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The Simson family, like the Masons, Taylers, and Witheats, were from northeast Essex and southern Suffolk, and mostly from yeoman farming stock. The family had many branches in the villages around Colchester and along the River Stour (see map, dated 1786) and can be traced back to at least the seventeenth century.
William Simson the elder, my 4xgreatgrandfather, was baptised on 17 May 1735 at Bures St Mary, the son of John Simson and his wife Mary (née Frith, 1714–83, possibly of Earls Colne, Essex and possibly the daugher of Josias Frith).
John, his father, was born in 1708 (possibly the son of Ralph Simson, 1682) and died in 1792, at Great Henny, as stated on his will, and buried at Lamarsh, Essex. He was a brandy merchant.
Amongst William’s siblings, also the sons of John and Mary Simson and baptised at Lamarsh, were Edward Frith Simson, later of Stoke by Nayland (1738–1816), and John Simson (circa 1735–93), later the Dedham wine merchant whose daughter married George Witheat, another of my 3xgreat grandfathers.
William married Alice Kingsbury (1742–1830) at Wormingford, on 7 October 1762. The Kingsburys had long resided in this small Essex village of less than 400 people. Alice’s sister Mary Kingsbury (1745–77) was the first wife of Abram Constable (1742–1812), brother of Golding Constable of East Bergholt and later an uncle to the painter John Constable (1776–1837).
The Simsons seem to have settled at Berechurch (aka West Donyland), near Colchester, Essex, where William was possibly a farmer or farrier. Their son William was probably born here in about 1763. Several more children died in infancy but those who survived to adulthood were Alice (circa 1765–1811), Joseph Kingsbury (baptised 1765, later of Fingringhoe), Edward (1769) and John (1770). Although the children were probably all born at Berechurch, until the early nineteenth century most marriages and burials were at Wormingford, where the Rector was determined that the surname should be spelled Simpson, despite at William and Alice’s wedding the groom firmly signing as Simson.
William the elder later lived at Great Bromley, where he died in 1802. He was buried at Wormingford, his wife’s family parish. Alice outlived him (and several of their children) by some years. She also died at Great Bromley, in the spring of 1830 aged eighty-eight, and was buried at Wormingford, ‘from Gt Bromley’.