|
This page is part of a website based
on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander
with any comments or queries. |
John Becher’s
family
John
Becher, discharged from the Ambuscade in May 1761, marries Ann Haysham in August. He spends the next fifteen years on half pay,
before his services are needed in the struggle to
put down America's rebellious colonists.
|
From the baptismal record of the first two children (Bristol
St Augustine, 24 May 1764, it appears that John Harman is the elder. But other accounts
(including Harman’s will, which states his exact age at the time it is made)
say Michael Thomas comes first. This anomaly may account
for secretive behaviour by their mother in later
years. Third son, Henry Hopson
Becher, is baptised in Kidderminster; the next three in Kingswinford; the
last in Brierley Hill. In the first Kingswinford
baptism (18 January 1767), the father is recorded as "Captain John
Becher", yet his rank in His Majesty's Navy is a mere lieutenant. One explanation of the discrepancy is the
job he has been doing since 1761. At first he has been in
Bristol, a great mercantile centre, trying to raise a family on a
lieutenant's half pay (£52 a year in 1767). Maybe he is earning income
from another source. Perhaps as
captain of a merchant ship? That
would explain the parish record. The family home in
Kingswinford, where they live some seventeen years (possibly involved in the iron trade), has been identified
as Shut End House. A warning for the keen
researcher. The entry in Marshall's
compendium for Alexander Becher, John's sixth child – the only one to achieve
a commission in the navy – gives his birthplace as "Sheet End". An obvious case of handwriting
being misread. |
Michael Thomas 1762-1809 m
Jane Scott John Harman 1764-1800 m
Harriet son & 3 dtrs Henry Hopson b 1765 Anna Maria 1767-18 Elizabeth Cort 1768-1841 m
John Turner several children Alexander 1770-1827 m Frances Scott several children Robert Charles 1772-93 |
Kingswinford
parish circa 1670
Few events are chronicled
during this period. We know that John
and Ann Becher attend her sister Elizabeth’s wedding to Henry Cort. It is likely that the Corts are present in
Kingswinford at the family’s next baptism, Elizabeth Cort Becher.
Fast forward to the American
war, in which so many of the family play a part. As well as the roles described elsewhere,
third son Henry Hopson makes an appearance in the Caribbean in 1782. He transfers to the Alfred shortly
after Thomas Morgan leaves.
Meanwhile father John Becher,
returning to England in 1779, makes a will in December. All seven of his children are mentioned in it.
We know that the eldest,
Michael Thomas, has won a scholarship to Eton, and proceeds to Kings College,
Cambridge in November 1781. Meanwhile
John Harman has landed a job as a writer (clerk?) with the East India Company
and taken off for Calcutta.
|
Whereas I have met with losses since the making this my Will I
leave my two daughters sixteen hundred pounds each my son Michael Thos
five hundred my son John Harman one hundred my son Henry Hopson five hundred
my son Alexander six hundred my son Robert Charles seven hundred pounds
instead of the sums mentioned in my Will and I declare this to be a Codicil
to my will this 27th day of January 1782. From codicil to John Becher’s will. |
There is evidence that father
John is involved in recruiting for the Navy; also in procuring
ironmongery for the Gosport business.
In November 1783 comes the Cort demonstration at Stourton (on the river, just
beyond the western extremity of the map), the accident and the (coincidental?)
death of John Becher. Cort visits again
on business the following June. A
letter from Joseph Black in Edinburgh is addressed to "Mr. Cort at Mrs.
Bicker's, Stourbridge, Worcestershire".
One wonders whether it reaches its intended destination: somehow it ends
up in the Boulton-Watt collection in Birmingham.
Another business visit from
Cort comes in November. Soon after this
John Becher’s widow ups sticks and moves to Fareham.
From this point it’s easiest
to follow the children’s fortunes a few at a time. Anna Maria (sometimes called Ann) evidently stays with her
mother: she is certainly there when William Thackeray
turns up nearly thirty years later.
John Harman’s later history is covered elsewhere.
Little further to tell of
Henry Hopson, said to die at sea in Africa – sounds as though his navy career
continues. Likewise Robert Charles:
only death in 1793 is recorded.
Michael Thomas qualifies for
the priesthood, which later brings him two disparate jobs: head of a school in
Bury St Edmunds, and Vicar of Wootton Wawen, dozens of miles away in
Warwickshire. It is in Wootton that he
marries Jane Scott (7th August 1806), a widow several years his
senior: one child by her previous marriage is Alexander John Scott, a notable
cleric whose service in the Navy has included ministering to Nelson on his
deathbed.
It’s interesting to compare
Michael’s marriage to his brother Alexander’s.
|
He married, in 1793, Frances, daughter of the Rev. – Scott, of
Queen's College, Oxford, Rector of Kingston and Port Royal in Jamaica (and
brother of the present Countess of Oxford), by whom he has issue Alexander Bridport,
a Lieutenant R.N. and acting pro tempore as Hydrographer to the
Admiralty… From
entry in Marshall's compendium of sea officers for Cort's nephew Alexander
Becher. |
Piquant! Both brothers marry a woman called
Scott. Michael, a cleric, marries the
widow of a naval officer. Alexander, a
naval officer, marries the daughter of a cleric.
Another marriage: Elizabeth
Cort Becher to Rev John Turner, who turns out to be an alumnus of a school in
Bury St Edmunds – presumably the same one where Michael Thomas becomes head.
Widow Ann Becher eventually
returns to Gosport. She dies there in
1825, but is buried in Fareham, where Anna Maria lives out the rest of her
life.
A curious postscript. The will of Henry
Cort’s son Frederick leaves £200 each to his “cousin Ann Becher of Fareham
and her sister Mrs Elizabeth Turner in gratitude to their deceased brother Rev
Michael Becher of Bury St Edmunds”. The
deed which earned this gratitude may have been connected with the baptism of Frederick’s niece Frances Cort.
|
RELATED TOPICS Henry Cort’s
marriage to Ann Becher’s sister |
henrycort.net
hq