Mary Baker (later Mary Thorley)

20 August 1741 (baptised) to 29 July 1809 (buried)

BAK00082

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

1741

Mary (sometimes ‘Molly’) Baker was the daughter of William and Jane (nee Dod) Baker (FAR00068). She was baptised at Bridgnorth on 20 August 1741.

Portrait of the young Mary Baker (Highfields)

1754

21 April 1754, Son Richard and daughter Mary were inoculated with Small Pox. They both broke out about 9^th May at night. Both did well (Account Book).

19 August 1754: Chatty and Molly went to Whitchurch boarding school (Account Book).

1766

Mary, born 1741, married, 1766, Captain Edward Thorley, of Colchester, 2^nd Queen’s Royal (Tangier) Regiment and commanding Essex Militia (died 11 March 1794), son of Rev Thomas Thorley, MA, Master of Audlem Grammar School, and died 1809, leaving, with other issue, (including Major Charles Thorley who married Charity Baker, and Colonel Montague Thorley, Royal W I Rangers) (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).

Mary married Captain Edward Thorley (1740-94) of Colchester, of 2nd Queen's Royal (Tangier) Regiment and commander of the Essex Militia, the son of Reverend Thomas Thorley, Master of Audlem Grammar School on 28 August 1766 at Audlem (Audlem Parish Records).

They had two sons and three daughters:

· Arabella Thorley who married John Stone MP of Chambers Court, Longdon, Worcestershire (acquired from the Barrows) and Hasfield Court, Gloucestershire (died 1811, aged 65), and died 1809 leaving 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). Then Edward Gresley, of Chambers Court, DL, JP, Worcestershire, High Sheriff 1847, DL, Essex, sold Hasfield (which had previously been owned by the Paucefort family for some 500 years), to Thomas Fulljames 1847, from whose son, Thomas, it was purchased in 1863 by Mr Stone’s cousin, William Baker JP, of Fenton House, born 1807, educated Winchester and University College, Oxford, married 1829 Susannah, daughter of Rev Henry Shepherd, DCL, Senior Chaplain HEICS, 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).

· Elizabeth Thorley.

· Colonel Montague Thorley, Royal W I Rangers.

· Major Charles Thorley Senior Major, 96th Regiment, and commanding Essex Militia, of Colchester, who married Charity Baker (BAK00109) on 23 June 1801.

· Charity Thorley.

(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).

The family lived latterly at Seed Green, Astley, Worcestershire.

1809

Mary Thorley died aged 68 in 1809 and was buried at Astley, Worcestershire on 29 July 1809 (St Peter, Astley Parish Records), and is commemorated with her husband on a monument in St Botolph, Colchester.

Her will was proved on 6 December 1809.

(Prerogative Court of Canterbury)

Her will was granted in the Canterbury Prerogative Court in 1809 (The National Archives IR 27/14). He last residence was Seed Green, Astley.