Charity (“Chatty”) Baker
21
September 1739 (baptised) to 25 April 1817 (buried)
Madam Barrow
BAK00081
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Headlines of
Chatty Baker’s life 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.
1739
Charity Baker (known in her youth
at Chatty) was the daughter of William Baker (BAK00068) and Jane (nee Dod) Baker (DOD00130). She was baptised at Bridgnorth on
21 September 1739.
Portrait of the young Charity
Baker (Highfields)
1752
William Baker
recorded in his account books on 5 June 1752: Died at Raby Castle Aunt
Charity Dod (DOD00117) aged 69, she
left Chatty (his daughter) £9 and some jewels.
1754
On 19 August
1754 Chatty and Molly went to Whitchurch boarding school (William Baker’s Account Book). Whitchurch is 10
kilometres west of Audlem, so they had moved to Highfields by this time.
1761
Charity married, Lawrence
Barrow, banker, of Buerton and of
Chetwynd, Newport, Shropshire, Pool House, Astley, Worcestershire and Chambers
Court, Longdon, Worcestershire on 9 November 1761 at Audlem (Audlem Parish Records). Charity was Lawrence’s second
wife.
They had no family.
Charity, succeeded her father in
the Woodhouse Estate, Audlem, born 1739, married as his second wife, Lawrence
Barrow, Banker, of Chetwynd, Newport, Shropshire, and Pool House, Astley, and
Chambers Court, Longdon, Worcestershire and dsp his widow c 1817 (Burke, John and Burke, Sir Bernard (1836)(Eighteenth Edition, 1972), Bellyse Baker of
Highfields in Burke’s Landed Gentry, Volume 3, pages
35 to 38).
1771
Charity Baker (BAK00081), her
husband having died young, returned to Highfields
and managed the estate
for her father and later for her brother while he was away. Charity’s younger brother,
Richard Dod Baker (BAK00083)
(1743 to 1803) inherited Highfields but practised as an architect at Stratford
upon Avon where his children were born.
Richard Dod Baker, born in 1743,
married Hannah, the daughter of John Hassall of Nantwich. He practised as an
architect at Stratford upon Avon where his children were, for some reason,
baptised in the name of Hassall. This was done, he explained in his will, “for
peace and quietness”. On the face of it, it would seem to have been an
excellent way of preventing it. His sister, Charity, having married Lawrence
Barrow, a banker who died young, returned to Highfields. She managed the estate
for her father and later brother, freeing them for their architectural work.
She was, in her later years, and she lived to be seventy-eight, an extremely
forceful lady, always known in Audlem as “Madam Barrow”. Baker, J Bellyse (1982), Highfields, Audlem: Sixteenth
Century Home of the Dod and Baker Families,
Audlem District History Society, page 19).
She had as reputation as a
forceful lady and later became known in Audlem as “Madam Barrow”.
Madam Barrow, reimagined by
artificial intelligence
Charity succeeded her father in
the Woodhouse estate at Audlem in 1771.
Charity’s father, William worked
with Sir John Astley Bt on Patshull.
He was on good terms with Sir John who promised him a legacy in his will.
William sometimes supplied the Baronet with chocolate and his daughter Chatty
(Charity) lived at Patshull for a time.
1817
Charity was buried at
Longdon, Worcestershire on 25 April 1817 (St Mary, Longdon Parish
Records).
Her will was proved in the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 10 July 1817.
(Prerogative Court of Canterbury)