s grand parents (William and Cecelia) were married there, and their children were baptised there, Big Bill’s parents were married there, and the gravestones of Big Bill’s mother (Mary) and a daughter-in-law (Jane) are in the graveyard, so Big Bill’s family had a longstanding connection with this church.

The church is situated on the corner of High Street and the road to Stow (the main intersection in the town), and it dates from the 11th century with registers starting in 1562. 

The body of the church was rebuilt in 1880, seating 200 people, which would house much of the village’s current population. 

In a previous article about Big Bill’s wedding I queried why the wedding had not been held at St Helen’s. I concluded that it was probably due to etiquette that it was held in the bride’s church. Having now unearthed references to St Helen’s at the time of the wedding, perhaps part of the answer lies in the following extracts from the description of its spartan interior prior to the 1880 renovation, taken from the 1876 Willingham Postal Directory:

“The church is an ancient stone building, having an undivided interior, the body of the church dates from the eleventh century, and the tower from the fourteenth…the inside of the edifice has a very ancient appearance; the carved benches are of oak, and will seat 350 people, the chancel has a quaint illuminated reredos dating from the time of James l, and there is an old Saxon font.”
(A reredos is a screen or a decorated part of the wall behind a church altar). 

The God-fearing builders of the church must have had exaggerated ideas as to Willingham’s future population, and perhaps they had a theory that parishioners should not be allowed to be too comfortable in the church in case they dozed off during sermons. 

The Willingham town website tells us that the Willingham Church stands in the centre of the village easily visible as one passes through, and is an integral part of village life. There is a regular pattern of Sunday services which are well attended and services are held for special feast days, baptisms, weddings and funerals. The Church has six bells in the tower (before the 1880 renovations it had three bells) and there is a team of enthusiastic ringers who ring before services and practise every Wednesday evening. It also has a choir who sing at services and by request at special occasions. The Church is managed by a Parish Church Council which helps with the services and organises many of the social events in the village. These events also help to raise money for the upkeep of the very beautiful church.

Looking at the photo of the Church, it is interesting (and evocative) to visualise what it must have been like when the Jerrems families attended it over a period of possibly 150 years, whether for normal services, baptisms, weddings or funerals. Imagine the adults standing at the front of the Church, with the children running around, simply being children. What were the hopes and aspirations of these people? Could they have imagined that you would be reading about them on a computer in the faroff year of 2018? I rather doubt it!

As previously mentioned, the gravestones for Mary and Jane are in St Helen’s graveyard. However the low incidence of existing gravestones in the graveyard, and the large gaps between existing gravestones, makes it very likely that other members of the family were in fact buried there.

John the Baptist Church, Stainton-By Langworth

I have included this church because it carries on the story of Big Bill.

The residents of Stainton-By-Langworth in Lincolnshire who happened to be near St John the Baptist’s Church (pictured above) on Thursday, 24th January 1805 would have seen a wedding taking place.

As you may have guessed, the groom was William “Big Bill” Jerrems (b1782), who has been a popular subject in previous Journals. His bride (who no doubt looked radiant, like all brides) was Elizabeth Clarke (b1781). 

Elizabeth and her parents lived at Newball, a mile south of Stainton-By-Langworth. There was no Church of England Church in Newball, the parish’s church was in Stainton-By-Langworth. So the wedding was held there.

The original church dated back to the 13th Century, however it fell down through neglect and was rebuilt in 1796, nine years before the wedding. Original items like the medieval bell (bearing a cross and the inscription “Jesus be our Spede”) were recovered and incorporated in the new Georgian-style stone building, which consists of a chancel, nave, and bell-turret. A chancel is the area around the altar of the church, usually enclosed, for the clergy, choir etc. A nave is the main body, or middle part, lengthwise, of a church. 

Although the church therefore had the basic facilities of a church the most obvious limitation of the building was its size, it would only hold 80 people. It reminds me of many modest little churches built in colonial times in rural areas in Australia, although the Australian churches were mostly of timber construction.

The Lord of the Manor, who owned the village lands and paid the Church vicar 180 pounds per year (and presumably paid for the reconstruction of the church in 1796), was the Earl of Scarborough. 

Inside the Church is a War Memorial and plaque for the two World Wars. There is a graveyard on the other side of the access road, with plenty of vacancies. 

I have selected this church because it carries on the story of one of Big Bill’s children in a very novel situation.

This is a drawing of St Mary’s Church, Sculcoates. As you will you will see, its particular relevance is that it is likely that a Jerrems couple were married there in 1837 after eloping from Gainsborough.

Here is what the Chelmsford Chronicle had to say on Friday 9th June 1837.

ELOPEMENT

“On Tuesday night, Mr T. Jerrems, the eldest son of the burgess constable of Gainsborough, having a chaise in readiness outside the town, eloped with the daughter of Geo. Jepson, Esq. a young lady of great personal charms. They galloped through Brigg, crossed the Humber at New Holland ferry, having first locked up all the oars and sculls to baffle pursuit, and at nine o’clock in the morning they were married at Sculcoates. A brother and uncle of the lady traced her, but arrived too late to prevent the nuptial knot from being tied.”

But who was T. Jerrems, who did he elope with, and why did they elope?

The people involved in this high drama were none other than my great great grandfather Thomas Cane Jerrems (b1815), and the “young lady of great personal charms” was my great great grandmother Elizabeth (nee Jepson) b 1816. The “burgess constable” was Big Bill, and Elizabeth’s father was the surgeon George Jepson. 

The account of the elopement conjures up pictures of the couple reaching their clandestine rendezvous outside the town in disguise, followed by the small coach rushing dramatically off into the darkness, to the accompaniment of the thundering of hooves, the cracking of whips and the coachman bellowing to the horses to gallop faster. Added to this was the nail biting question of whether the couple would be caught by the posse close behind

Sculcoates, apparently the local equivalent of the famous Gretna Green, is now a suburb of Hull, 66 km north of Gainsborough. This would have been quite a distance to travel on the rough roads of the time, particularly at night. Changes of horses would have been needed, showing that Thomas had given some thought to the adventure.

Although the name of the church is not stated in the article, it is very likely that it was St Mary’s Church.

Although the elopement appears to have genuinely been a cloak and dagger affair, perhaps a certain amount of literary license had been applied by the newspaper reporter. On the other hand it all makes a ripping yarn. Why let facts get in the way of a good story, I always say. Good on you Tom and Liz!

The sequel to the romantic notion of elopement must have been anti climactic. The couple were not banished to the Antipodes to forever atone for their sins. Instead, after the euphoria had evaporated they would have returned to Gainsborough and settled down to the mundane (but important) tasks of having children (including my great grandfather Charles) and selling groceries. 

Although this church has an oblique reference to the extended Jerrems family, I have mainly included it due to its novelty value.

Coningsby is about 16 km north west of Boston, in eastern Lincolnshire. William Small, who married Big Bill’s daughter Elizabeth, was born in Boston, however his grandfather Stephen (1731-1806) was born in nearby Coningsby.

Coningsby boasts a church with an unusual single-handed clock, probably the largest such clock in England, with a diameter of over 16 feet.

The church itself dates back to the 15th century and is dominated by the large west tower and its oversized clock face. The clock face was painted on the tower wall in the 17th century. The size of the clock face ensures that the time (or perhaps I should say “äpproximate time”) can be read from a distance of almost 2 miles away on a clear day. 

The hand stretches almost 9 feet long and is controlled by a pair of stone weights. The arrangement of 3 wheels controlling the hand movement is connected to the rear of the hand by a connecting rod. The mechanism must be wound by hand every day.

Perhaps when the clock was installed in the 17
^th
Century punctuality was not important. However you would not find it particularly useful these days if you were relying on it to catch a bus.

I hope you have enjoyed this article, in a future article I will tell you about more churches and a cathedral.