Phillip Doddridge, when orphaned in 1715, came under the guardianship of Thomas Downes of St Albans, apparently a colleague or business associate of Doddridge’s father, Daniel, in London. Downes was a non-conformist and ran a school n St Albans in rented premises in the manor house of Newland Squillers in Cock Lane (now Hatfield Road). A master at the school was Revd Nathaniel Wood, a minister well connected to the non-conformist community in the town and with a congregation somewhere nearby. In 1725 he married Mary, sister of Thomas Downes.

Downes apparently almost immediately mishandled Doddridge’s fortune but by that time Revd Samuel Clark, minister at the Presbyterian chapel on Dagnall Lane in the town, had taken Doddridge under his wing. Clark had arrived in St Albans in 1712 on the death of the first minister at the chapel, Dr Jonathan Grew. Clark was of a distinguished clerical family with non-conformist tradition. He is noted for having established a charity school in St Albans for both boys and girls and was the author of Collection of the Promises of Scripture.

Clark became mentor and life-long friend to Doddridge and recommended he continue his studies at the academy of John Jennings at Kibworth, which he did.  The families remained friends with the Doddridge daughters remaining in contact with Clark’s daughters long after their respective marriages and dispersal to other towns.

Many of Doddridge’s correspondents or purchasers of the various volumes of his Family Expositor shown on Timothy Whelan’s website had associations in St Albans and with Clark’s chapel community.  

Here follow some notes on those with those known connections:

The Ashurst Family

Mrs Elizabeth Ashurst, widow of William Ashurst, sugar baker of London and Castle Hedingham in Essex took a lease in 1746 on a mansion at St Julian’s just a mile or so along Watling Street, a highway to London to the south of St Albans, as her summer residence. Her maiden name was Hollis and she was the daughter of John Hollis, and niece of Thomas, substantial benefactor to Harvard College, as it was then. Thomas Hollis, Republican, and also benefactor to the College, was grandson of another of the Hollis brothers, Nathaniel. The Hollis family were understood to be Baptists, but they were not restrictive in their philanthropy, though insistent that Baptists should not be excluded from the benefit of their endowments. Parents of William Ashurst were Robert and Elizabeth, nee Gunston, and sister of Dame Mary Abney.[1] Widowed in 1721, Robert married Judith Woolley, who survived him and died in Derby in 1753. She clearly kept to the family’s religious traditions. In his will, Robert requested that Dame Mary care for his children.

The Ashursts were of longstanding Presbyterian stock[2] and so it is not surprising that Elizabeth Ashurst joined the congregation at the chapel in Dagnall Lane on her arrival at St Julians.  She clearly became a close friend of the Clarks, and her daughter and only surviving child, also Elizabeth, knew the Clark daughters well, and no doubt also knew the Doddridge girls. She would also have known their brother Samuel too, who studied under Doddridge at Northampton and took on his duties at Castle Hill when Doddridge was unwell. He ultimately served in Birmingham at The Old Meeting, famously attacked in the time of Joseph Priestley in 1791. The young Elizabeth Ashurst married Henry Hoghton, of a prominent Lancashire Presbyterian family, but died in childbirth the year after their marriage in 1760. Her will included legacies for all three Clark girls – Sarah, who had married William Rose, a schoolmaster who had been a tutor at Doddridge’s Academy and later moved to Chiswick, and would make some contributions to Griffiths’ Monthly Review, Ann, who had married Jabez Hirons in 1758[3], and Elizabeth, who would marry Ralph Griffiths, founder of The Monthly Review, as his second wife, in 1767. Elizabeth may not have been as astute a businesswoman as Ralph’s first wife Isabella, who apparently kept the finances of the business in order, since the enterprise became gradually more precarious and was closed under their son, George Edward Griffiths, in 1825.

The Griffiths lived at Linden House on Chiswick High Road at Turnham Green on the banks of the River Thames. The house stood in 3 acres of ground and had a frontage of 300 feet. There were nine bedrooms and stabling for seven horses. The house was sold in 1831 by their grandson, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright,[4] son of Ann, daughter of Ralph by his first wife, Isabella. After a period serving as a Victorian Girls’ School, the house was, in 1879, demolished, but it is remembered in the name given to the home on the banks of the Thames of the London Corinthian Sailing Club, also offered as a current wedding venue, and a residential street nearby called Linden Gardens. 

William and Samuel Ashurst who subscribed in 1739 could be the sons of Sir William, so younger brothers of Robert. They had sisters who were unnamed in their father’s will, so perhaps there was an Ann, who subscribed the same year. Mrs Ashurst who subscribed to the Family Expositor in 1753 could be the widow of William (of St Julian’s near St Albans), or possibly her sister in law, Elizabeth (nee Thompson), wife of William’s brother Thomas (of London and Castle Hedingham). The Mrs Ashurst who appears in letter 1541 in Nuttall’s Calendar as donating books to Doddridge is most likely Mrs Ashurst of London and St Julian’s, since she would have been the one who knew Doddridge most personally.

The Pembroke Family

The Pembrokes were prominent in St Albans throughout the 18th century.  William Pembroke was one of the original trustees of the Presbyterian chapel in the town, built in 1698. His wife Mary, nee Flindell, was also of a nonconformist family. Their son Joshua, a barrister at law, continued the business in St Albans, taking apprentices Thomas Kettle (father of Godfrey) in 1712 and  Jabez Hirons, father of the later minister of the chapel, in 1715. The Mrs Pembroke who subscribed to the Family Expositor in 1739 is most likely Ann (nee Constable), the then recently widowed wife of Joshua.  Another son was Thomas, who appears also to have subscribed to the Expositor.  Joshua had two sons, Joseph and George, and two daughters, Katherine and Ann. The family remained in nonconformity: George, by then a prominent lawyer, having his several children baptised by Revd Jabez Hirons. A son, also George, attended Doddridge’s academy at Northampton. Joshua’s son,  George, subscribed in 1739 and 1753. 

Mrs. Edwin

Mrs Edwin will be Mary (nee Thompson) and sister of Elizabeth Thompson, wife of Thomas Ashurst of Castle Hedingham. The family of her husband, Humphrey Edwin, were all notable nonconformists, with this Humphrey the grandson of Sir Humphrey Edwin, Lord Mayor of London in 1697/8. They came to rent a smart town house on the west side of St Peter’s Street in St Albans in the latter part of the 18th century, though Humphrey died in 1775. Mary Edwin lived on there until she was buried, with her husband, at Bunhill Fields in 1801. Humphrey’s father, Charles Edwin, married, as his second wife, Abigail Lockey (nee Hill). ‘Miss Edwin of Denham Place’ who subscribed in 1756 would be this lady. She inherited Denham Place, which was built by Sir Roger Hill, her grandfather. She died in 1757, aged 84.

Dr. Mead

The physician, Dr Mead, lived in Great Ormond Street in London. He was Richard, the son of Matthew Mead, dissenting minister.

Revd and Mrs Joseph Grigg 

The Griggs were residents in St Albans when they subscribed to the Expositor in 1756. He had been assistant minister to Thomas Bures at the Presbyterian Church on Silver Street in London, but, marrying sufficiently well, in 1747, which coincided with the death Bures, he retired from that post and took up residence in St. Albans. Taking part in local affairs, he became a trustee of the St Albans Turnpike. He continued preaching and writing hymns. In 1756 he delivered a sermon The Voice of Danger, the Voice of God, A Sermon [delivered] Chiefly with a View to the apprehended Invasion[5] at the Presbyterian chapels in St Albans and Box Lane, near Hemel Hempstead. The same year one of his hymns was published by Elizabeth Harrison in her Miscellanies on Moral and Religious Subjects. Probably in 1760, he took on a newly built substantial house on the west side of St Peter’s Street, where he kept his chariot and paid tax on 600 oz of plate. He is said to have written some 40 hymns, 12 of which were published in The Christian’s Magazine, or a Treasury of Divine Knowledge, before he died, in 1768 Though he described himself as ‘of St Albans’ when he wrote his will in April of that year, he is said to have died in Walthamstow. 

Mrs. Bell 

Both the Griggs and Mrs Bell seem to have had Northampton connections, so would have known Doddridge, but lived in older age in the then salubrious town of St Albans. This perhaps also applied to Mr and Mrs Burkitt, thought nothing is known of them. Mrs Bell could likely be Isabella, wife of Humphrey Bell, citizen and innholder of London, who died in 1757, though proof is lacking. His sister was married to a Hill, and Bell ‘adopted’ their son Humphrey, later of King’s and Queen’s County, Virginia.  Also for consideration is Dame Abigail Hill, widow of Sir Roger Hill of Denham, the mother of Abigail Edwin. Dame Abigail died in 1737, but it is not unreasonable to consider she might have supported Doddridge’s work at the very end of her life.

Mrs Elizabeth Harrison 

Mrs. Harrison subscribed to the Family Expositor 1739 and 1740. Her Miscellanies on Morals and Religious Subjects in Verse and Prose was written in 1756 ‘with the help of Rev and Mrs Clark’. It was sold by J Buckland at the Buck in Paternoster Row and T Field at the Wheatsheaf in Cheapside. Since Dr Samuel Clark, minister at the Dagnall Lane Presbyterian Chapel, died in 1750, the work was long in the gestation, or perhaps the help given was that of his son, also Samuel, and both a pupil and assistant with Doddridge at Northampton.  

The lady could be Elizabeth Harrison, a schoolmistress, who took out an insurance policy with the Sun Fire Insurance Company in 1745 for premises she had just moved into in the Christopher Inn in St Albans. Most likely the same lady paid land tax there as Widow Harrison in 1753 but moved or died by 1758. This lady seems unconnected with a William Harrison, Quaker and schoolmaster in the town around the same time.

Another possibility is that the author was Mrs Harrison who lived on the East side of St Peter’s Street, a more prestigious address, in the 1730s and 1740s. This lady has a daughter, Elizabeth, and apparently a son, whose widow, Mary, in her will proved in 1746 left legacies to her ‘honoured mother’ Elizabeth Harrison, snr of St Peter’s and her daughter Elizabeth. Witness to Mary’s will was Revd Samuel Clark. A John Harrison was buried at St Peter’s in 1752, but he was a plumber and married to a Mary Oxton. Thomas Harrison, clerk, was buried at St Peter’s in 1745, but no connection can be made with the ladies mentioned. 

Kate Morris, Independent Researcher

Notes

[1] Lady Mary continued to live at Theobalds near Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, their ‘out of town residence’ after her husband, Sir Thomas, a sometime Lord Mayor of London, died in 1722. She returned to the manor of Stoke Newington, together with her house guest, Isaac Watts, on the death of her sister, Sarah, in 1734, and continued to develop the house, they had inherited from their brother, Thomas, and, more particularly the garden, which Watts so much enjoyed.

[2] Robert Ashurst was the son of Sir William Ashurst, sometime Lord Mayor of London, and his wife Elizabeth Thompson, daughter of Major Robert Thompson, and apprenticed to her brother Joseph Thompson, in the Salters’ Company. Sir William was a woollen draper and Lord Mayor of London in 16 and had his ‘out of town’ residence at Highgate. His eldest son, Henry became MP for Preston and also Town Clerk to the Corporation of London. Another son, Samuel, followed his father in the drapery business. A daughter, Sarah, remained unmarried, living at Aldermanbury in London, and died in 1755, very likely the Sarah, who subscribed to Doddridge’s  Family Expositor in 1739 and (2 sets) in 1753.. 

[3] Hirons had been educated by Doddridge at his academy in Northampton and followed Clark, later his father in law, in the ministry at the Dagnall Lane Chapel in St Albans. His cousin, Thomas, was also a student at Northampton 

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sale_of_Linden_House,_Turnham_Green,_1831.jpg

[5] This was the commencement of what became known as The Seven Years War.