family-tree

49. Introducing the Scheibel/Sheibell line – an early twig from Germany

In which we meet the rather complicated Scheibel/Sheibell line, apothecaries from Friedburg, Wettaravia, Germany, naturalised as British citizens in the late 17th and early 18th centuries … but… they are not properly disentangled!

Two trees below show some pretty well known information, and some more speculative, derived from a variety of sources. The main person of interest for our purposes is Mary Sheibell (1712-1758), who married Apsley Pellatt (1699-1740/1). We are secure in the knowledge that Mary Sheibell was the daughter of John Sheibell ( – 1734) and Mary Houghton/Haughton ( – 1745). They married at St Martin in the Fields on 4 April 1706, and their four children’s baptisms are to be found in the parish registers of that church. Shown on the first tree below, they are Anne, born on 12 January 1707/8 and baptised on the 15th; a child Anne Sheibel [sic] was buried there on 5 February 1707/8, who could have been this Anne, or, feasibly, her cousin Anne Sheibell, daughter of Henry Sheibell and his wife Mary, who was born in November 1705. These Scheibells can be quite confusing. Next up for John Sheibell and Mary Houghton was John Sheibell, born 3 January 1709/10, and who died before 1745. He appears to have been somewhat troubelsome, as we will see when we look at his parents’ Wills. He had a daughter Mary by an unknown spouse. Then we come to Mary Sheibell, whose dates we have seen above, followed by the short-lived William Sheibell, who I believe was born and died in 1713.

Who was John Sheibell?

Looking at the trees below, we see that some sources show that Hartmann Scheibel, Apothecary, of Friedburg in Germany was the father of Henry Sheibell, Apothecary, and grandfather of John Scheibel, Apothecary, both of St Martin in the Fields. The naturalisation record for Henry Scheibel in 1693 clearly shows: ‘Henry Sheibell Son of Hartman Sheibell [1654-1723] and Katherine his wife born at Ffriedberg in Wetteravia in Germany’. After a certain amount of disagreement with the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, whom we have met many times before in our Backler stories, Henry was made free of the Society in 1691. He married Mary Peade, and a ‘tentative’ pedigree for him and a line for ‘our’ John Sheibell can be seen in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, London 1912, which can be viewed online at https://archive.org/details/miscellaneagenea4191bann/page/n39/mode/2up pages 8-10.

So far, so good, for Henry, but what about our John? The Pedigree shows him as Henry’s nephew, naturalised by Act of Parliament No. 94, 4 and 5 Anne (1706), as son of Mary Scheibel, father’s name not given. However, I have combed through the very many names of naturalised folk in this Act, and the one I find is ‘John Phillip Sheibell son of John Sheibell by his wife Mary born at Ffriedberg in Germany’. Is this ‘our’ John? I have reason to believe that it is, since John Phillip Sheibell was buried in 1734 at the Savoy Lutheran Chapel, and ‘our’ John (no Phillip in the name) died in that year, stating in his Will that he wished to be buried there. If this is so, and the Naturalisation parentage is accurate, ‘our’ John was indeed the nephew of Henry and the grandson of Hartmann. The trees below do not show his father as ‘John’, which I now believe to be the case.

The rather fuzzy tree below shows the very extensive family of Henry Sheibell, Apothecary. His children were ‘our’ John Sheibell’s cousins, and detailed examination shows them featuring in various ways in each others’ lives – which I do not propose to set out in any detail.

Let’s see what else we know about our direct ancestor, John (Phillip) Sheibell ( – 1734).

Some years ago I explored the Vestry Minutes of St Martin in the Fields seeking information about John Sheibell and his son-in-law Apsley Pellatt.  I am not sure how John Sheibell became a ‘Citizen and Apothecary’, but the Vestry Minutes consider in some detail the payments to John Sheibell in his role as apothecary to the poor of the parish, and later on, in his services to the workhouse:

‘This Board takeing into consideration an Apothecary to be employed this year by the Overseers of the poor for the relief of the poor, Doe recomend [sic] Mr John Sheibell, Apothecary to be employed by the Overseers of the Poor as Apothecary & Surgeon So as his Bills do not exceed Sixty pounds for & during all this year…’[1]

This recommendation was repeated in the following two years, but in 1720 the following entry appears:

‘John Sheibell Apothecary petitioned this Board complaining of the great Costs and Charges he yearly sustains by reason of his paying a Surgeon out of his Sallary of 60 £ y And, this Board taking the same in Consideration Ordered that the said John Sheibell’s Sallary be advanced to 80 £ y And during such time as the two Outwards shall remain part of this parish’[2]

The relationship of John Sheibell and the Vestry did not always run smooth. Cost-cutting is not just a modern phenomenon: at the Vestry of 13 September 1722, the Board apparently reviewed the salary and services, and decided that £60 a year should be sufficient to serve the Poor in Medicines and Surgery. If John Sheibell was not willing to accept these terms, then another should be elected ‘in his room’.  But by Easter Monday 1723, his salary was £80, and in 1724, ‘A Memorial of Mr John Sheibell Apothecary for providing Medicines for the poor of this parish was produced for this Board and ordered to be referred to the next Vestry’ [although no mention of it is made at the next vestry]. 

More was to follow. In May 1725, on opening of the Workhouse, the Vestry

‘ordered and agreed that an Advertisement be put into the Daily Courant that if any sober, skilful Apothecary is willing to Settle at the Workhouse and to attend the poor of this parish He be desired to wait on Sr Jno Colbatch Knt at Bartram’s Coffee House in Church Court any Day between One and two in the afternoon to treat about the same’[3]

The upshot of this appeared to be that a Mr Kitchen was to be ‘imployed as Apothecary for the poor of this parish And to have 40 £ pa And Sallary for the same …’. This was followed by months of procrastination when the orders re Mr Sheibell and Mr Kitchen were referred over and over again to ‘the next Vestry’.  Apparently John Sheibell wasn’t going to give up his position without a fight, and indeed, on Easter Monday 1726, John Sheibell was confirmed as Apothecary to the poor ‘provided his Bills exceed not 60 £ p. ann.’[4]

Following John Sheibell’s death in 1734, the Vestry Minutes of 15 April 1734 record the need for consideration of employing an Apothecary for the Service of the poor of the parish. Once again the matter was referred to successive Vestries, but finally (what happened to the care of the poor in the interim?), on 16 June 1735, it was:

‘Ordered and agreed that Mr Pellatt Apothecary be recommended .. to be .. employed for the service of the Poor of this parish for the remainder of this present year’.[5]

As we already know, Apsley Pellatt was John Sheibell’s son-in-law, having married Mary Sheibell in 1731.  No further mention is made of Apsley Pellatt as Apothecary (nor indeed of anyone else).  He died in 1740, and his wife married William Webb, who later became Churchwarden and Overseer.

Wills – a good source of information

We turn now to another key source of info for this Sheibell clan. The first Will of interest is that of Mary (nee Peade) Sheibell, wife of the above-cited apothecary, Henry Sheibell. He had died in 1723, but I have not located a Will for him. His wife, on the other hand, wrote her Will in 1730, and it was proved in 1732. She scattered any number of diamond rings and monetary legacies among her many children and grandchildren, but one item clarifies the relationship between her (and her late husband) and ‘our’ John Sheibell:

Item I give to my Nephew John Sheibell and to his wife Mary ten pounds apiece for Mourning and twenty shillings apiece more for a Mourning ring and to each of their children John and Mary I give ffive pounds for Mourning and twenty shillings apiece for a Mourning ring and I do further give and bequeath to my said Nephew John Sheibell a Legacy of one hundred pounds and in case he shall depart this life before my decease then I give the said one hundred pounds to his daughter Mary Sheibell and not otherwise

The Mary Sheibell in question, of course, is ‘our’ Mary who in 1731 would marry Apsley Pellatt.

We next move to the Will of John (Phillip) Sheibell, written in April 1732, and proved in April 1734. At the time of writing his daughter Mary will have married Apsley Pellatt, in 1731; the other surviving child is John, who is mentioned with some reservations in the Will, as follows:

I give and bequeath unto my only Son Twenty pounds and six Silver Spoons And in case my said Wife shall at any time after my death find and be satisfyed that my said Son John is reformed and become discreet and sober I recommend it to her to give to my said Son John the further sum of One hundred and Thirty pounds out of my Estate and Effects Also I give and bequeath to my Son in Law Apsley Pellett and to my dear daughter Mary his Wife Twenty pounds a peice [sic] and no more for Mourning I having given her a Portion upon her Marriage with the said Mr Pellet

After one or two other legacies, and specifying his wish to be ‘interred in the Vault or in the Church Yard of the Lutheran Church within the precinct of the Savoy with as little Ceremony and Expense as may be…’, he leaves everything else in the care of his wife, who he is sure will ensure it is used for the benefit of their children.

However, soon after – too soon, really – we come to the Will of Apsley Pellatt (1699-1740). Written on 11 March 1740 and proved on the 16th of the same month, he leaves all his property in Sussex to his wife Mary, the proceeds of which should be used for the maintenance and education of all their children, including the one ‘in ventre sa mere’ – not yet born (this is William Pellatt, born 1740/41, not sure what happened to him). Basically everything is left to his wife. She would re-marry after Apsley’s death, to William Webb, but I cannot find a Will of hers in 1758, when she died. However, we do have the Will of Mary (nee Houghton) Sheibell, her mother, and grandmother to the Apsley Pellatt children. Written in July 1745, and proved in August, she requests that she should be buried near her late son-in-law Apsley Pellat [sic], at St Martin in the Fields. Her wayward son John having died, she makes the following provision for his daughter Mary [mother’s name not known]:

‘I give and bequeath unto my grand daughter Mary Sheibell the only child of my son John Sheibell deceased the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds in satisfaction of a legacy of one hundred and thirty pounds which my late husband desired me to give to my said son John if I found him prudent and careful which said sum of two hundred and fifty pounds I direct to be paid my said granddaughter when she shall attain the age of one and twenty years or be married also I give and bequeath to my said granddaughter Mary Sheibell an old fashioned two handle silver cup and a gold ring set with ten diamonds one pair of silver salts six silver teaspoons and a strainer’

Apsley Pellatt’s children, Apsley (1735-1798) and Mary (1736-1791) were also given legacies:

I give and bequeath unto my grandson Apsley Pellat the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds also I give and bequeath unto the said Apsley Pellat a ribbed silver salver also I give and bequeath unto my granddaughter Mary Pellat one hundred pounds and a silver tea pot and I direct that the said legacies to my grandson Apsley Pellat and my granddaughter Mary Pellat shall be paid to them when and as they severally attain their respective ages of one and twenty years or be married…

Additionally to these legacies, however, came provision for her nephew John Stockwell (son of her sister Elizabeth and her husband John Stockwell), and apothecary Charles Carlisle to invest the sums left to the grandchildren and use the income to support their education and to put young Apsley Pellatt ‘apprentice to some genteel and reputable trade’. (See next post!) She left the rest and residue of her estate to her daughter Mary (Houghton Pellatt) Webb, for her sole use, which makes it puzzling that no Will can be found for her in 1758. Her husband William Webb died in 1771. He left most legacies to his daughters by his first marriage, but made son-in-law Apsley Pellatt (1735-1798) one of his Executors, and left £200 to be divided among Pellatt’s children when they reached age 21.

This rounds off our rather limited acquaintance with the Sheibells. Through Uncle Henry, there were any number of Sheibell descendants, but on ‘our’ John’s side there were only a few, one, Mary Sheibell (unknown mother), daughter of the wayward John, and ‘our’ Mary, mother of the second of very many Apsley Pellatts to follow. In the next post we will see this young Apsley Pellatt begin his association with the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, with which the Pellatts would have a long association.

All notes from Westminster Archives Centre: [1] WAC F/2006/4 Easter Monday 1717 [2] WAC F/2006/37 April 15th 1720 [3] WAC F/2006/183  May 3 1725 [4] WAC F/2006/224 [5] WAC F/2006/434

48. Apsley Pellatt (1699-1740/1). Apothecary of St Martin in the Fields

In which we acquaint ourselves with the first Apsley Pellatt and his siblings, later noting his residence in London, his marriage to Mary Sheibell (Scheibel) in 1731 and his death in 1740/1, leaving two children and a third on the way.

Apprenticeships.

We have noted that Apsley Pellatt (1699-1740) was the son of William Pellatt (1665-1725) and Grace Newton (1664-1710). Grace died in 1710, and William was to marry for a second time to Mrs Elizabeth Taunton on 14 April 1715. I have found a Will for a William Pellatt of Lewes, Gent, written in 1719 and proved in 1725 by the sole Executrix, wife Elizabeth Pellatt. The Will is so brief as to make one wonder, simply leaving all estate, goods, chattels etc to loving wife Elizabeth. Is this ‘our’ William Pellatt? No mention of any children? It is puzzling. Had all the children been provided for at the time of the second marriage? There is no Will discovered for Grace, nor, for certain, for Elizabeth, although there is a possible one written in 1747 and proved in 1753, citing a son, ‘Thomas Tonton’ and daughter ‘Elizabeth’ as heirs. I have not researched this further.

William and Grace had seven known children, five boys of whom one, Thomas, died age 20, and the oldest, William, was presumably going to be the heir to his father. The three younger boys were put out to apprenticeships as shown in ‘Sussex Apprentices and Masters 1710-1752 ( https://www.sussexrecordsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Digital_editions/SRS-Vol-28.pdf ), abstracted as follows:

PELLATT, Apsley, son of William P. of Lewes, Suss., esq.,to Francis Goater of Chichester, [Suss.], Apothecary; 7 yrs. from 24 June last’” [1715]; £60 – We consider below his progress to London and what is known of his later life. See https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/SUSSEX-MEDICS.pdf , p. 101, for information about Francis Goater, a prominent member of Chichester society.

PELLATT, John, son of William P. of Lewis, Suss. to Benjamin Powell of Lond, upholder; C. I. 7 yrs. ;£40; d. 7 inst. [Dec. 1720]; What happened to John? He was alive when his brother Mill wrote his Will in 1764 (see below). But I cannot reliably find him otherwise.

PELLATT, Mill, son of William P. of Lewis, Suss, gent.,to James Coulton of St Saviour’s, Southwark, [Surrey], hosier; C.I., 6yrs. ; £50; d. 9 inst. [May 1717]. Mill Pellatt’s (1702-1764) apprenticeship to James Coulton in 1717 was not to last, as James Coulton died in 1721. It does not seem that there was a London guild of hosiers then or now. I have found no evidence of what Mill did next, until we see his rather extraordinary last Will and Testament dated 14 April 1764 and proved on 30 May 1764. Mill had died and was buried in Brighthelmstone (Brighton), and his Will begins: “Dear Nephew Apsley Pellatt” – addressed to the son of his late brother, the first Apsley Pellatt, the principal person of interest in this post.

he asks Apsley Pellatt to be his sole Executor, and goes on ‘the 2 Lodgings Houses one Mine the other Mary Warners We agreed in the Court the longest liver Should Enjoy all the Goods in both houses I give to your Sister Mary Pellatt such as beding [sic] Linnen Plate China Glasses every thing that was Mine if Mary Warners will buy the goods as they stand if you think proper may sell them her I have a part of two Vessels One Capt Tho. Telson the other Capt Jno Butler those I bequeath to your sister Mary Pellatt the residue of my Effects I bequeath to you my Nephew Apsley Pellatt I have paid all my Debts so that you shall have no Demand on you except my Brother John Pellatt him I owe about a hundred pound I desire to be buried in this tow very private and frugal by daylight I believe you may Manage all this Business without the Charge of Administering this I Sign as my las Will and Testament this fourteenth Day of April One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty Four Witness my Hand – Mill Pellatt

To Mr. Apsley Pellatt this Will of Mill Pellatt I devise may be given him Apsley Pellatt the 30th Day of May 1764

On that day, Mr Thomas Meriton of the parish of St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsay (the nephew Apsley’s father-in-law. whom we will meet in future posts), Ironmonger, and Mr Apsley Brett of Lewes, Grocer (I think the son of Apsley Brett, Apothecary in Brighton, and apprenticed in 1756 to Will Brett in Lewes, Grocer) swore that they had long known Mill Pellatt and that the handwriting was his, so that Apsley Pellatt could duly prove the Will on that date. A Mary Warner, aged 72, was buried in Brighton on 26 December 1784, shown as from the Almshouse. Any fotrune she acquired from Mill Pellatt seems to have been exhausted.

Of the daughters of William Pellatt and Grace (Newton):

Elizabeth Pellatt (1692-1734) married John Court, who predeceased her. Her Will and three codicils left all her varied property, including The Friars in Lewes, and everything else, to her brother, the above-named Apsley Pellatt (1699-1740/1), subject to a provision by him of a yearly annuity payable to her brother William of £20 for his lifetime. It is not clear why William, the oldest sibling, should need this annuity. Even more unclear is why the Codicils should go into some detail about £500 and many goods, jewelry and other things to be left to her cousin George Nevill Newton (1696-1746), son of William Newton and his wife, Ann, possibly one of the many Paine’s I mentioned in my previous post. George lived in Brighton, as did Elizabeth in her last days, although both were buried in Lewes. Did he have some influence over Elizabeth?

Elizabeth’s sister Philadelphia (1696-1738) appears to have left little trace. She was not mentioned in her sister’s Will.

The first Apsley Pellatt in London: And so we move to our direct ancestor, Apsley Pellatt (1699-1740/1). Apprenticed in 1715 to apothecary Francis Goater in Chichester, we next find him living in central London, and appearing in the parish records of St Martin in the Fields, now a famous landmark opposite the National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square. Indeed, the present church was finished in 1726, replacing an earlier one built by Henry VIII, and so these Pellatt ancestors worshipped and were buried there. (There is no sign of them in the many memorial stones which pave the floors and walls of the present church.)

Once in London, he can be found as Apsley Pellatt, Apothecary, of Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square). The first substantive mention I have found about him concerns his appointment as Apothecary to the Parish of St Martin in the Fields, to succeed his father-in-law John Sheibell who died in 1734. Apsley Pellatt had married Sheibell’s daughter Mary in 1731. The Vestry Minutes of 15 April 1734 record the need for consideration of employing an Apothecary for the Service of the poor of the parish. The matter was referred to successive Vestries, but finally (what happened to the care of the poor in the interim?), on 16 June 1735, it was: ‘Ordered and agreed that Mr Pellatt Apothecary be recommended .. to be .. employed for the service of the Poor of this parish for the remainder of this present year’. (Westminster Archives, WAC F/2006/434). I have found no further mention of him and this role. He died at the tender age of about 41 in March 1740/1. (It is important here to use the old style Julian calendar to show the date, in which the new year (1741) would have started at the end of March, because of the birth of Apsley Pellatt’s third child, William, in summer of 1741. I had long thought this was too long after Apsley’s death in 1740, but realised that the death date of 1740 in fact referred to March 1741 under the new style which would come into force in 1752.)

As noted above, Apsley Pellatt had married Mary Sheibell (Scheibel)(1712-1758) at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 30 September 1731; he was of the parish of St James Westminster, which implies that he had a different residence prior to moving to Leicester Fields. By the time of his death in 1740/1, he and Mary had had three children. First-born was Apsley Pellatt (1735-1798); then Mary (1736-1791), and William (1741- ) (born posthumously).

Apsley Sr’s Will made provision for his very young children. His freeholds, hereditaments etc were left to his wife Mary in trust until his oldest child reached age 21, using the rents and profits for the maintenance and education of the children (including the one ‘in veintre sa mere’). Then the oldest child was to have these monies and make payments to the other offspring of interest and then, on their becoming 21, legacies of £400 each; and also an annual annuity to Mary of £25 per annum. Basically, Apsley the younger was to inherit the various properties in Sussex, including The Friars…but…he was just five years old when his father died. His mother was to re-marry to widower William Webb a year later. She would die in February 1758. We will learn more about her in my next post, when I trace what is known about the Scheibels, after which we will return to ‘Pellatt’ and review what happened to Apsley Pellatt St’s three children.