A woman by the name of Margaret

[Phoenix]

Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, 6th Baronet, divorced his first wife, Sarah Lennox, in 1776.

Sometime after that date, he married "a woman by the name of Margaret".

It has to be assumed that she cannot have been part of the gentry, or her own family, if not his, would have trumpeted the connection.

Can anyone find a marriage?

Sir Thomas (Charles) was the son a Mildenhall vicar, and had Suffolk connections, but also is famous as owner of the first winner of the Derby in 1780.

[Langley Vale Sue]

Thomas Charles Bunbury married Margaret Cocksedge on 19 Nov 1805 somewhere in England & Wales!
Bear with me and I will try to find out where.

[Langley Vale Sue]

Right, the marriage is listed on FMP as part of the Suffolk Marriage Index Transcriptions.

They were married in Margaret's parish of Whelnetham GT (?) and his parish was Gt Barton. The actual marriage date was 21 November.

Boyd's Marriage Index spells her name Coxedge.

[Langley Vale Sue]

There is also another marriage listed in those transcriptions for a Thomas Charles Bunbury on 10 Aug 1807 to a Sarah Rodwell at Livermore Lt (her parish). His parish is listed as Royal Pembroke Militia.

[Shona]

Here's the Ancestry link to Margaret Cocksedge:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?viewrecord=1&ti=5538&r=5538&db=FS1EnglandMarriages&indiv=try&h=33965153

[Phoenix]

Brilliant! Thank you, Sue. Oh, the wonders of online research!

It's nice to see her as a real person, with her own background, rather than just an appendage.

[Phoenix]

I don't do Ancestry, Shona. Is that a family, or an entry?

[Langley Vale Sue]

Margaret & Sir Thos Charles were married in the Parsonage House by special license (Pallot's Marriage Index).

[Merry]

Do we know if she was a spinster? The Peerage.com has Margaret as b circa 1745 (source The Complete Baronetage, volume IV, page 118 (reprint 1983)) so she was possibly about 60 when they married.

[Merry]

The online transcript of

Great Whelnetham Parish Registers, 1561 to 1850.
Little Whelnetham Parish Registers, 1557 to 1850.

With historical and biographical notes, illustrations,
map and pedigrees.


........suggests Margaret was single:



1805 Nov. 21. Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury Baronet of Great Barton &

Margaret Cock sedge of Great Barton single. Married in

this Parsonage house by special licence by me Robert

Phillips, rector. Witnesses : John Phillips. Frances

Phillips. Mary Phillips.


Some Phillips names were mentioned in her will.

[Margaret in Burton]

My Woodgate's came from Gt Welnetham. :D

[Phoenix]

Curiously, one of Sarah Lennox's daughters (by her second marriage to George Napier) married back into the Bunbury family.

Sarah's eldest son was St Charles James Napier. I had a soft spot for him because of the headline in Punch: "Peccavi" (I have sinned/Sind)

Now I learn that while he did indeed exceed his brief in capturing the whole of Sind, the honour of the attribution should go to Catherine Winkworth, then a teenage girl.

Punch reported the story as truth, and so did my school textbooks, decades after the tale had been refuted!

[Janet]

I don't do Ancestry, Shona. Is that a family, or an entry?

England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973 about Margaret Cocksedge
Name: Margaret Cocksedge
Gender: Female
Marriage Date: 21 Nov 1805
Marriage Place: Suffolk, England
Spouse: Thomas Charles Bunbury
FHL Film Number: 989620
Source Information:
Ancestry.com. England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: England, Marriages, 1538–1973. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.

[Shona]

Ooh - look at this...v exciting connection.

Friends, acquaintances, and others who are addressed in The Letters of Ignatius Sancho:

Here I offer only the briefest biography of Sancho's correspondents. More detailed information can be found in Carretta's edition of The Letters.

Braithwaite, Daniel (1731-1817)
Clerk to the Postmaster General, and a friend of Johnson. In December 1779 Braithwaite turned down Sancho's request to have a post office situated at his shop.

Browne, Charles (c.1733-1809)
Steward to Sir Charles Bunbury. Sancho wrote to him in 1775 to recommend a young African who was looking for employment. Another of Sancho's letters to Browne might actually have been addressed to Charles Browne junior.

Cocksedge, Margaret
A personal friend of Sancho's, later Lady Bunbury (she married Sir Charles Bunbury in 1805). Sancho's letters to her are familiar, and, on occasion, flirtatious.

[Phoenix]

Ooh, thank you Shona! (And Janet!)

So she wasn't the nobody Wikipedia suggested, but had her own hinterland. I wonder if she and Sir Charles had been in a relationship for years, or met and married on the spur of the moment?

This was only prompted by yesterday being the anniversary of the first Derby in 1780, but it has led me down all sorts of curious byways. Catherine Winkworth, the girl who did suggest "Peccavi" translated lots of German hymns into English and was taught by William Gaskill, husband of Elizabeth. William was photographed by Rupert Potter, father of Beatrix. Now, can anyone find a quicker path from the Derby to Peter Rabbit? :D:D:D

[Uncle John]

Now, can anyone find a quicker path from the Derby to Peter Rabbit? :D:D:D

A52 and M6!