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Richard the Clockmaker
Richard Gilkes was one of the Quaker clockmakers of North Oxforshire whose work will be looked at in a later article. He is interesting for his skills, but I have tried to find out a little more about him because he may well be related to my branch of the family through marriage. His story is also filled with personal tragedies, as I suppose many were in the 18th century, but he seemed to have had a tougher time than many.
Richard married Grace Gilkes on 23rd March 1744 at Sibford Gower. She had a sister Mary and a brother Thomas; this Thomas has a strong possibility of being the Thomas of Sibbard Gore that married Mary Watts and is thus in my tree. The couple had announced their intention to marry at the local monthly meeting in 1742 and went to live in Adderbury, the other side of Banbury from Sibford Gower. Grace was soon pregnant and gave birth to Thomas on 15th February 1846. Daughter Anne followed some time later, being named on 9th April 1751, but Anne lived less than a year and was buried 26th February 1752. When Grace gave birth again to another little girl, she too was named Anne. Tragically this second Anne lasted only 7 weeks. A third daughter was born 24th February 1756 and this time they named her Mary, but the same, sad pattern continued and Mary was buried 8 weeks later, leaving her brother Thomas, now aged 10, still an only child. Worse was to follow, for Thomas lived only 18 months longer, being buried on 23rd September 1757. After 13 years of marriage, Richard and Grace were still a childless couple, but this ended on 13th August when a second son was born; they called him Thomas! Thomas was there to greet his baby sister, born 9th July 1760. A Quaker's faith must have given them courage to call this little girl - Anne. I have no way of knowing what health the two children enjoyed, but it is likely they were sickly, but for three years Richard and Grace had a son and a daughter and hopefully they were happy. If they were, it was not for long, because at the age of 40 Grace died, leaving Richard to look after the two children alone. Perhaps Richard had hopes for his son to follow in his footsteps and carry on with the clockmaking business, but that was not to be, for little Thomas only survived his mother by a year. It would be interesting to know how severely his faith was troubled by all of these tragic deaths, but he lived a further 23 years before he was laid to rest on 18th February 1787. He did not remarry and did not seem to leave a will. The last member of the family, the third Anne, moved back to live with relatives in Sibford Gower and the family ceased to exist when, at the age of 53 in January 1813, as a spinster, Anne died.
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Margaret Dookun
I was first contacted by Margaret Dookun from Guyana last year (2002) to tell me she had seen the site - and that she was born Margaret Gilkes in Barbados.
Far right is a photo of Maggi presenting one of her paintings to the wife of the departing Canadian High Commissioner. The second shows another of her pictures in a similar style to the one being presented. No title was sent with the picture, but it seems to me to be a 'Madonna and Child' in an 'African' style. The four pictures below are more of Maggi's art, but the theme this time is very much Guyana. The Queen and Prince Charles, separately, have visited Guyana recently and have left South America with a picture by Margaret Dookun. I think this is great for a family better known for sawing down trees and making them into planks - at least, I think that's what sawyers did! The other is the John Daniels Falls, much wider but nowhere near as high. I'd like to thank Maggi very much for sharing her work with us and hope she is as successful in her family history searching. I really hope she can trace herself back to a young man arriving in the Indies in about 1788!
The final two pictures are the ones taken home by the royal family. The larger one, as shown here, is of the Kaieteur Falls, which is one of the great waterfalls of the world, as this description shows. The natural wonder of the Kaieteur Falls, where the 400 foot wide Potaro River plunges over the Pakaraima Plateau in a stunning 740 foot single drop, is one of the world's great waterfalls.