TODDINGTON & LOCALITY

My earliest RICHARDSON ancestor William Richardson married Rebecca Osborn in 1793 in Toddington.  I can document the lives of  four of their six children, namely Lot, Rebecca, John and Joseph. but I do not as yet know what became of William and James. I also do not  know the identity of William (senior) 's parents as he was not baptised in Toddington.  Alas he has numerous namesakes both in Bedfordshire and elsewhere, so his origin is difficult to establish. Other related familes such as the OSBORN family (originally from neighbouring Chalgrave),  the BUCKMASTER family (originally from Houghton Regis) and the POTTS and WILDMAN families,can be traced much further back in time.   William Richardson was a horsedealer; the Osborn's tended to be carpenters and wheelwrights; the Buckmasters were often farmers; the Potts were blacksmiths. The earliest entries for Potts in the PR relate to a wealthy family which later moved away but it is thought that the Potts who remained were related to the original family. My Potts listing should be treated with caution and the first 3 generations are fairly speculative as the Parish Register entries give scant detail of relationships and ages!

  SHILLINGTON & LOCALITY

Lot Richardson was William Richardson’s youngest son and a plumber and glazier (later a builder) by trade. In 1829 he married Mary FLINT from a long established Shillington family which can be traced back in the Parish Register into the 17th century. Lot and Mary had six children.

• Daniel - my own direct ancestor married  Frances WILSON from Shillington;
• Joseph married and moved away to Tottenham;  
• Rebecca  married into the SIMKINS family ;
• Lot (junior) who married into the WILSON family and emigrated with his family to Newport, Rhode Island in the 1870’s ( See Emigration Page);
• Mary married into the WALLER family from outside the village and the family kept public houses in various places.
• Elisabeth was handicapped  and did not marry.

As far as I know the only Richardson descendants,  living, in Bedfordshire at the present time, are the descendants of Rebecca.  There must, however, be others - possibly many , descended from Joseph and Mary and their children. (See London  page) as well as decendants of  Daniel’s daughter Emily Sarah Wilson  Richardson who married into the CRAWLEY family of Hitchin, Herts.

Finally if you peruse the listingsor the Parish Register, you will see that many of the old Shillington families are greatly interrelated and there are multiple marriage links between quite a few  of them. I suspect that the same would apply in a great many fairly isolated villages where the population tended over the years to be stable.

Blacksmiths at  work in Toddington - probably the Potts family!