The Life of Captain Matthew FlindersScott, Ernest, Sir
History
The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders
Scott, Ernest, Sir
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Flinders, Matthew, 1774-1814
Ebullitions of discontent on the part of fractious Fenlanders did not
cease till the beginning of the eighteenth century.
A very simple calculation shows that the great-grandfather of the first
Matthew Flinders would probably have been contemporary with Sir Cornelius
Vermuyden's reclamation works. He may have been one of the "participants"
who benefited from them. The fact is significant as bearing upon this
conjecture, that no person named Flinders made a will in Lincolnshire
before 1600.* (* See C.W. Foster, Calendar of Lincoln Wills 1320 to 1600,
1902.)
It is, too, an interesting circumstance that there was a Flinders among
the early settlers in New England, Richard Flinders of Salem, born 1637.*
(* Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England,
Boston U.S.A. 1860.) He may have been of the same family as the
navigator, for the Lincolnshire element among the fathers of New England
was pronounced.
The name Flinders survived at Donington certainly for thirty years after
the death of the sailor who gave lustre to it; for in a directory
published in 1842 occur the names of "Flinders, Mrs. Eliz., Market
Place," and "Flinders, Mrs. Mary, Church Street."* (* William White,
History, Gazetteer and Directory of the City and Diocese of Lincoln, 1842
page 193.)
The Flinders papers, mentioned in the preface, contain material which
enables the family and connections of the navigator to be traced with
certainty for seven generations. The genealogy is shown by the following
table:--
John Flinders, born 1682, died 1741, settled at Donington as a farmer,
married Mary Obray or Aubrey in 1702 and had at least 1 child:
John Flinders, surgeon at Spalding, born 1737, still living in 1810, had
at least two children:
1. John Flinders, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, born 1766, died 1793.
2. Matthew Flinders, surgeon at Donington, born 1750, died 1802, married
Susannah Ward, 1752 to 1783, in 1773 and had at least two children:
2. Samuel Ward Flinders, born 1782, died 1842, Lieutenant in the Royal
Navy, married and left several children.
1. Matthew Flinders the Navigator, born March 16, 1774, died July 19,
1814, married Ann Chappell, born 1770, died 1852, in 1801 and had one
daughter:
Ann Flinders, born 1812, died 1892, married William Petrie, born 1821,
died 1908, in 1851 and had one son:
Professor W.M. Flinders Petrie, eminent scholar and Egyptian
archaeologist, born 1853, married Hilda Urlin in 1897 and had at least
two children:
1. John Flinders Petrie.
2. Ann Flinders Petrie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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