Richard Baker

24 May 1676 to 24 May 1749

Surgeon

BAK00060

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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 Richard 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.

Stepney, London

1676

Richard Baker was the son of John and Margaret (nee Claiton or Leighton) Baker (BAK00050), born on 24 May 1676. He was baptised at St Dunstan, Stepney, Middlesex on 28 May 1676 (St Dunstan, Stepney Parish Records).

Richard Baker, of St Bride’s, London, and later of Leominster, Herefordshire, surgeon, married in 1700 (sic, recte, 1698) Mary, daughter of W Smith of St Bride’s, London, and died 24 May 1749 (will proved 7 August 1750, and had issue (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).

Parish of St Bride, Fleet Street, London

1698

Richard married Mary Smith, daughter of W Smith, at St Bride, Fleet Street, London on 9 October 1698 (St Bride, Fleet Street Parish Records).

They had eight children.

Richard Baker married Mary Smith and both she and my father were born in London as was myself in St Brides parish. (William Baker’s Account Book and Baker, J Bellyse (1982), Highfields, Audlem: Sixteenth Century Home of the Dod and Baker Families, Audlem District History Society, page 12).

Jane Baker’s father in law Richard and his wife Mary. Beneath them is a 17^th century dresser

In his earlier days, he seems to have shifted occupation, being at first recorded as a gilder and button-maker and later as a 'sea surgeon'.

He later worked as a surgeon at Leominster, Herefordshire.

Richard Baker was baptised at Stepney (Middx) in 1676, his parents were John and Margaret, as Burke's suggests. But no marriage of a John Baker and Margaret Leighton is to be found, and nor is a baptism for a John, son of Sampson Baker. It may, however, be relevant to note that Burke's gives John a brother, Sampson Baker, gent., of Market Bosworth (Leics) and Rugby (Warks), born about 1643, and it is possible to find baptisms for both 'Samson', son of William & Susanna Baker in 1637 and his brother John in 1642 in the parish registers of Market Bosworth. William Baker of Market Bosworth was born in 1608 and was in turn the son of Sampson Baker of Market Bosworth and his wife Millicent Gooddale, who were married in 1605. It seems very possible that they are the true antecedents of this family.

Very little is known about Richard Baker (1675-1749) of Leominster, surgeon. He married at St Bride, Fleet St., London, in 1698, and his older children were born there. He appears to have moved to Leominster between 1705 and 1708 and he was still described as 'of Leominster' when his will was proved in 1750. His eldest surviving son and executor was William Baker (1705-71), about whom much more is known.

Probably the son of John Baker (b. 1642?) of London and his wife Margaret Leighton (or perhaps Claiton), baptised at Stepney (Middx), 28 May 1676. He seems to have shifted occupation radically, being at first recorded as a gilder and button-maker and later as a 'sea surgeon'. He later worked as a surgeon at Leominster (Herefs). He married, 9 October 1698 at St Bride, Fleet St., London, Mary, daughter of W. Smith, and had issue.

(Kingsley, Nicholas (2018), (333) Bakers of Highfields in Landed Families of Britain and Ireland).

King’s Road Court, London

1699

Mary Baker (1699 to 1790)(BAK00065) who later married Captain Thorley was born in 1699 and baptised at St Bride’s, Fleet Street. On 6 August 1699, Richard Baker was a gilder and lived at King’s Road Court, London (St Bride, Fleet Street, City of London Parish Records).

In 1700, a gilder living near Maiden Road and the King’s Road Courthouse area in London practiced a delicate, highly toxic craft. He applied ultra-thin gold leaf to wood, metal, or picture frames using dangerous mercury amalgams or sizing glues. Working by candlelight in a rapidly growing capital, he balanced modest artisanal independence with the constant threat of poverty and occupational illness. Gilders handled paper-thin sheets of gold, using squirrel-hair tips and specialised glues or wet gold techniques. They decorated ornate furnishings, coach trimmings, mirrors, and architectural moulding for affluent Londoners or merchant classes. They generally worked in small, poorly ventilated domestic workshops with open charcoal fires or stoves used to dry primed surfaces.

The area of King’s Court Road comprised tightly packed, volatile urban parishes near Westminster. Gilders would have suffered frequent exposure to harmful fumes and chemicals, particularly mercury if doing 'fire-gilding' on metals. They earned a fluctuating income dependent on luxury trade demand, leaving families vulnerable to seasonal slowdowns, high food prices, and crowd diseases.

1701

Elizabeth Baker (BAK00066) who later married Thomas Nash, also a surgeon, was born in 1701. On 20 March 1701 Richard Baker was a gilder and lived at Maiden Road, King’s Road Court House, London (St Bride, Fleet Street, City of London Parish Records).

Parish of St Bride, Fleet Street

1702

It has been suggested that Richard Baker became a button maker for a short time. It has also been suggested that he began to work as a sea surgeon. It might make sense that he returned for a while to Stepney and the London docks and gained experience as a surgeon amongst the maritime community, possibly joining ships’ companies. However there is no evidence of this other than the comment by Nicholas Kingsley, and given the lack of written evidence, this was almost certainly short lived. Perhaps he gained a rough apprenticeship in surgery before the family moved to Leominster.

Perhaps the scientific knowledge Richard gained as a gilder was transferrable to work as a surgeon. However in 1700, surgery in London was a tightly regulated trade governed by the Company of Barber-Surgeons. To legally practice surgery, draw teeth, or perform bloodletting within the City of London, an individual had to complete a formal seven-year apprenticeship under a licensed master and pass rigorous oral examinations. The path Richard took from a gilder in 1699 to a surgeon in the first decade of the eighteenth century is not therefore obvious.

Establishing a medical or surgical practice at the turn of the eighteenth century depended heavily on kinship, patronage, and professional reputation. A gilder’s network would consist of furniture makers, frame carvers, architects, and church wardens. These connections would not translate into the medical market or help them secure patients who trusted them with a scalpel or bone saw.

Perhaps Richard Baker gained the experience he required through a rough apprenticeship in the early years of the War of Spanish Succession.

During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), naval and merchant sea surgeons working out of London were required to be examined by the Barber-Surgeons' Company or licensed through the Navy Board.

Richard and Mary’s son, Richard Baker (1702 to 1750) (BAK00067) who did not marry, was born in 1702 and baptised at St Bride, Fleet Street, London on 28 February 1702.

1705

William Baker (1705 to 1774) (BAK00068), later a famous architect, who married Elizabeth Eykyn and later Jane Dod, was born in 1705 and baptised at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, London on 14 October 1705.

Leominster

1708

James Baker (1708 to 1744) (BAK00069) who later married Martha Adams, was born in 1708 and baptised at Leominster on 26 December 1708.

1710

Anne Baker (BAK00070) was born in 1710 and baptised in Leominster on 3 December 1710.

1714

Susanna Baker (b 1714) (BAK00071) was in in 1714 and baptised at Leominster on 26 May 1714.

1715?

Henry Baker (BAK00072) was born in perhaps about 1715.

1729

Richard Baker was a surgeon in Leominster, but also acting as a Master to an apprentice named Edward Wellington of Hay, Breconshire (The National Archives IR 1/49 folio 144, held by Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, not available at The National Archives), with reference to a premium of £48 6s 0d.

If Richard Baker was a surgeon master by 1729, he must have begun his practice in Leominster soon after arriving there.

An Act passed in 1709, during the reign of Queen Anne, placed a tax/stamp duty on apprentice indentures. The master was required to pay a duty based on the premium or the upfront fee they charged to take on the apprentice. In this case, Surgeon Richard Baker had to register the hefty £48 6s 0d premium he received from Edward Wellington to ensure the apprenticeship was legally recognized.

Rather than attending university, a surgeon in the 1720s learned through a gruelling, hands-on five-to-seven-year apprenticeship under an older master.

In the 1720s, the life of a surgeon in the market town of Leominster, Herefordshire looked vastly different from modern medical practice. During the early eighteenth century, a provincial surgeon was not considered an elite gentleman like a university-educated physician. Instead, they were classified as highly skilled craftsmen who worked with their hands.

Working exclusively as a surgeon was rare in small country towns because there were not enough operations to make a living. A Leominster surgeon in the 1720s almost certainly operated as a surgeon-apothecary. They had a role equivalent to today's general practitioner. They spent their mornings dispensing herbal mixtures and compounding drugs (the apothecary side), and their afternoons performing manual treatments like setting fractured bones, pulling teeth, lancing boils, and dressing wounds (the surgical side). Pain relief was virtually non-existent, and the germ theory of disease was over a century away. Operations were terrifying and bloody affairs. A surgeon’s reputation relied heavily on sheer speed. Amputations or bladder stone extractions which were common procedures at the time had to be completed in minutes to prevent the patient from dying of shock or cardiac arrest on the table. Even if a surgery was physically successful, post-operative infection or putrefaction was standard. A surgeon in the 1720s simply accepted that a high percentage of patients would succumb to fever days later.

Leominster was a wealthy agrarian hub built on the wool trade, but its population was modest. To maintain a steady income, a surgeon would have spent hours traveling on horseback. They rode out to surrounding Herefordshire villages and isolated farms to attend to patients. Major surgical procedures were not done in hospitals, as Leominster did not have a dedicated hospital until much later, but were literally performed on patients' kitchen tables.

Unlike elite London doctors who demanded immediate cash guarantees, a provincial surgeon operated heavily on credit. They catered to a middle-class and working clientele. Their account ledgers were often plagued by bad debts from local labourers, vagrants, or patients who died before paying their bills. However, successful surgeons were highly respected figures in the Leominster community, often leveraging their income to venture into local politics or farming.

To legally practice in Leominster, the surgeon had to be licensed by the local Church authorities, specifically through the Diocese of Hereford. They had to produce testimonials from established local medical men proving their competency. It is not clear how Richard Baker would have gained his competency, having left London as a gilder.

1736

On 21 September 1736, Richard Baker was a churchwarden at St James the Great, Audlem, Cheshire.

1749

Richard died on 24 May 1749, aged 73 (William Baker’s Account Book). He was buried at Leominster on 26 May 1749 (St Peter’s and St Paul’s, Leominster).

In his accounts books, Richard’s son William Baker later recorded some notes about his father. He recorded his father’s death on 24 May 1749 and that he married Mary Smith and both she and my father were born in London, as was myself, in St Bride’s parish. The place of his father’s burial was recorded as In the covered Isle of Leominster Church near the row of pillars and about the middle.

William Baker’s father died on 24th May 1749 (Baker, J Bellyse (1982), Highfields, Audlem: Sixteenth Century Home of the Dod and Baker Families, Audlem District History Society, page 12).

1750

His will was proved at Hereford on 7 August 1750.