Exerpts from:- Mortlock and the Finch Connection by FJH Griffith
s 5 Towers Garden, Havant, Hants P091RZ, England
Frederick Cheetham Mortlock was born in 1784, the fourth survivi
ng son of John Mortlock III, banker, mayor and sometimeMP for C
ambridge. In June 1807 he eloped to Gretna with Sarah Finch
, a girl from a wealthy local dissenting ironfounder and ironmon
ger family coneected with the Mortlock banking and political act
ivities. The background to thisis that at Gretna Green, the fi
rst village one comes to in Scotland, a runaway couple could b
e married without their parents' consent. The ceremonies were c
onducted by the village blackSmith. Once so wed, the marriage w
as legally binding in england and the probably outraged parent
s had to learn to livewith it.
William Finch, who died in 1732, leaving the staggering sum fo
r its Day of 150,000 pounds, and who has a gravestone at St. Mar
y the Great, thechief Church of Cambridge, came to Cambridge fr
om Hampton St in dudley in Staffordshire in the year of the Glor
ious Revolution, 1688, and started an ironfoundry and ironmonge
ry business. He was an Independent in religion - indeed"a rigi
d Presbyterian" - and one of the Trustees of the Downing Place c
hapel. HIs family were already in iron in Staffordshire, his fa
ther (also Willidam, d 1713) having started up in that busines
s in dudley in the late 1600s.By 1720 the Cambridge business w
as prospering to the extent that William wasable to buy the rui
n of the Austin (Augustinian) Friars in Bene't St from the Unive
rsity, tear it down, and build a "substantial mansion house" o
n thesite. Cole, the antiquarian, lamented that Finch had "pul
led down the good old gates".
William's son and heir William jnr, who died in 1762, is commemo
rated by a plaque at the east end of the south aisle of St. Mary
's. He acquired the manor of Little Shelford and restored and e
nlarged Shelford manor house (the Shelford are about five mile
s south of Cambridge). In 1745 he was elected Treasurer of an A
nti-Jacobite subscription which marks him as a Tory (unlike hi
s father); he subscribed 25 pounds towards enlisting volunteer
s to face Bonnie Prince Charlie's invading "army" (actually a ra
bble). In 1752 hewas on eof the Commissioners for Bridge repai
rs in Cambridge. He died unmarried and the Lordship of the Mano
r of Little Shelford (but not the iron business) passed to his n
ephew, who there upon changed his name from William FinchIngl
e - his father, Samuel Ingle, was a linen draper and Citizen o
f London- to William Finch Finch. In 1777 William Finch Finc
h married Anne Bettina Beevor......
Samuel Ingle had married Elizabeth, daughter of William Finch sn
r 1667-1731. Besides her brother William nrs she had two unmarr
ied sisters of whom Sara jumped out of a window and killed herse
lf in 1753 aged 54.......
Joshua Finch also came to Cambridge to settle, in about 1745, an
d it was tohim that his cousin William left the iron business
. Joshua prospered and became an alderman. His son Charles mar
ried a Sarah Smith, whose uncle Mr. Stanton was vicar of South M
oulton, Northants, and the couple had three daughtersand a son
, also Charles......Charles snr was clearly one of the chief me
nof the town. With his brother Thomas Day Finch of Great Shelf
ord, and John Mortlock and the rather grandly named Granado Pigg
ot, he was among the trustees appointed uner the 1797 Cambridg
e to Abington Road Act. In 1812 he sat with John Cheetham Mortl
ock and Frederick Cheetham Mortlock on a Grand Jury re Mr. Wals
h MP robbing Sir Thomas Planer of 22,000 pounds. .....Charles R
inchsnr and his Sarah were Dissenters (non-conformists) as wer
e many tradesmen and shopkeepers in Cambridge at that time. ...
..Of the daughters, Catherine married Swan Hurrell of Foxton, pr
obably related to the William Hurrel who wasSquire of Hauxton
, and Elizabeth married Ebene
