< More Waters Upton Memorial Inscriptions / MIs in the churchyard
Waters Upton churchyard MIs: PHILLIPS
Added October 2023:
In
Memory of Richard Phillips who
who departed this life February [??]
1798 aged 70 Years.
[Verse, possibly: Here he Sleepeth in the Dust
Untill the Coming of the Just
Untill the day when Christ shall say
Arise my Saints and come away]
The inscription on this gravestone corresponds to an entry in the Waters Upton register dated 14 Feb 1798 for the burial of Richard Phillips, ætat. 70. It seems likely that this was the Richard Phillips who married Sarah Lewis at High Ercall on 25 May 1755, after banns. Both were of that parish, and both made their marks rather than signing the register. The witnesses both signed; Fran: Smith was a ‘serial witness’ (possibly a churchwarden or clerk), the identity John Jones, or James, or . . . something, is not known.
Richard and Sarah remained in Ercall Magna parish for the first few years of their married life; their abode there, according to the baptism records for their first three children (Isaac, Richard and Mary), was the Marsh (or Marsh lane). The family moved to Waters Upton around 1762 and lost daughter Mary not long afterwards, her burial took place on 3 May 1753. Six more children were added to the family over the next 12 years at Waters Upton: Sarah, Sinah, Hannah Maria, John, Ann, and another Mary.
There are few clues here as to the kind of life Richard led. My guess is that he was a labourer or perhaps (given that his family could afford a gravestone) carried out a trade. The fates of his wife Sarah and the couple’s children (other than their first Mary) I have yet to discover – the occupations pursued by the sons might provide an indication of what Richard himself did for a living.
Waters Upton One-Place Study 