My English-born husband punted us on the River Cam on my first visit to Cambridge, England. (Punting is a means of propelling a flat-bottomed boat with a single pole and is definitely a learned art.) The Queen Mother flew in on a helicopter and landed near us, but I felt I was the only Queen on earth that idyllic day! At the time, I didn't realize that I had ancestral lines affiliated with the iconic University there.
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| Graham Barnard punting on the River Cam 1997 - photos by delighted author from her comfy seat |
The University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England is an educational institution associated with at least four members of my Cudworth and Denison families in the 16th to 17th centuries before those families moved to New England.
1. Ralph Cudworth (1572-1624)
My 9th great grandfather Ralph Cudworth was father of my immigrant ancestor General James Cudworth.
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| Church at Aller, Somerset photo by author |
Although Ralph had been born in Werneth, Lancashire in 1572, his primary connections are to Cambridge University, the court of King James I and the church at Aller, Somerset. He was considered a brilliant scholar, entering Cambridge at the age of 16 and receiving a BA in 1592, MA in 1596, BD (Oxford) 1610 and DD in 1619. He was a Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and was also minister at St. Andrew's.
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| c.1870 by unknown photographer (a couple of centuries after Cudworth's time there!) |
It was his long-time association with Emmanuel College, Cambridge that led to his being awarded his living as rector in Aller in 1609.
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| Rectors of Aller - Ralph Cudworth STB (Bachelor of Sacred Theology), third from bottom photo by author |
A prestigious appointment occurred in 1603 when King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England after the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Through friends who had contacts at court, Ralph became chaplain to the King. This is the same King James who authorized the new translation of the Bible (1604-1611) generally known as the "King James Version". Although not credited as being directly involved in the translation, one might suppose that as King's chaplain, Ralph would have been in the inner circle of religious leaders involved in the project.
Ralph retained his position at Aller until his death in 1624. He would have been just in his early 50's and left his widow Mary with quite young children.
2. Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688)
My 8th great granduncle Ralph was one of those young children left fatherless in 1624 on the death of Ralph senior. He had a very illustrious career as a philosopher at Cambridge spanning the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. He was a leading member of the 17th century theologians known as the Cambridge Platonists. All were educated at Cambridge and drew on the philosophy of Plato. They insisted on the importance of reason in religion and had a relatively tolerant religious outlook.
In 1632 at the age of 15 he was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where his father had been a Fellow. He received his BA in 1635, his MA in 1639 and his DD in 1651. He followed in his father's footsteps becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel in 1639 and he remained at Cambridge for life.
The Civil War (1642-1651) was a major disruptive event during the early part of his career. He preached a sermon to the House of Commons in 1647 and was appointed Master of Clare Hall and Regius Professor of Hebrew. In 1654 he became Master of Christ's College. He managed to keep his appointments and to secure advisory positions in the time of Cromwell and later after the Restoration of the monarchy. Still, his liberal leanings were not in tune with the Church hierarchy after the Restoration. (His brother James Cudworth, my 8th great grandfather, had migrated to Plymouth Colony in about 1632 as part of the Puritan group seeking greater religious freedom, indicative of the family's leanings!)
His only major publication during his lifetime was "The True Intellectual System of the Universe" in 1678.
A picture of him (engraving) can be found on his Wikipedia page.
He married Damaris Craddock c. 1642 and had several sons and one daughter. Only the daughter (my first cousin 9X removed) survived him - Damaris Cudworth, later Lady Masham. She inherited not only his papers but also his philosophical flair, being a recognized philosopher in her own right. Not much is known of her education but she lived in a home with many books and stimulating conversation. Had she been born a few centuries later, she almost certainly would have attended the University of Cambridge herself. That was not an option for women at the time, She was a close friend of philosopher John Locke and it was this friendship that resulted in the posthumous publication of her father's "Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality" and "A Treatise of Freewill".
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| Ralph Cudworth's Magnum Opus photo by author |
Ralph had not finalized the content of these prior to his death and there had been many developments in history and philosophy between his death in 1688 and the publication of his Treatise in 1731. Still, his thoughts were considered relevant decades after his death, perhaps because his philosophy of morality contemplated matters being "eternal" and "immutable". One excerpt from Book I, Chapter II, for example, says:
Wherefore in the first place, it is a thing which we shall very easily demonstrate, that moral good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest . . . cannot possibly be arbitrary things, made by will without nature; because it is universally true, that things are what they are, not by will but by nature.
3. John Denison (1605-1683)
When my 10th great grandfather William Denison moved his family from Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631, the only family member left behind in England was oldest son John who had already established his own family there.
John was the first of the Denisons to attend the University of Cambridge, entering in 1620 at age 15, receiving his BA in 1623-24 and his MA in 1627. He was ordained deacon 22 February 1629-30, priest at Ely 17 March 1632-33, Rector of Quendon 1650 and Vicar of Standon, Hertfordshire until his death in 1670.
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| Ely Cathedral where John was a priest 1632-33 Photo by the author 1998 |
4. Daniel Denison (1612-1682)
My 9th great granduncle Daniel Denison, older brother to my ancestor George Denison, was attending the University of Cambridge when his father decided in 1631 to uproot the family and transplant them to New England. He recalled Daniel from university to make the move. Daniel had entered King's College in 1625, transferred to Emmanuel in 1626 and received his BA in 1829-30.
In 1632 he married Patience, daughter to Governor Thomas Dudley. (As an aside, one of Governor Dudley's claims to fame relates to his role in the founding of Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Also, in the following generation, Daniel and Patience's daughter Elizabeth married John Rogers who served as president of Harvard.)
Daniel lived from 1632-35 in Cambridge, a town of the same name as the one he had left in England. By 1635 he had relocated his family to Ipswich, Massachusetts. As an intelligent and well-educated man, he played a prominent part in the affairs of the community. For instance, he was a military leader acting as commissioner to negotiate with the French commander at Penobscot in 1646 and again in 1653 and was Major General of the colonial forces for 10 years. He was Assistant Commissioner and sometimes the Commissioner of the United Colonies for about 3 decades from 1653 to 1682.
He represented Ipswich for several years in the general court, was Speaker of the House for the colony of Massachusetts in 1649, 1651 and 1652, acted as Secretary of the colony and also as justice of the quarterly court.
When he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Massachusetts's troops in 1675, he was prevented from taking the field due to illness. He died in 1682 and is buried in the Old Burying Ground in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
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| Stone for Major-General Daniel Denison in Old Burying Ground Ipswich, Massachusetts photo credit bmay on Findagrave.com website |
Final Thoughts on Connections
Although the Denisons and Cudworths were not related to one another, it is quite likely that the three youngest of these men had paths that crossed at the University of Cambridge in England in the 1620s and 30s. But it wouldn't be until 1859 on the marriage of George Garner Wescott (a descendant of the Denisons) and Sarah Catherine Bullen (a descendant of the Cudworths) that the two family branches connected again in my family tree, enabling me to enjoy punting on the River Cam beside the University of Cambridge which had played such a prominent role in their lives.
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| Smug grin on author's face captured by Graham Barnard 1997 |
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Some Sources:
- Anderson, Robert Charles The Great Migration Begins 1995, The New England Historic Genealogical Society, volume 1, pages 521-524
- "Cambridge University Alumni 1261-1900" accessed 21 November 2012 via AncestryLibrary.com
- Cudworth, Dan, "An Autobiography of the Life of Daniel Boyden Cudworth, Jr.", 1993 (copy accessed 1999 in the Scituate Historical Library)
- Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, London, 1731; modern edition, S. Hutton (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996
- Denison, Daniel, Autobiography of Major-General Daniel Denison, manuscript to his grandchildren written in 1672, "The New England Historical and Genealogical Register," Volume 46 (1892), pages 127-133 (in the public domain and reprinted in full in the Findagrave.com memorial site 155666707 for Daniel Denison)
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