William Bramwell

1736 - 1806

William was born in Windmill in 1736, the son of Robert and Ann, and was baptised in Tideswell on 22nd July that year ⁽¹⁾. He had two brothers John who was older & Robert who was younger ⁽¹⁸⁾, and a younger sister, Elizabeth, was born in 1841 ⁽²⁾. Another sister, Mary was born in 1843 ⁽³⁾, but she lived for less than 2 years ⁽⁴⁾. His father died when he 14 ⁽⁵⁾.

He married Amy Naul in the summer of 1762 ⁽¹⁶⁾, and they had a son Robert the following year ⁽⁶⁾, then a daughter Jenny in 1766 ⁽¹⁷⁾. William's mother died in early 1769 ⁽⁷⁾, then later that year he had another son William ⁽⁸⁾. More sons followed - John in early 1771 ⁽⁹⁾, then George in the spring of 1773 ⁽¹⁰⁾ and finally Josiah in the spring of 1775 ⁽¹¹⁾. In November of that year however, son John died aged just 4 ⁽¹²⁾, and then just a couple of weeks later, infant son Josiah also died ⁽¹³⁾.

William's wife died in 1798 ⁽¹⁴⁾. He survived for another 8 years, dying at age 70. He was buried in Tideswell on 27th October 1806 ⁽¹⁵⁾.

• Robert has his own page.
• Jenny was born in Windmill in 1766. Nothing more is known of her.
• William was born in Windmill in 1769. Nothing more is known of him.
• John was born in Windmill in 1771, and died there in 1775.
• George was born in Windmill in 1773. Nothing more is known of him.
• Josiah was born in Windmill in 1775, and died later the same year.

1. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [July 1736] Baptized William the Son of Robert Bramwell of Wind Mill 22
2. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [April 1741] Baptized Elizabeth the Daughter of Robert Bramwell of Wind mill the 23
3. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [December 1743] Baptized Mary the Daughter of Robert Bramwell of Wind Mill the 8^th
4. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [September 1745] Buried Mary the Daughter of Robert Bramwell of Wind Mill y^e 3
5. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [March 1750*] Buried Robert Robert Bramwell of Wind Mill in the parish of Hope the 7
   * Note: The date is from the Julian calendar, so for 1750, read 1751. See note in glossary
6. There is as yet no direct evidence for William and Amey having a son Robert in about 1764 (^*now confirmed below). However, there is a fair amount of evidence that points to this, and it fits the known facts better than any other scenario:
   • Robert's burial gives his age as 65 in April 1829, which puts his birth in 1763 or 1764.
   • There are no baptisms for a Robert Bramwell in the Tideswell parish register for that time.
   • Robert's will indicates that he owns property in Windmill, even though he lived in Tideswell. This could well be property that he inherited, and hence he may have originated in Windmill.
   • Extracting all of the entries from the Tideswell parish register that concern someone called Bramwell from Windmill indicates quite clearly that the earliest Bramwell there was Robert Bramwell (died 1751), and he had two sons to carry on the family name - John and William (both of whom had children in the 1760s), and that all the Windmill Bramwells are descended thus. Robert therefore seems very likely to have inherited his Windmill property from one of these two brothers.
   • Robert's daughter Martha married Francis, the son of John Bramwell of Windmill, so Robert himself cannot be a son of John. He therefore must be the son of William, if he is from this family.
   • William's wife was called Amey/Amy (once written as Emmet too), a quite rare name at that time in that parish, and Robert's son Robert called one of his daughters Amy.
   ^*This theory has now been confirmed - the Parish Register of St Peter's, Hope contains an entry which reads :
   [August 1763 Christenings] Rob^t Son William & Amy Bramwall Windmill - 4.
7. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [February 1769] Buried Ann Bramwell of Windmill widow 8
8. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [June 1769] Baptized W^m the son of W^m Bramwell of Windmill 25
9. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
   [March 1771] Baptized John the son of William & Amey Bramwell of Windmill 2
10. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
    [April 1773] Baptized George son of William & Amey Bramwell of Windmill 17
11. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
    [May 1775] Baptized Josiah son of William & Emmet Bramwell of Windmill 7
12. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
    [November 1775] Buried John son of W^m Bramwell of Windmills 21
13. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
    [December 1775] Buried Josiah y^e son of W^m Bramwell of Windmill 13
14. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
    [Burials June 1798] 18 Amy Wife of Will^m Bramwell of Windmill
15. Parish Register of St John the Baptist, Tideswell includes the entry:
    [Burials October 1806] 27 William Bramwell of Wind Mill
16. Parish Register of St Peter's, Hope includes the marriage entry:
    [July 1732] Will^m Bramwall & Amy Naul both Hope parish [.. ...] 14
17. Parish Register of St Peter's, Hope includes the baptism entry:
    [January 1766] Jenny Dau: of William and Amy Bramwall Windmill 23
18. See his father's page for detials