Advent Calendar - Holiday Happenings

A post for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories

Christmas was a great time to baptise your baby or marry your sweetheart - it was one of the rare holiday days you got so you weren't missing out on a day's pay! Alternatively the day's festivities were sometimes overshadowed with sadness when loved ones died or were buried over the holidays. Here's a rollcall of Christmas Happenings in my own family tree, and some others from throughout Wing's history (quite a long list!) - if I've missed your own ancestral Wing Christmas Happening please add it in the comments below.

Let's kick things off appropriately with the HOLLYMAN family! Mary HOLLYMAN was baptised 25 December 1755 in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire (she died two months later). James HOLLYMAN was baptised 25 December 1767 in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, and his younger brother Charles was baptised on the same day two years later - these two were the younger brothers of my direct ancestor Brightwell HOLLYMAN who later came to Wing and caused a scandal.

There are several Christmas events surrounding my LATHWELL family in Wing. My 4xgreat-grandfather John LATHWELL married his first wife on Christmas Eve 1813 (in neighbouring Mentmore) and baptised their eldest son the following year on Christmas Day 1814. John later went on to marry Sarah HARDWICK, whose lot it was to labour on Christmas Day 1845 to give birth to my 3xgreat-grandmother Medora Jane LATHWELL.

Elsewhere in Buckinghamshire, my 5xgreat-grandmother Martha SIBLEY was baptised 25 December 1778 in Little Missenden. Further afield, one of my Oliver clan from Chilton Candover in Hampshire, Mary Anne OLIVER, was baptised on 25 Dec 1807, and my parish clerk ancestor John TRAFFORD was baptised 25 Dec 1809 in Finmere, Oxfordshire, where he lived all but the last year or so of his life.

And lastly, my great-great-grandfather Edmund Worledge WHITE died on 25 December 1911 in Willesden, Middlesex.


Happy Birthday to the Christmas babies of Wing, including:
Philip PITCHFORD - 1830
Medora Jane LATHWELL - 1845
Charles Thomas ADAMS - 1850
Sarah Jane WOOLHEAD - 1863
Mary DUNCOMBE - 1861

Baptised on Christmas Day were:
Katherine BUCKMASTER - 1548
Alice CARPENTER - 1549
Thomas COCK - 1553
Richard COCKE - 1556
John TURNEY - 1591
Elizabeth HICKMAN - 1689
Esther DIMMOCK - 1711
Jane DIMMOCK - 1725
Betty BULL - 1737
Matthew GOSS - 1776
Mary PRENTIS - 1777
Catharine HELEY - 1795
Mary WOODMAN - 1798
William WHITE - 1804
Whoever was presiding over Christmas services in 1807 did a good job rounding up the unbaptised who showed up:
Thomas BRASINGTON (aged 23) and son William BRASINGTON- 1807
William PAGE - 1807
Susanna HELEY (aged 2) and sister Mary HELEY (aged 9 weeks) - 1807
William GOSS - 1812
Martha PAGE - 1812
George BURROWS - 1813
John PERRY - 1814
Mary FOSTER - 1814
William LATHWELL - 1814
Patience STAPLES - 1815
Joseph PEASE - 1815
Ann FOSTER - 1817
Abel MUNDAY - 1817
Lucy PAGE - 1819
Hannah LAY - 1823
Ann HARDWICK - 1833
Betsy BRASINGTON - 1840
John CAPP - 1842
Bernard CUTLER - 1845
Sarah Ann THORN - 1845
Phillis CHAPPELL - 1845
Ann CUTLER - 1849
John Joseph NORTHWOOD - 1850
Sarah LOWENS - 1850
Sarah Ann MOORING - 1850

And remembering those residents of Wing buried on Christmas Day, including:
Richard BREWER - 1598
Elizabeth WATTS - 1625
William ARUNDELL - 1679
Rebecca MUNDAY - 1723 died of smallpox
Mary BURROWS - 1797 aged 44
Ralph DIMOCK - 1799 aged 6 months
Martha GREEN - 1804
Martha HICKMAN - 1805 aged 90!
Hannah PAGE - 1834 aged 11
John DIMMOCK - 1835 aged 22
Emily BONE - 1840 aged 6

I'll be celebrating the Christmas wedding anniversaries of Wing folk in a separate post on December 23.