Mary Bilcliffe (1735-1783).
My 5th great-grandmother.
The Bilcliffe surname is a rare one in the UK and appears in several forms in the records (like many other surnames of the time), for example as Billcliff, Billcliffe, Bentley and even Bentlet.
The first to marry into my Surrey-based Finch family was Mary Bilcliffe – but who was she out of the available candidates? The only one known to have been from Reigate in Surrey around this time – and therefore local to the Finches – was baptised at St Mary’s Church on 19 October 1735, listed as the daughter of Edward. However, a Mary, daughter of Edward, died in 1737 in Reigate and was buried on 14 November. This must surely be the same person, meaning that our Mary must’ve been from elsewhere.
A couple of Marys are recorded from the nearby village of Worth in Sussex. They are Mary Bilcliff, baptised at St Nicholas’s Church on 10 April 1735 to parents George and Mary Bilcliff, and a Mary Bilcliff baptised on 17 January 1734 to parents Steven and Susan Bilcliff.
Anne Hopton has studied the Bilcliffe family as a descendant and her work appears on the One Name Studies website. In an email to me, she says she has little doubt that one or other of the Worth Marys is our ancestor. There is evidence of Bilcliffe family members moving into the Reigate area over time, with baptisms in Worth and marriages/burials in Reigate and neighbouring parishes. Some examples include Edward – baptised Worth 1705, married Reigate 1730 and buried Reigate 1742; John – baptised Worth 1702, married at Fleet in London in 1723 and Burstow in Surrey in 1762, then buried in Burstow 1774; and Richard – baptised Worth 1737, married Reigate 1763 and buried Reigate 1780. There are also settlement certificates, examinations and removals involving family members in both places.
Regarding our two Worth Marys, one was the daughter of George Bilcliffe and Mary Chapman, who married at Headley in Surrey on 28 May 1732. The other Mary is the daughter of Steven Bilcliff and Susan Streeter, who married in Worth on 20 June 1728. So who was our Mary? Well, the children of Steven and Susan signed their names with a mark on marrying but George’s family appears from the records to have been literate – and our ancestor signed her name when she married my 5th great-grandfather Thomas Finch at St Mary’s Church in Reigate on 14 April 1760. The Finches had been carpenters for several generations, as were several of the Bilcliffes. So all the evidence points to Mary being the daughter of George Bilcliffe.
Thomas and Mary had at least seven children (see their family page for details) before Mary died, in 1783. She was buried at St Mary’s Church in Reigate, Surrey, on 4 September that year. Her husband remarried and had more children.
George Bilcliffe (1708?-1764) and Mary Chapman (1712-1768).
My 6th great-grandparents.
I have no record of George Bilcliffe’s birth and therefore no proof of his parents but there are other pointers to his ancestry. Key among them is mention of him as a son of carpenter Thomas Bilcliffe in the latter’s 1743 will. The latter came from Worth in Sussex and so this is likely to be where George grew up.
There is a mention of a George Billetiff of Worth in a 1730 document, showing him as a carpenter and master to apprentice George Dawes of Arundel, Sussex. This is a register of duties paid and is dated 14 August. I’d be surprised if this was my 6th great-grandfather as he’d be young to take on an apprentice – unless his birth year is wrong. It’s possible that this man could be an uncle, or even his father if I have my family relationships wrong.
George married Mary Chapman on 28 May 1732 at Headley in Surrey. The marriage licence lists him as a carpenter and Mary as a spinster, daughter of agricultural worker James Chapman. She was baptised on 12 February 1712 in St Nicholas’s Church, Worth, Sussex.
A George Billcliff is then mentioned in the will dated 26 June 1743 of Thomas Billcliff of Worth, Sussex, a carpenter and yeoman. George was described as Thomas’s son and was a beneficiary, along with Thomas’s daughter Elizabeth, grandson Thomas, son Thomas, son John, daughter Ann, daughter Mary Copper and daughter Thomasin Tasker.
George and Mary appear to have moved to live in Nutfield, Surrey, several miles to the north of Worth. A George Bilclif died there in 1764 and was buried at St Peter and St Paul Church on 17 September. Mary was buried there on 14 April 1768.
The couple had at least three children:
- Mary Bilcliffe, my 5th great-grandmother. Her details are above.
- George Bilcliffe, my 6th great uncle. He was baptised at St Nicholas’s Church in Worth, Sussex, on 27 December 1736. He may have been buried there on 11 January 1743.
- Francis Bilcliffe, my 6th great uncle, was baptised in Worth on 16 June 1738. He married Ann Sears (or Sceares) at St Peter and St Paul Church in Nutfield, Surrey, on 25 October 1766. He left a will dated July 1770, in which he left his possessions and tools of his trade as a carpenter to Ann. He was buried on 22 July that year in Nutfield, leaving three young children – Edward, George and James.
Thomas Bilcliffe (1670?-1745) and Thomasin (1670?-1751).
My 7th great-grandparents.
I’ve not yet found any records that show the baptisms of Thomas Bilcliffe and his wife Thomasin, let alone her maiden name. I also have no idea where they came from. Were they local to Surrey and Sussex or from further afield? Anne Hopton, in fact, wonders whether the family was related to Catholic recusants from the Pontefract area in Yorkshire who migrated south. Interestingly, Thomasin was a Catholic according to her burial record.
The Bilcliffe family are first recorded in Worth in 1676, with the burial of a John on 26 May at St Nicholas’s Church. No age is given for him so there is no way of knowing whether he was Thomas’s father, brother or other type of relation. However, he was not described as ‘son of’ and children usually were in the parish register at the time. Some 20 years later there are several baptisms in the village involving parents Steven and Susan Bicliffe. From the 1720s there were further baptisms to John and Elizabeth Bilcliffe and later those involving my 6th great-grandparents George and Mary Bilcliffe.
Thomas and Thomasin had several children:
- Thomas Bilcliffe/Bencliff, my 7th great uncle. He was baptised on 19 January 1696 at St Nicholas’s in Worth, Sussex, his name given as Bencliff. A Thomas Billelif was buried on 1 January 1697 but this could be the infant’s grandfather.
- John Bilcliffe/John Bently, my 7th great uncle. He was baptised on 12 June 1702 in Worth but his name has been transcribed as Bently. He married Elizabeth Ferrall on 23 September 1723 in a so-called Clandestine Marriage in London. He was described as a husbandman from Worth, she a spinster hailing from Burstow in Surrey. The couple raised a family in Burstow and John was buried there on 24 July 1774. A note on the burial record states ‘vulgo Bentley’, which translates as ‘commonly known as’.
Assuming the will of a Thomas Billcliff dated 26 June 1743 is the same man, Thomas and Thomasin had a number of other children who don’t appear in the baptism records of Worth. These include Elizabeth, Thomas (suggesting the Thomas born in 1696 survived or was followed by another), Ann, Mary and Thomasin. Mary married a John Copper/Coppard on 9 May 1742 in St Nicholas’s Church, Worth and Thomasin married a Mr Tasker (?).
It’s worth noting that Thomas and Thomasin were described as ‘poor’ in the baptism record of their son John in 1702 yet the will describes Thomas as a yeoman and carpenter, so he’d obviously done well in life. Thomasin and his children were named as beneficiaries but he made clear that John Copper should inherit his farms after the death of his wife, and that he should be first in line if Thomasin wanted to sell them.
Thomas died in 1745 and was buried in Worth on 27 March 1745. Thomasin was buried on 13 March 1751 and was described as a catholic. What’s unclear is whether she had been all her life.
Sources: Exchange of information with those quoted in text. BMD, census and other records at Ancestry and Find My Past. Sussex Family History Group records. Thomas Bilcliffe’s will at East Sussex Record Office – PBT/1/1/57/288.