The Beckingham One-Name Study

Kent

The Kent Pedigree is so called simply because that is where it starts.

There is William Beckingham and his wife Mary with two sons, John born around 1809 at Greenwich and William circa 1811 at East Wickham. Mary died about 1847 in the Dartford registration district.

After considerable research, it would appear that William was a widower aged 68 in the City of London workhouse at the 1851 census, and as he was born in Tilehurst, all of the Kent Pedigree links into Great Hidden.  William is probably the son of John and Martha (nee Williams) Beckingham who were in Tilehurst from 1776, but John's brother, Thomas and his wife Olive (nee Goddard) were also raising children there at that time. Unfortunately as yet I have not found a baptism for William around 1783.

John Beckingham born in Greenwich married a Sarah Burgess at Bexley, Kent in 1834 and his brother William married Eliza Carpenter, a widow, in 1853 at Woolwich. Eliza's maiden name was Hills. The Beckingham name was corrupted to Beckenham within three generations and became the main spelling through to today, probably because of the town of Beckenham in Kent. (see my thoughts on this on the web page re the spelling of the name).

There is another Beckingham family in Kent in the 1830's, a John and Elizabeth Beckingham and family at Shorne, but they also prove to link back to the Great Hidden pedigree as John originated in Petersfield in Hampshire in 1808.