| Notes |
Early Life
Henry Gipps was the son of Henry Gipps of Canterbury and Sarah Flint of Ashford, Kent. Henry was born in 1718 and baptised on the 13 th of July at Ashford St Mary in Kent. See first footnote for some discussion on the confusion surrounding Henry's parentage.
Career
Henry was involved in medicine; possibly either an apothecary ( source) or a surgeon ( source), or both.
This PDF (page 72) talks about someone who may be this Henry:
Henry Gipps, apothecary, apprentice of Charles Knowler, became a freeman of Canterbury in 1741. He was probably the person of that name of Hythe who was called surgeon, etc., when John Fuller was bound to him in 1747, and apothecary when William Hague was bound in 1753 and with Henry Gipps of Saltwood, about 2 miles (3 km.) from Hythe, called apothecary when Thomas Dray was bound in 1757 and surgeon when William Rolfe was bound in 1769. On April 28, 1756, Henry Gipps, bachelor of Saltwood was granted a licence to marry Ann Andrews
This website tells us more about this type of profession:
For all but the wealthiest sections of medieval and early modern society, treatment took place in the home, or at the hands of a local wise or cunning person who had inherited knowledge of traditional herbs and cures. However, for those who could access more formal medical care they likely went to an apothecary or to a barber-surgeon. These apprentice-trained groups treated the widest variety of individuals even though under the guild system they were restricted in which kinds of medicine they could practice, if any.
In England there are records of Barbers’ guilds from 1308 and within these guilds were two types of practitioner; those who practiced barbery, mainly phlebotomy and hair-cutting, and those who were barber-surgeons who also practiced more invasive surgical interventions such as lancing boils, excising small cysts and tumours, and treating minor wounds. Barber-surgeons increased their standards and the quality of their practice throughout the medieval period and in some ways moved ahead of the master surgeons, due to both being more numerous and more willing to treat a greater variety of patients for less money.
The first mention of apothecaries in England came in the Pipe Rolls of 1180 and apothecaries are recorded in urban centres including York, Hereford, and Nottingham as well as London. The first reference specifically to an apothecary’s shop in England, however, occurs in London in 1345, under the auspices of the Guild of Pepperers, which became part of the Company of Grocers in the same century. In the 1447 patent rolls the Grocers were explicitly given inspection privileges over all shops which sold drugs, ointments and spices. In other words, all of the products primarily sold by apothecaries. In the medieval period there appears to have been few retailers who were specialised enough to be called apothecaries outside of the university towns and London. Most were likely called grocers or mercers depending on the century, and the guild structure to which they belonged. Though they were limited from legally practicing medicine many people bought medicines from apothecaries based on self-diagnosis, and as there was no such thing as a ‘prescription only’ medicine almost anything could be bought ‘over the counter’.
It would be expected that the barber-surgeons would have just as much need to stock and dispense herbal and other medical remedies as their more prestigious counterparts. Descriptions of later medieval and early post-medieval apothecaries’ shops, such as that of William Bullein which was referenced earlier, further make it clear that apothecaries were expected to perform a similar range of basic surgical procedures as barbers in earlier centuries. Despite the guild structure which marked the boundaries of these two trades, they were still permeable. This arrangement is echoed in the post-medieval period when the Barber-Surgeons guilds gained in their control over the practice of surgery, and the Apothecaries, in 1617, were given Royal Assent to form their own company in London, though this marked a stronger division in their practices than existed earlier.
I note that Henry was following in a family tradition - his paternal grandfather Simon Gipps was also a physician / surgeon.
Family Life
Henry married Ann Andrews, of Hythe in Kent, on the 29 th of April 1756 at St Mary the Virgin in Dover. The marriage was witnessed by George Gipps and EJ Gipps. These were probably Henry's brother George (1729-1800) and George's wife Elizabeth Johanna Roberts. Henry's father, having died the previous year, could not be a witness.
The marriage record on Ancestry includes one confounding detail, namely that he was 30 when married, which means he would have been born in 1726, not 1718. One possibility is that he was simply lying about his age to appear younger than he actually was (i.e. 30, not 38), perhaps to appease the fears of his spouse or her family. I'll note that a birth year of 1718 is also given at Canterbury Archaelogical Society.
Henry and Ann had four children:
- Henry, bapt. 1757 and who may have died in 1812
- Elizabeth, bapt. 1758 and who married John Bolland
- George, bapt 1760, later rector of Ringwold and father of George Gipps, future governor of New South Wales; died 1802
- Anne, bapt. 1761 and seemingly died that same year
Death
Henry died in June 1769 and was buried at St Peter & St Paul in Saltwood, Kent on the 7 th of that month. His will is available at Canterbury under ref: PRC/31/239 G/1 but is unfortunately not available online.
Footnotes
- On Henry Gipps' parentage:
There's some confusion about whether Henry's father was called John, or Henry. If we consult British History Online Henry's pedigree is as follows:
- Thomas Gipps, fl. 1608, had Roger
- Roger married in 1637 Helen Brockman and had amongst others, George
- Rev. George, of Wye, clerk, died 1706 and who had amongst others John
- John married Sarah Flint and had amongst others, Henry
- Henry of this page, who had two sons and a daughter, Elizabeth
So Henry's father is named 'John', who married Sarah Flint. However, if we assume that Sarah Flint was indeed the mother of Henry of this page, then the only marriage record for Sarah Flint from the right time and location shows her marrying a Henry Gipps. This relationship is also confirmed in Brief Records1 (page 18) which quite clearly says that Sarah Flint married Henry Gipps and that they had a son called Henry who is the Henry of this page 2. What seems to have happened is that Henry Gipps son of Simon Gipps married Sarah Flint; whereas John Gipps was indeed the son of George Gipps of Wye, but not the husband of Sarah Flint.
Perhaps the clearest evidence that Henry was son of Henry Gipps, not John, is that the witnesses at his wedding were George Gipps and his wife Elizabeth Johanna; this George Gipps was definitely the son of Henry Gipps and so would have been Henry of Saltwood's brother.
[1] Brief Records of the Flint Family, Benjamin Francis Flint, London (1856)
[2] Confoundingly, the entry for Henry of this page is the only one without a year of birth or baptism; his siblings (Landman, Richard, Anna Maria, Sarah, Richard and George) all have baptismal dates listed.
The following is a mildly-edited version of the footnote from p147 of Hasted's History and Topographical Survey of Kent1:
He [ George Gipps] was descended from Thomas Gipps, esq, who was of the cloth-workers company in London, to the livery of which he was admitted in 1608. He left a son Roger, and a daughter Sarah, married to James Bunce, esq, afterwards knighted, and an alderman of London.
Roger Gipps, the son above-mentioned, married in 1637, Helen, daughter of Sir William Brockman, of Beechborough, sheriff of Kent anno 18 King Charles I, by Anna, only daughter and heir of Simon Bunce, of Linsted, and uncle of Sir James Bunce, of Kemsing, abovementioned; by her he had issue three sons:
- Simon, the eldest 2, who left issue [and died in 1690]
- George, the second son, was of Wye, clerk, who died in 1706, leaving a son John, of whom hereafter, and two daughters 3;
- William, the third son, was of Smeeth 4, gent. who died in 1694, and left by Mary his wife, five daughters, of whom Ellen married the Rev. John Richards, of Braborne; and Elizabeth, Mr Thomas Johnson.
John Gipps, the only son above-mentioned of the Rev. George Gipps 5, of Wye, married Sarah Flint, by whome he had three sons, viz.
- Henry, who had issue two sons and a daughter: Henry, now of Canterbury, banker; George, rector of Ringwold; and Elizabeth, married to Mr John Bolland, of London.
- Richard, the second son, is now in Jamaica, unmarried;
- and George, the third son, was of Canterbury, esq. and MP for that city, the lessee and afterwards purchaser of this precint and ville of the dissolved priory of St Gregory; he had been thrice married, first to Elizabeth Johanna, daughter of Mr John Roberts, of Harbledown, who died without issue; secondly, in 1780 to Sarah, daughter of Mr Standon, by whom he had issue two sons, George and Henry, both at this time minors; and thirdly, in 1792, to Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Lawrence, late of Canterbury, MD, who survived him.
[1] The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, Edward Hasted; Volume 12 (1801), p147 (footnote)
[2] This is wrong - William was the eldest (he is described as 'heir' in Visitations of Kent), Simon the second son and George the third
[3] George married Martha Peirce and had six children (two boys, 4 girls); perhaps only 1 boy and 2 girls survived
[4] Smeeth is very close to Mersham; in the Visitation of Kent 1663-1668, William is noted 'of Mersham'
[5] I think this is partly wrong - John was indeed a son of George Gipps, but the person who married Sarah Flint and had Henry, Richard and George was actually Henry Gipps, son of Simon Gipps (George Gipps' brother).
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Abt 1718 - Abt 1769 (~ 51 years)
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