Person:Mary Eden (4)

Mary Eden's origins have yet to be established. The age given when she married suggests that she was born around 1643. Her first confirmed sighting is on 20th January 1669 when a marriage licence was issued for her to marry Francis Dingley. Both Mary and Francis were described as being of Charlton, a hamlet in the parish of Cropthorne in Worcestershire. Francis was a yeoman farmer and about fifteen years older than Mary.

Mary and Francis appear to have had at least seven children together. Baptisms have only been found for three of them, but the surviving parish registers of Cropthorne appear to have been inconsistently kept in the period during and after the Civil Wars. The other children are all named in Francis's will, which he wrote in 1708.

Francis died in 1712, aged 83. He left relatively small amounts of money to his children and grandchildren, with the remainder of his property being left to Mary. An inventory taken immediately after his death includes crops of corn and hay, teams of horses, livestock including cows, calves, sheep and pigs, and farming equipment including ploughs, harrows, carts and wagons.

Mary survived Francis by just over a year. She was buried at Cropthorne on 12th September 1713, when she was about seventy years old.

1. ↑ Cropthorne, Worcestershire: Parish Register Transcript.

   1713. Burials / Sept[embe]r 12. Mrs Mary Dingley wid[ow] was buried.

2. ↑ Mary's marriage licence of 20th January 1669 says she was 25 years old, implying that she was born around 1643 or early 1644.