Timothy Child (abt. 1658)

Born about 1658 in Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire, England

Descendants

Died [date unknown] in Buckinghamshire, England

Biography

Timothy was a Friend (Quaker)

Timothy's birth and death dates are unknown. He married 1) Mary Sexton, the daughter of William and Catherine Sexton, in 1682. Their marriage had a rocky start as is shown by this record:

• In the Chilterns (Upperside) part of Bucks, a small group of women set up a Monthly Meeting in the late 1670s in order to deal with business matters -just like the men, plus some additional charitable work. One requirement for a Quaker marriages in the 17th century was that the engaged couple should be visited by a couple of "delegates" from the two Monthly meetings -the Men's Meeting and, subsequently, also by Women's Meeting. What these interviews were about was checking that the couple were not already engaged to someone else and that they were being "good" Quakers. It was called seeking “clearness”. Right from the start there was opposition by some men to women having their own meeting which had authority over men! The whole matter of women getting uppity came to a head at the death of the first wife of a certain Doctor John Raunce of High Wycombe. She had been a very important female Quaker -what was called a “First Publisher of Truth”. Dr Raunce then married a more compliant woman and started to stir up trouble.One man who sided with Doctor Raunce was William Sexton of Farnham Royal, the father of Mary Sexton. William's wife, Katherine Sexton, was a very early member of the Women's Meeting. It is interesting to contemplate how this couple resolved their differences. Timothy Child of Hedgerley in the parish of Farnham Royal, son of Giles Child, was another male Quaker who refused to bow to these uppity women!! The ensuing quarrel reached a clima xwhen Timothy Child and Mary Sexton married without permission in 1682. There had been other couples who refused to go to the Women's Meeting before 1682 but they had usually been brought to heel by the men -and later, a "conscience clause" was added to the way men dealt with “women's authority problems”which allowed couples to avoid the Women's Meeting on conscientious grounds.Timothy Child and Mary Sexton refused even to deal with women Quakers at all; the grounds were that women should be silent. This time the Men asked the couple to delay -to 'stand still and wait upon the Lord that the Right Eye might be opened in them that they might see His Will and not reject it'. The men felt that the couple was just being stubborn and not behaving in a Quakerly way -not that their refusal was a matter of conscience.Next time the couple appeared before the Men's Meeting, more trouble ensued; they continued “hard and obstinate, appearing in a more wilful and resolute in opposition than before...”.Third time the same-with your ancestor saying “he did not know that they should trouble us any more”. Then we have the interesting appearance of the couple's parents, Giles Child and William Sexton, at a Men's Monthly Meeting where a letter is read out in which Timothy Child has apparently changed his tune and says that he didn't object to going to the Women's Meeting as such, but thought that women and men should meet together. Not surprisingly this tale wasn't believed, nor was it believed that he had even written the letter.Ultimately Timothy Child and Mary Sexton married but the marriage wasn't recognised by the Men's or Women's Monthly Meetings at the time -presumably they joined Doctor Raunce's separate meeting which he set up in High Wycombe, which from then on had two meetings, one a regular one, and the other the separatist, anti-women one.

Timothy and Mary had at least one child:

• Susannah

Timothy married 2) Katherine ______. They had at least 2 children:

• Giles, m. Mary Pearce, dau. of Wiliam and Mary Pearce, on 02 Jun 1724^[1] Amongst the Witnesses were Timothy Child and William Pearce (respective fathers), William Child, Susannah Saunders, Daniel and Mary Talbott, Katherine Child and Mary Saunders.
• Mary, m. Daniel Talbott, son of Thomas and Sarah Talbott, on 03 Mar 1712^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ England Marriages, 1538–1973
2. ↑ England Marriages, 1538–1973

• Saunders Family History Chapter 1, Pgs 30-35