Saint Peter's, Leeds, Yorkshire (1755-1892) DRAKE, NEILD, FARRAR, LOWE, HUTCHINSON, WRIGHT

Earlier this week we took at look at our matrilineal line. Time now for the seat of our patrilineal line - St Peter's parish in Leeds, Yorkshire.

History of St. Peter's: the Medieval Parish Church
By taking the virtual tour, you can see an image of the present font, where most of our ancestors would have been baptised (the old font in use until the time of Cromwell)

Leeds Parish Church Saint Peter-at-Leeds
St. Peters was reconstructed in the middle of the nineteenth century(1837-1841), and consecrated in 1841, at which time it was the largest new church built since St. Paul's Cathedral in 1707.

description of the building - Leeds Parish Church 
 The cost of replacing the medieval church was apparently thirty thousand pounds. This site emphasized the role of the new church in ministering to the "increasingly disillusioned working classes of the Industrial Revolution".

Directly relevant to our DRAKE family. Our earliest identified ancestor Joshua DRAKE testified in 1832 at a parliamentary investigation of the conditions in the textile factories. It seems from his answers that his children worked in the factories. "Necessity compels a man that has children to let them work" was his answer to the question "Why do you allowyour children to go to work at those places where they are ill-treated or over-worked?"

BUT - elsewhere this Joshua Drake mentions a daughter Elizabeth working in the factories, becoming ill and possibly dying from the dust of the flax. Our Joshua married an Elizabeth, but no sign of a daughter by that name.

Links to transcriptions of the registers of St. Peter's Parish Church, Leeds
Prior to 1750 - too early for any of ours, yet...

The first baptisms we have found for our family at St. Peter's were for the FARRAR family. Joshua Stugdale Farrar was baptised in 1787, son of Joshua. He married Sarah LOWE at St. Peters in 1809. Sarah was christened at St. Peters in 1787. Their nine children were baptised at St. Peters over a twenty year span between 1809 and 1830. Their daughter Rachel bap. 1816 married Abraham NEILD there in 1835, just a couple of years before they rebuilt the parish church of St. Peters. Abraham was also baptized at St. Peter's, in 1814 son of John and Martha Nield of Woodhouse.

Ellen Wright married John Drake at St. Peters in 1829. Her sisters Hannah and Elizabeth were also baptized there, but for some reason Ellen was born elsewhere (Windsor, Berkshire).

Occupations in Leeds:
in 1814, John Neild was a clothier.
in 1851 & 1861, Abraham Nield was a Tanner. At his marriage in 1835 Abraham was a clothier like his father. In 1869 Abraham was a Flesher.
in 1841, Joshua Stugdale Farrar was a Slate River.
in 1871 Henry Drake was a "calf grinder"? in 1881 he was a Laborer in Dye Works, while his wife Martha (nee Nield) was a "Skin Ironer (Leather)". By 1891, Henry  was a Leather Dresser, but in London. in 1869 at the marriage of his son John Abraham Drake, Henry was listed as an Engine Tenter.
in 1829 at his marriage to Ellen Wright, John Drake is listed as 'Dyer', In 1851 he is an Engine minder, 1861 Engine ? at Stuff Mill

DRAKE
Henry b1849
John d 1865 m. 1829 to Ellen Wright
John Abraham b 1881
Joshua m 1813
FARRAR
Joshua b 1755
Joshua Stugdale b 1786 m 1809
Rachel b 1816 d 1857 m 1835
HUTCHINSON, Ann b 1769
LOWE, Sarah b 1787 m. 1809
NEILD
Abraham b 1814, m. 1835, d 1880
Martha b 1851

? elizabeth d 1812
WRIGHT, Ellen d 1892, b 1808



Elsewhere in LEEDS, or perhaps even at st Peters
DANBY, Elizabeth (d)
DICKINSON, John b1474, d1554
This couple was married in 1499. John Dickinson was Alderman in 1525 at Leeds. He was the son of William Dickinson and Isabel Langton. 



Places to Visit
St. Peters ;-)
Royal Armouries