4^th Great Grandfather - FFMMFF¹

Samuel Willis, Robert Willis’s father was born about 1751, the son of Thomas Willis and his wife Elizabeth. He was baptized in Bitton on 28^th July 1751² and he was the 8^th child in a family of 12 children.

Samuel married Sarah Rawbone in St Mary’s Bitton on the 1^st May 1774³. Sarah’s sister Betty had married Jonathan Couch (the parents of Sally Nurse, nee Couch, my 3^rd great grandmother) a year earlier, and Jonathan and her father John Rawbone witnessed their marriage (see Figure 1)

Sometime between 1784 and 1786 Samuel and Sarah and their family moved into Castle Inn Farm, near the Batch (see Figure 2)⁴, as Michael Newton Esq. is shown as the occupier in the 1784 Land Tax Assessment⁵.

Just up what is now Castle Farm Road where it crosses Abbots Road at Hanham Cross are a couple of houses, one of which I believe to be Mould House, where Samuel’s son Robert ended up living with his family.

In the photograph of Castle Inn Farm (Figure 3), the farm where Samuel and Sarah lived is the white house towards the right. Interestingly, I believe that the house on the left is where Sarah’s sister Betty and her husband Jonathan Couch lived with Jonathan’s father, John Couch.

Between 1774 and 1800 Samuel and Sarah had 11 children. Unusually for the day most of them survived infancy, only the first-born Thomas, named after Samuel’s father died young, at the age of 7.

Many of Samuel’s children married and had families of their own. I have already discussed Robert’s family and I have alluded to Mary as she married William Dolman Nurse, Samuel and Rachel Nurse’s oldest son.

Thomas married Hannah Brain in 1804⁶ at St Mary’s Bitton and had 11 children, Samuel married Mary Holloway in 1807⁷ at St Philip and St Jacob in Bristol and had 6 children, Jane married John Burgess in 1817⁸ at St James and had 5 children. Phoebe married Joseph Burgess in 1820⁹ at St Paul, Portland Square in Bristol, and William married Sarah Olds in 1816¹⁰ at St Mary Redcliffe in the Bristol and had 6 children.

I won’t go into a lot of detail on these other children of Samuel and Sarah, my 3^rd great granduncles and grandaunts, but Samuel’s youngest son William is of interest. He was a Sculptor by trade¹¹, but he is best known, at least within the family, as an organist. My Aunt Nell’s notes (see Nurse 1953) indicated he was the organist at Kingswood Parish church for many years and had composed a number of Hymn tunes, including Kingswood Hill, which according to my Aunt Nell¹² was a setting for the Christmas Carol, “While Shepherd’s Watched their Flock by Night”.

Sarah died in July 1823 and was buried on the 13^th July 1823 at St Mary, Bitton¹³, and her husband Samuel died two years later and was buried on 26^th September 1825, also at St Mary, Bitton¹⁴.

It does not appear that Samuel left a will, but there was an agreement made between the siblings regarding Samuel’s share of his father Thomas’s Estate, whereby the other siblings renounced their share in favour of the eldest brother, Robert.

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