The Peagam Family tree can be traced back to 1682 and to a place called Bishops Nympton, a village and civil parish in the North Devon about three miles east of South Molton, where were born the first three people whom we can trace with the surname Peagam.

 

Within Bishops Nympton the tall, 15th-century church tower is a local landmark, and contains a Norman baptismal font.

 

Perhaps the early Peagams were baptized here?

If so, they would not have spent long choosing a name for the children being baptized.

 

The Peagam family have an infinite lack of imagination is choosing names for their children. They seem to like the names Francis and William, as we shall see.

 

And the first three people to share the surname Peagam also shared the same forename – Francis.

 

The first known person to have the honour of bearing the family name was FRANCIS PEAGAM, who was born in 1682 and died, aged 40, in 12 June 1732.

 

When Francis was born, the Civil War was within living memory for some people, and Charles II had been monarch for twenty two years. Following the death of Charles II in 1685 there was a political and constitutional crisis with many fearing the implications of the accession of the Catholic James II. The crisis was resolved with the accession of William and Mary to the throne – an event known as The Glorious Revolution.

 

By the time Francis died in 1732, another major change had taken place. The Scottish and English parliaments negotiated the Act of Union of 1707, under which England and Scotland were united into a single Kingdom of Great Britain.

 

The first Francis Peagam was married in about 1704/05 to a lady called Elizabeth and they had a son, also called FRANCIS, who was born about 1706 but about whom little else is known.

 

What we do know is that when he was about 25, he became the father to a son named, wait for it, FRANCIS PEAGAM.

 

This Francis Peagam was born in 1731 and died at the astonishing age of 91 in 1822.

 

That means that during his lifetime Great Britain was ruled by three monarchs– George I, George II and George II. He may have been called Francis but he was product of the Georgian era.

 

When Francis Peagam was in his mid-thirties he had a son called WILLIAM PEAGOM (notice the spelling error in the surname). And at the age of 59 Francis might have been present to celebrate the marriage of his twenty-four year old son William to Hannah Soper on 19 April 1790 in Barnstsaple, Devon.

 

However, as the Peagam family moved from North Devon to Plymouth, in South Devon, at some point in this period, it is possible that Francis was not present at the wedding.

 

William and Hannah would have six children before William died at the age of 74, still impressive longevity but nothing compared to his father.

 

The first of those children to be born arrived less than a year after the marriage. JOHN PEAGAM, was baptised at St Andrew’s Church in Plymouth on 14 April 1791.

 

Although John would live to the ripe old age of 88, it might be reasonable to assume that his latter years were not pleasant as he died in the Plymouth Union Workhouse in 1879.

 

In happier times, on 21 September 1810, at Stoke Damerel in Devon, John, aged 19, had married Elizabeth Reeve.

 

Stoke Damerel was a parish that developed into Devonport and formed part of Roborough Hundred. In 1914, Devonport and Plymouth amalgamated with Stonehouse: the new town took the name of Plymouth, since when Stoke Damerel has been an inner suburb of Plymouth in the county of Devon.

 

Two years after they married, the first of their eight children was born.

 

On 20 November 1812 WILLIAM DANIEL REEVE PEAGAM was baptised in the same church – St Andrew’s Plymouth - as his father, John, had been.

 

The inclusion of the name ‘Reeve’ was a reflection of John Peagam’s wife’s surname. All their eight children had ‘Reeve’ as part of their given names, presumably to maintain that name for future generations.

 

It appears that it was William who was responsible for the family shifting from the South West to London as he died in London in 1883, aged 71 years.

 

The move to London did not happen before 1841 as in that year, on 15 December, William, married Eliza Smart at Plymouth Registry Office. William was 29 years old and working as a Tailor / Chandler.

 

William and Hannah had nine children, the first born two years after the marriage and the fourth FRANCIS SHEPPARD born in 1848.

 

As well as the family relocating to London, there was also a shift in the family occupations as by the second half of the nineteenth century a number were involved in the printing trades.

 

In 1869 when Francis Sheppard was 21 years old, and working as a Printer’s Compositor, he married Elizabeth Ann Jones at St Pancras, London.

 

The couple were to have thirteen children, the first born in the year of their marriage and the last in 1893. A number of these children found employment in the printing trades but others looked elsewhere – one was a clerk, another a waiter – and the first born Henry Francis and the eighth born FRANCIS ROBERT were both French Polishers.

 

FRANCIS ROBERT was born in 1883 and in 1905 when he was 22 years old he married a lady who had also been born in 1883 – Fanny Eliza Darvill.

 

For more about the Darvill family click here.

 

By 1911 the young couple were living at 8 Mellison Road, Tooting, and had two children, Eva Ellen and Fanny Elizabeth (presumably named after her mother).

 

By 1915 the family were living at 3A Khartoum Road, Tooting.

 

On 23 November 1915 the thirty-two year old French Polisher enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers (36th Btn) but is not believed to have served overseas.

 

Francis Robert and Fanny Eliza had three more children, two of them twins.

 

They kept up the family tradition with regards to names.

 

A son born in 1915 was given the names William Francis John, and on 17 February 1920 when twins were born, one was called Gwendoline and the other FRANCIS ROBERT.

 

For more about Francis Robert (Frank) Peagam click here.

 

All the children were to marry.

• Eva Ellen Peagam married Richard B Ladd in June 1926

• Fanny Elizabeth Peagam married Henry J Wilson in June 1939

• Ivy Irene Peagam married Walter / Len Drury in 1935

• William Francis John Peagam married Beatrice R B Keenan in September 1940

• Francis Robert Peagam married Joyce Hadley on 6 October 1945 (in Stockton on Tees, County Durham)

• Gwendoline Peagam married James Fudge on 10 November 1945

 

Francis Robert and Fanny Eliza continued to live at 3A Khartoum Road, Tooting. It was here that Francis Robert died on 16 July 1955 – the death being registered by his widow, who died a few years later on 6 December 1959.

In 1958, three years after his father died but a year before the death of Fanny Eliza, ‘Grandma Peagam’, Francis Robert, who had married Joyce Hadley at Stockton on Tees, County Durham, on 6 October 1945, became a father for the second time.

 

A daughter, Heather, had been born on 17 December 1949.

 

The new baby, a son, was born on 14 February 1958 and was named, in keeping with family tradition, MARTIN FRANCIS PEAGAM.

 

Martin married Janice Williams on 18 July 1981 at St Paul’s Church in Stockton on Tees.

 

For more about the Williams family click here.

 

And on 19 January 1987 the family tradition with regards to naming children was maintained when Martin and Janice named their daughter, who was to marry Daniel Darbyshire at Rockcliffe Hall, Hurworth near Darlington, on 25 May 2013, EMMA FRANCES WILLIAMS PEAGAM.