Page 5 - Chiron Autumn 2018

John Shipp – a brief genealogy
by Geoff Shipp
The Land Tax records for 1789 show a property in Horseheath with a rent of £1 per annum and a rate of 6d, owned by a Mrs Twinn with John Shipp (bap 1741) as the occupier. The returns for 1790 & 1791 show the same but by 1792 the tenant becomes his widow Anne. This ties in with the record of John’s burial in 1792. In 1813 Anne is still the tenant, but not in 1814, so she must’ve moved or died around 1813-14. However there is no record of her burial in Horseheath. I have found a
The Land Tax records for 1789 show a property in Horseheath with a rent of £1 per annum
burial in West Wratting of July 10th 1843 of Sarah Twinn aged 75, who is described as a maiden. This is presumably John & Anne’s landlady, although the Land Tax records refer to her as Mrs Twinn. I can find no marriage in her parish of West Wratting.
John & Mary gave birth to three children in Fulbourn. Ann (born 6th Dec 1789) who died aged 28 on 8th March 1819 and is described in the burial records as a spinster. Their second child also called John was born on 29th April 1792 and died aged 29 on 15th Sept 1822. On 22nd May 1796 his beloved wife Mary died in childbirth, their daughter Sarah survived less than three months and died on Aug 15th 1796. So the year following his graduation was one of great sadness. His son John would’ve been only 4 yrs old at this time & on enlisting presumably would’ve been cared for by my 4X Great
John Shipp was baptised (birth date not recorded) on 14th July 1765 in the parish of Horseheath, SE Cambridgeshire. He is the son of John (baptised 27th Sept 1741) from the neighbouring parish of Balsham who married Anne Johnson in Horseheath on 19th Sept 1763.
As well as John (Jnr) John and Anne had two other children, James (baptised 23rd Oct 1768) my 4X Great Grandfather and William (baptised 14th March 1773). William sadly died less than four months later on 8th July 1774 and is recorded in the burial records of Horseheath Church.
John (bap. 1765) married Mary Dayer in St Vigor’s Church, Fulbourn, Cambs on 27th Nov 1786 aged 21. Mary’s surname is recorded in the Bishop’s Transcripts records as Daier. These are both almost certainly spelling variants of the far more common name Dyer.
John is recorded in St Vigor’s records as ‘bac(helor) of All Saints, Fulbourn and in the record of Banns as ‘of this Parish’. There are no records of either his birth or those of any other Shipps in Fulbourn before this time however so in this case ‘of this parish’ means that he was residing but not born there.
All Saints was the larger of the two manor houses in Fulbourn and presumably his employer, and also the name of the second church which stood side by side with St Vigor’s sharing the same churchyard, essentially two parishes within the same village. That is until 5.00am on the morning of 25th May 1766 when the tower of All Saints collapsed, completely destroying the rest of the building.
John was born into a literate family, his father John (bap 1741) signed the marriage register in a beautiful copperplate hand in 1763. John (snr) was a blacksmith & farrier who died on 14th Aug 1792 in Horseheath.
John and Geoff Shipp
Grandfather James’, his younger brother’s family.
John would now be 31, recruits to the King’s Guards had to be not above 30, so the 11th Light Dragoons either made an exception because of his profession or perhaps he lied about his age?!
The Muster list for 25th June to 24th Dec 1796 shows ‘John Shipp Veterinary Surgeon’, but he isn’t listed in the previous roll (25th Dec 1795- 24th June 1796). The Cambridgeshire Militia Records of 1794 shows that the militia was re-established in Dec 1792 and the ancillary militia in 1795. The militia totalled 42,000 men in
Where John Shipp was baptised
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