A lot of the Street family members second names are Crespin and have at last found the source of the name: Abraham John Crespin (1798-1850) was baptised on 9th September 1771 in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, the son of John and Barbara Crespin. He attended Huntingdon School under Mr Edwards and was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge on 4th July 1788 aged 17. He matriculated in 1788 and was a Scholar in 1792 , graduating BA in 1793. He was ordained Deacon at Ely on 27th October 1793 and became Curate of Carlton, Cambridgeshire in that year. On 1st May 1798 he was appointed Vicar of Renhold and the Patron was Nathaniel Polhill, with advice of John Maitland, his guardian. In addition to being Vicar of Renhold, he was, in plurality Vicar of Ravensden from 1817. Ravensden is a small village about one mile west of Renhold. In a letter dated 22nd May 1830 Philip Hunt, Vicar of St.Peter Martin, Bedford amongst other posts, to John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln: Mr Crespin was also the chaplain of this House of Industry when I came to reside at Bedford, and during his chaplainship, there was Divine Service on Sunday Evenings, and also on Wednesdays or Thursdays, on which latter days some of the neighbouring clergymen, who were usually denominated 'Evangelical', frequently assisted him; and it was generally understood that not only the inmates of the House, but many of the middle and some of the upper classes of Society in the town and immediate neighbourhood attended those congregations, and not only members of our own Church, but Moravians, Dissenters, and Methodists.
On Mr Crespin's resignation of the chaplainship. Mr Mathews, curate of Colmworth and Bolnhurst,(in north Bedfordshire) succeeded him. He married Mary Cumming, a widow of Great Barford, on 31st March 1807 at All Saints, Renhold. Like his predecessor George Herbert, he and his wife shared their wedding day with another couple. Mary Cumming was a native of Renhold who had married Robert Cumming of Great Barford, himself a widower, in Renhold church in 1784. An interesting entry on 20th September of the same year has John Exton North, a widower from Grantham, marrying Elizabeth Cumming, “a minor, with her parent and guardian’s consent”. We can trace a story through the parish registers - Ann, wife of Robert Cumming, farmer, buried 23rd June 1783 at Great Barford; Robert marrying Mary Newman at Renhold on 7th November 1784 – members of the Newman family are buried by the path leading to the porch; Elizabeth baptised on 5th February 1788 at Great Barford, and eventually Robert Cumming buried there on 26th March 1801. Finally on 3rd July 1809 John and Elizabeth’s first child “was received into the church, having been privately baptised at Grantham”. Plainly Elizabeth thought highly of her stepfather, for she called her daughter Mary Crespin North who Married Samuel Street (My Great Great Grandfather on July 4, 1833. Abraham Crespin was buried on 30th December 1850 next to his wife near the vestry window (plot X24). His tombstone describes him as a “diligent and affectionate Vicar who lived the truths he preached” and states that he died suddenly on Christmas Day 1850, aged 79. Mary lies alongside him (plot X23), having died aged 70 on January 3rd 1832 and buried on 7th January. Abraham remarried to a Mary Nash at St Cuthbert’s Church, Bedford on 28th November 1834. Abraham Crespin was Vicar of Renhold and Ravensden until his death in Renhold. Regards Eric |
