Leominster, Herefordshire in the early eighteenth century

The home of the Baker family for a few decades

The Bakers Home Page Return to the Home Page of the Bakers Family part of the website

The Bakers of Highfields Story The Story of the Dods and Bakers and of Highfields, Fenton House and Hasfield Court. A journey through the history of Cheshire and Staffordshire, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who retained his lands after the Conquest, pottery at Stoke on Trent, an encounter with Elgar, and the history of an Elizabethan manor house at Audlem

The Bakers of Highfields The family tree of the Bakers of Highfields

The Dod Family The Family Tree of the Dods, predecessors to the Bakers of Highfields

The Bakers of Fenton House and Hasfield Court The Family Tree of the pottery Bakers of Stoke on Trent

The Bellyse Family The Family Tree of the Bellyse Family

The Farndale Story The main part of this website tells the story of the Farndale family from Yorkshire Descendants of Arthur Baker, the story of the Farndale ancestry is told through the main part of this website You can also return to the Farndale website home page

The Hall Family The genealogy of the family of James Hall, linked to the Baker family through marriage to Arthur Baker

Headlines of are in brown.

Dates are in red.

Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.

References and citations are in turquoise.

Context and local history are in purple.

1700

In the early eighteenth century, Leominster experienced a period of growth and stability as an established market centre. The town flourished from the surrounding rich farmland.

Leominster by the early twentieth century

1705

Following a devastating fire in 1699 that destroyed the roof and central arcade, the Priory and Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul was finally rebuilt and reopened. The arcade between the south nave and the south aisle was reconstructed using pillars of the Tuscan order, but much earlier work was re-used in the arches.

The old Priory House was fitted up by Thomas, Lord Coningsby (1692 to 1729) as a gaol, afterwards becoming in turn a mansion-house and a workhouse.

A new fire engine house was constructed adjacent to the historic Forbury Chapel, featuring a municipal schoolroom built directly above it.

1715

By 1715, it was highly regarded for growing hops and apples, alongside its booming regional trade in cider and beer.

While its historic dominance in the wool trade, centred around the famous local Ryeland sheep, whose prized fleeces were known as Lemster Ore, was beginning a very gradual, long-term decline that lasted into the eighteenth century, it remained a significant hallmark of the local economy. The town benefitted its position on the River Lugg and Pinsley Brook. By the early 1700s, an intricate network of artificial channels had been dug throughout the town to power multiple watermills, laying the groundwork for early industrial efforts like the famous Pinsley cotton mill built later in the 1740s.

Structurally, early eighteenth century Leominster was characterised by about 400 houses and six wards. It was during this era that many of the town's traditional seventeenth century timber-framed buildings began receiving updated, modern brick facades. Important civic structures like the 1633 Buttercross Market House and the Forbury Chapel, which served as a grammar school and courthouse, became the focal points of daily town life.

Leominster solidified its reputation as a booming regional market hub. While its historic medieval prominence in the wool trade, Lemster Ore, experienced a very slow decline, the local economy flourished through an expansion in growing hops, cultivating apples, and trading cider and beer.

1717

Local Baptist banker George Caswall was elected as the Whig Member of Parliament for the Leominster constituency in a March by-election. The House of Commons declared the election void on 30 May due to extreme bribery, with agents paying up to 20 guineas per voter. Caswall won the subsequent re-run in June regardless.

1719

A growing non-conformist dissenting congregation moved from their temporary home on Etnam Street to build a permanent Presbyterian Chapel on Burgess Street.

1721

Following the South Sea Bubble crash which saw George Caswall expelled from the House of Commons, newly elected MP Edward Harley publicly noted the town's systemic corruption, stating that Leominster had become mercenary, and the best bidder will have the best interest to be served.

Thomas Fermor, the 2nd Baron Leominster, was raised in the peerage by King George I and created the 1st Earl of Pomfret.

1723

On 10 October 1723, the town took delivery of two historic silver maces gifted by Thomas, Lord Coningsby. Measuring 21 inches long and detailed with oak leaves and acorns, these maces are still used today by the Leominster Town Council for ceremonial events.

1729

Richard Baker was a surgeon in Leominster, but also acting as a Master to an apprentice named Edward Wellington of Hay, Breconshire. He joined his son William at Audlem by 1736, but after Richard died on 24 May 1749, aged 73, he was buried at Leominster on 26 May 1749.

At this time surgery in a rural English market town like Leominster was radically different from modern medical practice. It was treated as a manual trade or craft rather than an advanced academic science. Medical care in Leominster was divided between university-educated physicians (who diagnosed illnesses and prescribed internal medicines) and surgeons or barber-surgeons (who performed physical, external interventions).

Later in the century, other prominent medical dynasties would establish themselves in the town, such as the surgeon Henry Vaughan, born 1714.

Without modern hospitals (Leominster wouldn't get its first dedicated cottage hospital until 1899), surgeons like Richard Baker travelled to patients' homes or treated them in local inns. The procedures they performed were limited to what could be done quickly to prevent shock and fatal blood loss.

Surgeons in Herefordshire during this time did not attend medical school. Instead, they entered the profession through a 7-year apprenticeship. A young man would be bound to an established master surgeon (like Baker) to learn anatomy, instrument maintenance, and basic procedures through hands-on observation and practice.

Bibliography

Leominster, in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire, Volume 3, North West, London, 1934, British History Online.

Leominster’s Story, Leominster heart and heritage project.

Leominster, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire, Volume 3, North West. Originally published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1934.