I wrote recently about my quest to discover the identity, and fate, of Mary Johnson, the heiress and apparent goddaughter of Ratcliffe apothecary John Bodington, who died in 1728. Bodington was a friend, associate and possible relative, of my 7thgreat grandfather, Ratcliffe-born London goldsmith Joseph Greene.
In that post, I reported my discovery of a lawsuit from 1734, involving a network of families in London and Stepney, in which a certain ‘Mary Johnson alias Bodington’ was one of the defendants. I’ve now taken delivery of the relevant documents from the National Archives and have spent a good deal of time over the past couple of weeks attempting to decipher them, and to understand the reason for Mary’s involvement in the case.
Judith Boyce’s legal ‘complaint’ from 1734
The suit was originally brought by Judith Boyce, and after her death taken over by her son John, a surgeon in Wapping. Judith was the sister and heiress of James Bundock, a London wine cooper who appears to have owned a number of properties in south Essex. The names of these places – Fobbing, Downham, Wickford, Horndon and Prittlewell – are familiar to me from my childhood years in nearby Chelmsford.
At some point in the 1680s Bundock had come to an arrangement concerning some of these properties with Richard Goodlad, and it was this arrangement, the details of which I’ve struggled to understand, which was at the root of the dispute between the Boyce family and the defendants. It seems that Goodlad treated the properties in Essex as his own, rather than as some kind of loan or temporary arrangement from Bundock, and passed them on to various members of his family, who in turn left them in their wills to other relatives or sold them on elsewhere. Judith Boyce, and later her son John, claimed that the properties, and the rents and proceeds from them, rightly belonged to them, as the heirs of James Bundock.
Ordnance Survey map of 1805, showing Mucking and other places in the south of Essex mentioned in Judith Boyce’s complaint (via visionofbritain.org.uk)
Mary Johnson alias Bodington was listed among the defendants because, according to Judith Boyce’s original complaint, John Goodlad, one of Richard Goodlad’s descendants, sold some of the properties to a certain Josiah Kingsman, and further stated:
that John Bodington deceased late father of the said Mary Bodington afterwards purchased the same premises or some part of them from the said Josiah Kingsman and by his last will and testament devised or otherwise gave the same to the said Mary Bodington which said premises are now held by John Cole as tenant to the said Mary Bodington at the yearly rent of fifty pounds or at some such rent and the said Mary Bodington claims them as her inheritance and insists that they are not liable to redemption by your oratrix and refuse to discover at what rate or price the said Josiah Kingsman purchased them and for what sum he sold them to the said John Bodington.
When I first read this, I thought I’d been wasting my time on this lawsuit, since ‘my’ John Bodington describes Mary as his god daughter, not his daughter. Perhaps there was another John Bodington alive at this time with an actual daughter named Mary? But then I noticed that the properties in question were in Mucking, and I remembered that this village featured in the will of ‘my’ John Bodington, which refers to ‘all that my freehold messuage tenement or farme with the Outhousing buildings lands ground and hereditaments thereunto belonging with their and every of their appurtenances now in my owne possession situate lying and being at Mucking in the County of Essex’ and also to ‘all my Customary Copyhold lands tenements and hereditaments with their and every of their appurtenances now alsoe in my owne possession lying at Mucking aforesaid and held of the said Manor of Mucking by Copy of Court Roll’. These are among the properties whose ‘rents, issues and profits’ Bodington’s executors (who included my ancestor Joseph Greene) are to ‘pay and apply…for and towards the maintaining Educating and providing in a Gentile and handsome manner as I have hitherto done for my God daughter Miss Mary Johnson a young Gentlewoman.’
Disclaimer signed by Mary Johnson
Then there is the fact that, in a separate document (see above), in which she disclaims all rights to the properties mentioned in the Boyces’ lawsuit, Mary describes herself as ‘Mary Johnson in the complainants’ original bill called Mary Bodington…otherwise Johnson’ and clearly signs herself Mary Johnson, the name used by John Bodington in his will. So there is no doubt in my mind that this is the same person.
How are we to understand what is going on here? Was Mary Johnson the daughter, or goddaughter, of John Bodington? Why is she referred to one way in the latter’s will, and the other in the lawsuit? It seems odd that the complainants would confidently describe Mary as John Bodington’s daughter in a legal document if that were not the case, and one would imagine Mary herself correcting this description, if false, in her own disclaimer. But if Mary was actually Bodington’s daughter, why would he describe her differently in his own will which, after all, was also a legal document?
One possible explanation is that Mary was John Bodington’s natural daughter, but that for some reason he wanted to disguise this fact during his lifetime, by adopting her as his goddaughter. If she really were John’s daughter it would go some way towards explaining why he made her virtually his sole heir, and made extensive and careful provision both in his lifetime, and then in his will, for her welfare. Her surname – Johnson – may have been the name of her mother, possibly since deceased, or it may have been a random name chosen simply to disguise Mary’s parentage.
It’s frustrating that John Bodington’s will is so lacking in information about his family, save for a brief reference to his ‘cousin’ Mrs Bayley. I’ve found no evidence that Bodington was ever married, and his will certainly makes no reference to a wife or any children or descendants. Nor does he provide any information about Mary Johnson’s origins, except to state very clearly that she was born on ‘the twenty third day of October 1713’, though I’ve yet to find a christening record that aligns with this date.
I think my next step might be to see whether anyone of about Mary’s age, and bearing the surname Johnson or possibly Bodington, was married in the 1730s. At the time of the law suit of 1734, she was still a ‘spinster’ of twenty, and presumably still in the care of her guardians, the executors of her father’s – or godfather’s – will.