Gospel Family History

By Peter Gospel

William Gospel? There were three!

I am lucky in as much as when I started researching my Family Tree some 4 years ago I made contact with a man who had been researching the same name for over 20 years.

His first question was to ascertain how far back I had got. Having 'inherited' a very rough tree from my deceased father I confidently replied “Oh William Gospel. He got married at Bishop Wilton in 1786” His next question was “Yes, but which William Gospel? There were three.”

I knew, having trawled the Web Site '192.com' (the telephone directories/electoral rolls of the country) that in the 1999 electoral year there were only 163 people called Gospel and they lived at 94 houses in the UK. I was therefore somewhat surprised to find that there had been three William Gospels in the 1780s.

One (mine) lived at Bishop Wilton, one lived at Bolton and one lived at Barmby Moor. Thereafter they became known as BW Bill, BM Bill and Bolton Bill.

My William, BW Bill, married Elizabeth Robinson in 1786 at Bishop Wilton. She was a widow with three children and they subsequently endeavoured to produce another eight between them. He died aged 96 years in 1847 at Bugthorpe and was buried at Bishop Wilton. His only surviving son, James, lived at Bugthorpe and accommodated William in his latter years. Elizabeth Gospel (nee Robinson) died in 1832 aged 73 years and is buried at Bishop Wilton with her first husband, Stephen Robinson.

Bolton Bill may well have been either a son to an earlier marriage or a nephew. This is pure speculation. The first record of Bolton Bill is his marriage to Mary Northcliffe at Bishop Wilton in 1801. This is unusual because normally a girl got married from her parents’ home village. She was born at Catton and not Bolton or Bishop Wilton. Her parents may have moved to Bolton from Catton. William and Mary must have been Anglicans and not Methodists. Mary Gospel (nee Northcliffe) died in 1859. Bolton Bill would have been 73 when he died and his wife Mary would have been 84 years.

The problem in discovering if they are related stems from the 1841 census, which was the first to do more than just a 'headcount' in the villages; BW Bill, who was 90 at the time, was asked by the enumerator “Were you born in this county?” BW Bill replied “No.”

No further questions were asked. Where he was born is anybody's guess.

It would be a mammoth task to attempt to find where they were born. It would mean searching the church records of every parish in the UK, because it was pre compulsory registration of births, deaths and marriages. And, who knows, possibly abroad.

Barmby Moor Bill is a separate entity. His full story is the subject of a second script. Simplistically he was not a Gospel but a Gosper. He was a foundling left at the Foundling Hospital in London. As a waif and stray the staff at the hospital rechristened these abandoned children. He was christened William Gosper. In his movements under the auspices of the Foundling Hospital he found himself, at 10 years of age, at the hospital’s outreach school at Ackworth, near Pontefract. At this age he was sent to Barmby Moor as an apprentice in 'husbandry'. In the transition from his wet nurse in Kent to Ackworth via the hospital in London an administrative error was made and the Gosper became Gospel.

Barmby Moor Bill was born in 1759. He married Jane Savage in 1783 at Barmby on the Moor. Bill died in 1800 aged 41 years. In the seventeen years of marriage Bill and Jane had produced 4 children. Jane remarried the following year to Richard Walkington. The boys would appear not to get on with Richard. Within a year or two they had 'emigrated' to Scarborough and become involved in the fishing industry.

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