Reeve, William

Summary

Father: Thomas Reeve
Mother:

Birth: c1699
Birth Source: Memorial Plaque

Death: 13 Sep 1755
Death Source: Memorial Plaque

Spouse1: Smithies?

Narrative

Children of William Reeve:

1. Samuel Reeve, b. c1733
2. Thomas Reeve, b. 15 Feb 1745
3. Richard Reeve
4. Clara Reeve
5. Lucia Reeve, m. Aaron Tozer
6. Hannah Reeve, m. Frederick Charles Reinhold
7. Jane Reeve
8. Sarah Reeve

The Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge Alumni) includes the following about him:
REEVE, WILLIAM. Adm. pens, at St Catharine's, Mar. 20, 1716-7. Of Stonham, Suffolk. S. of Thomas (1680). B.A. 1720-1; M.A. 1724. Ord. priest (Norwich) May, 1724- R- of Freston, Suffolk, 1724. R. of Kirton, 1730. Minister of St Nicholas, Ipswich. Died Sept. 13, 1755. aged 56. Buried at St Nicholas. (Davy.)

He shares a plaque at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Ipswich with his son which reads:

In Memory of
The Revd. WILLm. REEVE A. M.
30 years Minister of this Parish
who died the 13th of Septr. 1755
Aged 56

The Rev. THOMAS REEVE,
Rector of Brickley in this County
youngest Son of the above,
died June 4, 1824, aged 79.
His remains are deposited,
with those of his Father,
in a Vault,
near the South Porch of this Church.

The will of his son Samuel mentions "my sisters namely Clara Reeve spinster Suria the wife of Aaron Tozer Hannah wife of Frederick Charles Reinhold Jane Reeve and Sarah Reeve spinsters." He also refers to "three supposed natural daughters of my late Brother Richard Reeve...her known by the name of Elizabeth Richards."

The biography of his daughter Clara Reeve quotes her concerning her father as follows:

CLARA REEVE, the ingenious authoress of "The Old English Baron, " was the daughter of the Reverend William Reeve, M. A., Rector of Freston, and of Kerton, in Suffolk, and Perpetual Curate of Saint Nicholas. Her grandfather was the Reverend Thomas Reeve, Rector of Storeham Aspal, and afterwards of St. Mary Stoke, in Ipswich, where the family had been long resident, and enjoyed the rights of free burghers. Miss Reeve’s mother’s maiden name was Smithies, daughter of - Smithies, goldsmith and jeweller to King George I.
In a letter to a friend Miss Reeve speaks thus of her father:-
My father was an old Whig; from him I have learned all that I know; he was my oracle; he used to make me read the Parliamentary debates, while he smoked his pipe after supper. I gaped and yawned over them at the time, but, unawares to myself, they fixed my principles once and for all. He made me read Rapin's History of England; the information it gave made amends for its dryness. I read Cato's Letters by Trenchard and Gordon; I read the Greek and Roman histories, and Plutarch's Lives: all these at an age when few people of either sex can read their names.

Research Notes

Sources

Burial:       Findagrave - Saint Nicholas' Churchyard Ipswich, Ipswich Borough, Suffolk

Venn, J. A., comp. Alumni Cantabrigienses. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1922-1954. Vol. 3, pt. 1, p439
1801 Will - Samuel Reeve - Prerogative Court of Canterbury Piece 1395 (Marriott), folio 89
Scott, Walter, Sir. Lives of eminent novelists and dramatists , p545