Thomas Inskip and the Pastoral Poets

Thomas Inskip, a watchmaker and clockmaker from Shefford in Bedfordshire was an interesting man.  He was responsible for the clock at Greenwich Observatory, left his archaeological collection to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and was a friend to labouring-class poets, Robert Bloomfield (who Thomas is buried next too in Campton Churchyard), and later John [...]

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The Life of John and Margaret Inskip in Old Warden

John and Margaret Inskip were married in January 1584, a reasonably common time to marry as weddings were not allowed during the Christmas or Lent periods.  John was aged around 28 and Margaret 26 – couples at this time only got married when they had the means to support a family and somewhere to live.  [...]

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Why did the Inskips move to Bedfordshire

For the last nine months I have been deep in old parchments trying to find out why the Inskips first moved to Old Warden, Bedfordshire in the late sixteenth century.  The result has been a village reconstruction of all the families in Old Warden between 1537 when Warden’s Cistercian Abbey was Dissolved, and the 1660 [...]

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Australian Pioneers

In February 1844 William Inskip and his wife Maria Carter from Maulden, Bedfordshire, arrived in Australia, aboard the Neptune. They had gone to Australia as much needed farmers on an assisted package.
There is a very good list of all their descendants on the Monaro Pioneers website.
William was one of 11 children. [...]

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Dunghills and Ditches

I’ve just returned from a course in Cambridge to learn how to read old documents. If you have ever tried to read and old will and found it impossible, don’t be surprised – the characters are completely different, the spelling is interesting, and the language unfamiliar to us today. I say [...]

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