A Sword, a Family Crest, a 300 year mystery

[Auntyjan]

The first John Hopkinson was born in 1769 and married Mary Gregory in 1793
The second John (son of the first) was born in 1808 and married Ellen Oldham in 1828. They had fifteen children, the first of whom was the third John Hopkinson, born 1829 at North Edge House.
Sorry about the confusion. Sometimes when I try to put everything together, I forget that other people have not been studying this family for months, and what makes sense to me might not be at all clear to everyone else.
I have worked backwards, until coming across the three William Hopkinsons born in the 1730s. This had me stumped. Then the information about the family crest and the sword of Captain Hopkinson came to light. So I then decided to find out whatever I could about Captain Hopkinson, to see if I could find any connection. I am trying to close the gap between the known Hopkinsons on the one hand,and the historical records on the other,using information passed down in the family, to see how Captain Hopkinson's sword and family crest might have come into the possession of our family...using those snippets of information as an indicator of where to look.

[Neil Wilson]

I have worked backwards, until coming across the three William Hopkinsons born in the 1730s. This had me stumped.

How did you come across William? Was he the father of the first John?

[Auntyjan]

How I got back to William. In post 1 I mentioned this, but I realise I have given a lot of information at once so it gets a bit hard to follow. The first John Hopkinson died in 1834, at the age of 65, thus suggesting that he might have been born around 1769 0r 1770. It turns out that there were two John Hopkinsons born in Ashover around that time, one born in 1769 to parents William and Anne, and the other born in 1770 to Thomas and Sarah. Since the names William and Anne were carried forward into the next generation and the one after that, whereas the names Thomas and Sarah were not used at all, it would appear that the first John Hopkinson was the son of William and Anne. There is a marriage for William Hopkinson and Anne Berdow in 1762. The problem lies in trying to go back further, as there are three possible William Hopkinsons.

[Coromandel]

Alice wrote that the family crest was given to John Hopkinson born 1829, the eldest son of John and Ellen, who was a lawyer at Grey's Inn. The crest was passed on to his son Arthur who had a tea plantation in Ceylon. On his death his wife Clare brought the small son back to England.
Now I have found a son for Arthur and Clare, Reginald Stuart Hopkinson born in Ceylon.(now Sri Lanka) His army records list his next of kin as his mother Clare.

This discussion on another forum mentions an Arthur Hopkinson with a wife Clare:

http://www.
rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,179801.0.html

Note that they were both in England in 1901 but there's a likely looking death for Arthur very soon after the 1901 census.

[Auntyjan]

Yes, I have come across that discussion. Every reference confirms things that Alice wrote in her letter from New Zealand (and there's a lot more which I have not included so as not to confuse everyone). I have a lot of information about the family in the 1800s. It's finding a link between our known family back to the one that might have been the source of the sword and the family crest in the 1700s that is proving difficult. Had there been census records at the time, it could have been all sorted by now, as we could have seen who was living at Stubbing Edge with whom. What I'm trying to do is close the gap between the death of Captain William Hopkinson in 1730, and the birth of John Hopkinson in 1769, son of William and Anne. I have a theory, but I need some facts to prove the link.

[Auntyjan]

Wills.
On Ancestry there are brief abstracts of the wills of John Hopkinson 1861(who died 1860) and his widow Ellen Hopkinson (nee Oldham) who died in 1873. These are interesting and I have saved both to my family tree. However, since I already know a lot about their family, I don't think ordering the full copies would tell me anything about those who lived a hundred years earlier. However, this mention of wills sent me on a search and I discovered that there is a letter of administration for William Hopkinson who died in 1730.
The heading was ....Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry Wills.
William Hopkinson gentleman Ashover Derbyshire 1730
Type of Document: Letter of Administration. Lichfield Record Office
Date Recorded 15th Oct 1730
Lichfield Consistory Court Ref B/C/11
Unfortunately I got a bit lost when trying to find out how to order a copy. I'm in Australia and the price for overseas was 7 pounds. I guess there is a way to make a payment and convert from dollars, but as I say, I got lost trying to figure it out.
Does anyone know what a letter of administration is likely to tell me? Would it mention grandchildren or daughters in law, if they existed, as I already know who the son is and that he resided at Stubbing Edge after his father's death.

[Coromandel]

Yes, I have come across that discussion. Every reference confirms things that Alice wrote in her letter from New Zealand

The point I was trying to make in post #14 is that the two do not agree about where Arthur died.

Does anyone know what a letter of administration is likely to tell me?

Grants of letters of administration are not usually very informative, just giving the name of the person who was granted the power to administer the deceased's estate. As I suggested above (I think in the last post on the first page) the Staffordshire Names Index does not include post-1730 Lichfield diocese wills, but I think it would be well worth you getting someone to check the later index for you to see if there are any Hopkinson wills in that period.

The Hopkinson Crest
Alice wrote that the family crest was given to John Hopkinson born 1829, the eldest son of John and Ellen, who was a lawyer at Grey's Inn. The crest was passed on to his son Arthur who had a tea plantation in Ceylon.

Could this mean that arms were granted to this John Hopkinson, or does Alice suggest that the arms were used by earlier members of the family too? The College of Arms might (for a fee) give details of any grant that was made, but do study their website carefully before contacting them, for they say

'It is recommended that you read this website thoroughly before making any enquiry, as we receive many enquiries that could have been answered by reference to information available here. Enquiries that display a complete failure to have read the website may not receive a reply.'

[Neil Wilson]

The first John Hopkinson died in 1834, at the age of 65, thus suggesting that he might have been born around 1769 0r 1770.

There is only one issue I have with working out dates this way, from experience, they never gave the correct age on the records sometime it was a guess from what they had been told.
There is some general thought on your views regarding William being the father. How to work out which is which I supposed can only be done by tracing each of them forward to see who they married etc.

[Auntyjan]

I agree that ages given at death are imprecise at best, but at least they give a rough idea, and you can tell that it's not the death of a child in this case. Now before I continue with an investigation of the various William Hopkinsons, I would like to add a detail about the first John Hopkinson which I think I failed to mention earlier.
John Hopkinson married Mary Gregory on I Jan 1793. at Ashover All Saints, but all their children were christened at St Mary's and All Saints, Chesterfield and so do not appear in John Mills' list of Hopkinson baptisms in Ashover. In fact they don't appear on Ancestry either, and it was only by searching free parish registers that I found them. Their daughter, Elizabeth was also married at St Marys and All Saints in Chesterfield. However, when any family member died, they were buried in Ashover. By that stage various Hopkinsons are differentiated in the records by location and this family is always referred to as "of Chesterfield". Whether this is because Chesterfield was their place of worship, or whether they lived there for a time, I'm not sure. So the first John might not have been baptised in Ashover. I have looked on free parish records for Hopkinson Baptisms around that time, but there seems to be a gap in the records...there are plenty of Hopkinson marriages listed, but no Hopkinson baptisms between about 1710 and 1780. Ashover records are plentiful especially on the In The Valley of My Ancestors site, but there does not seem to be the equivalent for Chesterfield, so I think this is an even bigger problem than inaccuracies of age.