Joseph Jennings (1738-1790) & Edith (also Eadith) Sully (17??-1776)
Joseph, son of John and Sarah Jennings, was baptised at Cannington on 23 January 1738.
The banns of marriage between Joseph Jennings of Cannington and Eadith Sully of Clifton were listed in Cannington parish register in 1760. The records of Clifton St Andrew in Bristol recorded the marriage of Joseph Jennings to Edith Sully on 28 September 1760.
Five children of John and Edith Jennings are listed in the Cannington baptism records: Mary on 10 September 1761, Joseph on 23 March 1764, Frances on 2 February 1766 (and also her burial in August 1767), Edith on 10 January 1768, and twins Elizabeth and William on 21 June 1772.
Edith Jennings was buried at Cannington on 26 October 1776. Joseph, a widower, married Mary Darch, a widow, of Bicknoller on 3 March 1779. Joseph Jennings, “clerk of this parish”, was buried 20 November 1790 at Cannington.
Beyond this, very little is certain about the families. The surnames Jennings and Sully appear in parish registers for Cannington and villages in the west of Somerset, and there must have some link with Bristol.
Mention is made of a Joseph Jennings of Cannington, a tailor, and his daughter Mary in a lease assignment in 1777 (National Archives).
Mary Jennings [ie possibly Joseph’s second wife], a widow of Cannington, aged 65, married William Payne of Otterhampton, aged 76, by licence on 9 September 1793. John Jennings of Huntspill was the bondsman for the licence.
Their son William attended St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1801, so clearly there was some local sponsorship and education available to the family.