b'Gospel Family HistoryPeter GospelWilliam Gospel? There were three! Barmby Moor Bill is a separate entity. His full am lucky in as much as when I started researchingstory is the subject of a second script. Simplistically he Iwas not a Gospel but a Gosper. He was a foundling my Family Tree some 4 years ago I made contactleft at the Foundling Hospital in London. As a waif with a man who had been researching the same nameand stray the staff at the hospital rechristened these for over 20 years. abandoned children. He was christened William His first question was to ascertain how far backGosper. In his movements under the auspices of the I had got. Having inherited a very rough tree fromFoundling Hospital he found himself, at 10 years of my deceased father I confidently replied Oh Williamage, at the hospitals outreach school at Ackworth, Gospel. He got married at Bishop Wilton in 1786 Hisnear Pontefract. At this age he was sent to Barmby next question was Yes, but which William Gospel?Moor as an apprentice in husbandry. In the transition There were three. from his wet nurse in Kent to Ackworth via the hospital I knew, having trawled the Web Site 192.com (thein London an administrative error was made and the telephone directories/electoral rolls of the country) thatGosper became Gospel.in the 1999 electoral year there were only 163 peopleBarmby Moor Bill was born in 1759. He married called Gospel and they lived at 94 houses in the UK.Jane Savage in 1783 at Barmby on the Moor. Bill I was therefore somewhat surprised to find that theredied in 1800 aged 41 years. In the seventeen years had been three William Gospels in the 1780s. of marriage Bill and Jane had produced 4 children. One (mine) lived at Bishop Wilton, one lived atJane remarried the following year to Richard Bolton and one lived at Barmby Moor. Thereafter theyWalkington. The boys would appear not to get on with became known as BW Bill, BM Bill and Bolton Bill. Richard. Within a year or two they had emigrated My William, BW Bill, married Elizabeth Robinsonto Scarborough and become involved in the fishing in 1786 at Bishop Wilton. She was a widow withindustry.three children and they subsequently endeavoured to produce another eight between them. He died agedHarry and Sarah Mary Gospel: Or The 96 years in 1847 at Bugthorpe and was buried atTale of Two Brides for Two brothers.Bishop Wilton. His only surviving son, James, lived at Bugthorpe and accommodated William in his latterHarry Gospel was born on 15th May 1877 at years. Elizabeth Gospel (nee Robinson) died in 1832Bugthorpe. He was the second child, and first son, aged 73 years and is buried at Bishop Wilton with her first husband, Stephen Robinson.Bolton Bill may well have been either a son to an earlier marriage or a nephew. This is pure speculation. The first record of Bolton Bill is his marriage to Mary Northcliffe at Bishop Wilton in 1801. This is unusual because normally a girl got married from her parents home village. She was born at Catton and not Bolton or Bishop Wilton. Her parents may have moved to Bolton from Catton. William and Mary must have been Anglicans and not Methodists. Mary Gospel (nee Northcliffe) died in 1859. Bolton Bill would have been 73 when he died and his wife Mary would have been 84 years.The problem in discovering if they are related stems from the 1841 census, which was the first to do more than just a headcount in the villages; BW Bill, who was 90 at the time, was asked by the enumerator Were you born in this county? BW Bill replied No.No further questions were asked. Where he was born is anybodys guess. It would be a mammoth task to attempt to find where they were born. It would mean searching the church records of every parish in the UK, because it was pre compulsory registration of births, deaths andHarry Gospel c1915marriages. And, who knows, possibly abroad.46 BULLETIN 4'