Person:John Plummer (12)

John Plummer was baptised on 30th March 1717 at Shillington in Bedfordshire, son of Elizabeth Plummer, formerly Wynne, and her husband John Plummer, a yeoman. Young John was the third of their four children, and their only son. By the time John’s younger sister was born in 1721 the family had moved a few miles east from Shillington to Stotfold, which is also where his parents had married. In 1733, John’s father took a lease of a farm at Stotfold.

By 1742, John had married a woman called Ann. John and Ann had nine children (one boy and eight girls) baptised at Stotfold between 1742 and 1763, although one daughter died when only one year old in 1762.

John’s father died in 1755, and his mother died in 1763.

John appears to have taken over the lease of his father’s old farm at Stotfold, continuing to occupy it until 1764, when the lease came up for renewal. The farm appears to have been quite expensive. It included two houses, land, a dovecote, meadows and cow commons, and had an annual rent of £80 plus “three dozen good young pigeons” to be paid to the landlord, Sir Anthony Thomas Abdy, a barrister and Member of Parliament who lived in London. It would appear that John did not renew the lease in 1764, and it was taken over by a Samuel Taylor instead.

John’s only son, William, died as a young man of 24 in 1766, just six weeks after he had married.

Ann died in 1773, being buried at Stotfold on 4th May. John survived her by 22 years. He died at the age of 78 and was buried at Stotfold on 5th June 1795. His burial record describes him as a labourer.

1. ↑ England. Births and Christenings, 1538-1975. (FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, Findmypast).

   ch. 30 Mar 1717, Shillington, Bedfordshire: John son of John & Elizabeth Plumer

   Needs to be confirmed at Bedfordshire Archives.

   This baptism has been identified on the basis that John spent most of his adult life in Stotfold, and there was a “John Plumber senior” who died in Stotfold in 1755 (implying that there was a John Plummer junior at that time), followed by an Elizabeth Plummer widow in 1763. It therefore seems likely that the Plummers had moved to Stotfold sometime after John’s birth, supported by the fact that there was a Mary daughter of John and Elizabeth baptised at Stotfold in 1721. Moreover, there was a house and farm at Stotfold which was leased by a John Plommer in 1733 and still mentioned as being in the occupation of John Plommer in 1764 – as John senior had died in 1755 it seems that this John had inherited the lease from his father.

2. ↑ Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service. Transcript of Stotfold Parish Registers.

   Burials 1795: Jun 5 Jn Plomer, labr

3.   Lease, 1764 (Bedfordshire and Luton Archives & Records Service, Bedford)
   BS141, B S & G Bundle 7.

   Lease for 9 years: Sir Anthony Thomas Abdy of Lincolns Inn Fields, baronet, to Samuel Taylor of Hawnes, farmer. A capital messuage in the occupation of John Plommer; and a farmhouse with the lands, dovehouse, meadows, etc [unspecified] and 20 cow-commons belonging thereto, in Stotfold. Annual rent: £80 and three dozen 'good young pigeons'.

   Needs to be confirmed at Bedfordshire Archives.