Ref. S711
THE COXON FAMILY
We are interested in the Coxon family by virtue of the marriage of George Kellet (see Ref. S71) and Mary Cockson at Chester le Street, Durham, 27.12.1767. As all the other references we found used the Coxon spelling, that is our preference.
George Kellet had been baptised 11.4.1731, i.e. he was 36 and he and Mary seem to have produced only two children, the younger one being baptised 7.7.1771. This led us to assume that, by the latter date, Mary’s ability to have any more children was waning. Of course another possible reason was the death of either party, so we trawled Durham burials after 1771 and found only two possibly relevant events, namely a burial at Chester le Street 13.6.1794 of George Kellett of Harraton and burial there 25.2.1814 of Mary Kellot, aged 81. If this is “our” Mary the age at death implies an age at marriage of 34 or 35, which very much supports the above assumption.
It did occur to us that the bride of 1767 could have been a widow but all the Durham marriages of Coxons etc marrying Marys in the previous twenty years were not near Chester le Street. So we searched for a Mary Coxon (or similar) baptisms in Durham 1725-40. We found just three:
Houghton le Spring 13.3.1726/7 Mary, daughter of William Coxen
Chester le Street 6.4.1729 Mary, daughter of John Coxon and
Chester le Street 16.2.1735/6 Mary daughter of Ralph Coxon
The first one would make Mary unusually old to have child in 1771 and the third one died in childhood, the burial being 7.5.1742. We have therefore assumed that “our” Mary was the daughter of John Coxon. Admittedly, her age at death would have been 84 rather than the 81 as stated in the death register, but, for 18C research, we are working on the reasonable conjecture basis. It means Mary was two years older than her husband but, with them being in their mid-thirties, we are not worried about that.
Coxon Read family
We found a regular pattern of baptisms at Chester le Street for children of John Coxon from 1723 to 1743 and we therefore believe that these were the outcome of a marriage there 28.3.1723NS between John Coxon and Mary Read. Details of their family are given in Appendix 1 hereto.
Given Mary Read married in 1723 and was able to have a child in 1743 we looked for a suitable Chester le Street baptism in the range 1698 to 1705. We found no Mary Reads but there were three Mary Reeds, as follows:
29.9.1700 daughter of George,
9.11.1701 daughter of Richard and
2.12.1701 daughter of Matthew.
There seemed to be no relevant Chester le Street burials up to 1723, so any of these Marys could be “ours”. As the first child was named Richard and there was a later boy also of that name, we considered favouring the middle one but decided to not take the matter any further.
As regards John Coxon’s origins, we have seen two baptisms at Chester le Street that would make the marriage parties were of similar ages. These are 8.9.1700, son of Henry Coxon and 5.1.1701/2, son of John Coxon. As they named their second child John and also, later, had a Henry, we do not feel we have enough to go on.
JMY October 2022
Appendix 1 to Ref. S711
John Coxon and Mary Read family
John Coxon and Mary Read married at Chester le Street 28.2.1723NS. They had children baptised there as follows:
Richard 26.12.1723. Father possibly “Jonathan Coxon of Lambton (three miles from Chester le Street). There was a burial of Richard Coxon of Lambton 30.4.1731 – not stated whether a child.
John 17.7.1726.
Mary 6.4.1729. Married at Chester le Street 27.12.1767 George Kellett – see main text and Ref. S71
Isabel 17.10.1731.
Richard 24.2.1733/4.
Henry 16.2.1735/6 under the name of Cuxhen
Robert 9.1.1737/8.
Matthew 8.11.1741.
Ann 16.10.1743.
Chester le Street baptisms have been seen for John Coxon 26.3.1749/50 and for Mary Coxon 13.2.1750NS and 9.6.1765. These could be relevant.
