John Jennings (1736-1805) & Elizabeth Fear (c1740-1806)
The gravestone at Huntspill, in the churchyard of St Peter and All Hallows, of John and Elizabeth Jennings and several of their family members is remarkable for its masonic pigpen cypher, and it also provides insight into their lives.
According to the grave inscription, John Jennings was born on 29 March 1736. The only corresponding local baptism for this date was of John, son of John and Frances Jennings who was baptised at Cannington on 16 April 1736.
Elizabeth was 65 when she died in 1806, so she was born c.1741 – possibly she was Betty, daughter of John Fear, who was baptised on 12 February 1739 at Wedmore.
John Jennings, a carpenter, of Huntspill and Elizabeth Fear of Wedmore were married by licence on 14 May 1769. Over the 1770s their six children were baptised at Huntspill. Their youngest son died aged 4 and is was included on the family gravestone. John Jennings of Huntspill was also listed as a master carpenter in the register of duties paid for apprentices’ indentures (1779). However, it seems that John had wider business interests and from details of later family members, he became a prosperous grocer or shop keeper.
From the records of the Freemason Lodge of Perpetual Friendship at Bridgewater John Jennings, shopkeeper of Huntspill, was made a mason on 12 January 1781. The masonic inscription carved on his grave translates to “This stone is part of the apron or floor of Highbridge, which was much broken and in vain attempted to be repaired for sixty years, was completely repaired in the year 1779 by John Jennings, who lost £100 by doing it”.
John Jennings, age 42 of Huntspill, was also a member of the Masonic Rural Philanthropic Lodge of Huntspill, which met at Highbury, joining in 1778 – though, interestingly, his occupation is listed as architect.
John possibly paid for the work described on his gravestone to assist his business. The main turnpike road to Bristol crossed the River Brue at Highbridge, and up to where vessels of 80 tons could navigate (Collinson’s History of Somerset, 1791). The increase in agricultural output and land enclosures combined with the poor repair of the clyse (or sluice) at Highbridge, which had been built before 1485, might have been incentive enough for John Jennings to take on the expense – and certainly by the end of the 18th Century trade had congregated at Highbridge (English Heritage Extensive Urban Survey). The clyse would have been a key meeting point, given the Bristol channel’s tidal drop, for inland trade to and from the Somerset levels and on-ward routes.
Significant flooding of the Brue valley in 1794 and the 1801 Brue Drainage Act led to the complete re-navigation of the river and rebuilding of the wharves at Highbridge, with the clyse being removed further downstream in 1803.
John and Elizabeth’s eldest son, also John, settled in Birmingham in the 1790s, possibly following an apprenticeship, as a factor and wholesale ironmonger; his son, Egerton Allcock Jennings became a surgeon and from him we know that “His father, who was of a very respectable family in Somersetshire, was engaged in the iron trade in Birmingham.” (Biographical Notice of the late Egerton A Jennings – J Conolly).
John and Elizabeth’s eldest daughter Ann, married John Burnett, also of Huntspill in 1794 (they were both named on the Huntspill gravestone); their family remained in Huntspill. The Burnetts were a local farming family and John’s younger brother, George Burnett, went to Balliol College Oxford (which owned the living at Huntspill) where he became friendly with Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Dictionary of National Biography). Coleridge visited George Burnett in Huntspill when he was ill with yellow jaundice, mentioning Burnett’s execrable smuggled brandy (Coleridge letters, 1797).
James Jennings, the second son of John and Elizabeth, also became part of the circle around Southey and Coleridge in Bristol in the 1790s. James attended the dame’s school in the village (Huntspill: British History OnLine), also described as a “common education”, and then went to work at a Chemist’s in Bristol where he began to establish himself as a writer before moving to London (English Poetry 1579-1830). James returned to Huntspill in 1801 to help his father run his business. He continued to write, though was judged somewhat unfavourably by Southey who called him “poor trauma” and the “traumatic poet”. James eventually moved away from Huntspill in 1817 apparently because the business had failed, founding the Metroplitan Literary Institute in London in 1823. His Observations on Some of the Dialects of the West of England, Particularly Somersetshire was published in 1825 (and a second edition was published in 1869 by his nephew, James Knight Jennings, son of his sister Frances). James died in Greenwich in 1833.
Their youngest child and daughter, Frances, married the Rev William Jennings, originally from nearby Cannington and a curate in Yorkshire at the time of their marriage. The two Jennings families might have been connected – given the possible baptism record of John Jennings. Moreover, conveyancing deeds of 25 March 1794 described 2 acres of land planted as an Orchard, with a dwelling house comprising two tenements with a Cribb house and penning for cattle commonly called Ameries in Huntspill, owned by John Jennings of Huntspill, shopkeeper, Elizabeth his wife, Ann Jennings their eldest daughter and these were conveyed to William Jennings of Cannington, tailor and shopkeeper, and Robert Jennings, formerly of Huntspill but now of Bristol, shopkeeper (Somerset Heritage Centre).
These records suggest a family increasing in prosperity but also well linked across Somerset, Bristol and the Midlands. The abstract of the will of John Jennings of Huntspill described his present dwelling house with the shop, outhouses, gardens…also one other dwelling house or dwelling houses occupied by his son James [and others]. £200 was left each to sons John and Joseph and daughter Frances. The residual estate was to be shared between his sons John, James and Joseph, and daughter Frances and Ann, wife of John Burnett (National Archives).
John died on 2 July 1805 and Elizabeth died on 16 April 1806, aged 65.
In memory of JOHN JENNINGS who was Born the 29th of March 1736 And died the 2nd of July 1805
Quem Mens capax, audax, acuta ornavit
Also Elizabeth Jennings Wife of the above who died the 16th April 1806 Aged 65 Years
Jeremiah Jennings who died ye 21 June 1780 Aged 4 Years
Also ANN daughter of the saidJOHN JENNINGS and the wife of JOHN BURNETT who died the 14th day of January 1837 Aged 65 Years
Also the said JOHN BURNETT who died the 24 October 1845 Aged 80 Years