Phillip Goddard, baptised 7.2.1646. Married Alice Bushby on the 21st September 1673 at Coldwaltham. Buried 13th March, 1714 at Stopham
Children
Ann, baptised 8.4.1675
Parnell, baptised 3.4.1677
Robert, baptised 15.10.1696, buried 18.11.1776 at Angmering
Note: Phillip was born as the Civil War was drawing to a close. Charles 1 was taken prisoner the next year and beheaded. During Phillip’s lifetime the Commonwealth ruled, the Great Fire of London occurred, Charles II, James II and William and Mary reigned. Pepys was living and writing in London, Purcell and Scarletti were composing, and the Bank of England was founded.
Coldwaltham is probably only 3 or 4 miles south of Stopham, so Phillip did not travel far to find his bride. They do not appear to have had such a large family as was customary in those days. I am intrigued by the name Parnell. I have come across it elsewhere in this period, and it must relate to someone well known at that time, it seems a very sophisticated sort of name for the heart of rural Sussex. We know nothing of Phillip’s life in Stopham, I’m afraid. He died and was buried in Stopham, but there is no record of Alice being buried there.
The Children
I have found no trace of a marriage for either Ann or Parnell. By the time Phillip was buried in 1714, there do not appear to be any young Goddards in Stopham at all. The last Goddard baptism there had been Robert’s nearly 20 years earlier, and the last Goddard marriage had been over 40 years before Phillip’s death, The three Goddard burials after Phillip’s death were those of ‘old’ Henry Goddard, Margaret Goddard ‘an ancient Widow’, and the William Goddard I have mentioned before, who was living on parish relief. What are we to assume from this? Were conditions such that the younger people had to move on to find a living, leaving the old and infirm at home? Or did some of them go to the big towns, Chichester, maybe, and send word back to their brothers and sisters that life was better there? One could go on speculating.
Another curious thing, is that there do not appear to have been any Goddards in Angmering before 1722, when a Hannah Goddard married there. There was definitely continuation of this migration southwards, which had started in Wiltshire. Because there do not appear to have been any Goddards remaining in Stopham, and our Robert had to go somewhere, and there are no other Roberts elsewhere that I can discover, I am inclined to think that it is our Robert who marries and then settles in Angmering.
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