William Marchant

  General Notes:

European Magazine Vol 18 P480 Obituary Notices 13.12.1790 at Waltham Cross , Mr WILLIAM MARCHANT, Surgeon to his Majesty's Powder Mills. (Universal British Directory 1793-98 at SocGen shows under Waltham Abbey that there are "some powder mills, in the hands of the government".)
In Cheshunt PR WILLIAM is always referred to as MR William Marchant Surgeon. Most other entries are not so respectful.
Extract from Wallis 18th C Medics (Wellcome Inst & SocGen)
WILLIAM 1758 - 1789 Surgeon, Apothecary HPP and Cheshunt
1770???? - 1790 Surgeon Waltham Cross, Herts
1772 Apprentice Surgeon/Apothecary to John Turner of Lewes*
9.4.1789 Master to Apprentice Surgeon Richard Goodwin at Cheshunt (7 years premium £100)
Found ref at WELLCOME INST to PHIBB P330 Some Significant Subscribers but staff could not find publication which they claim to have.
* John Turner was at least one of seven surgeons practising in Lewes. He bled John Bridger in 1759, delivered Lady Poole of a daughter and dosed a bilious Lord Gage in 1791.
Will leaves legacies to wife and children and makes father THOMAS guardian of th e children so obviously WILLIAM knew 2 years before his death that his father would probably outlive him. SEE MARCHANT CD ROM.
MT8.

Ian & Hilary Marchant added:
There is no doubt that my ancestor the diarist was well-to-do, but it looks as though his grandson William was straightforwardly rich. He was an apothecary, Dr Marchant, and Surgeon to the Royal Powder Mills in Waltham Abbey. As well as Little Park (the house and land in Hurstpierpoint that Thomas the Diarist farmed) he owned property in Cheshunt and Edgeley. There are records of how much property tax he paid. The kind of chap bound to do well out of the Napoleonic Wars. A baronetcy, at the very least, beckoned. Sadly, he was killed in Waltham Cross in a coach accident on the 13th December 1790. (The 13th of December was my Dad's birthday, incidentally).
His eldest son John was 14 at the time of his Father's death. We can't say that he inherited a vast fortune, but it was a fair old bit. We can't say for sure how John might have turned out if his Father had lived. But we do know that John lost the lot through gambling, and that he died in Brighton Workhouse in 1848. His grandson Elkanah, my great-great grandfather, would have been seven at the time.

  Noted events in his life were:

• connection.

• connection. ⁸⁹⁶

William married Elizabeth Graham on 5 Feb 1784 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire England. (Elizabeth Graham was born circa 1765.)

  Marriage Notes:

Wedding Register Page 47 No. 133 Cheshunt
Wm. Marchant, bachelor of this parish and Elizabeth Graham, spinster of St Geo r g e, Botolphs Lane in Middlesex by ........ Pickwell, Rector of Bloxham.
Witness Demetria Cotton (bapt. 15.12.1761 London, St Lawrence Poutney d . o f W m & Charlotte)
Gents Mag Vol 54 1784
"By the rev. Dr Peakwell at Cheshunt chu. Herts Miss Eliza Graham of Botolph L a n e, London to Mr Wm. Marchant, surgeon of Waltham Cross."
MT7.