BOULT ancestry in Berkshire

Records show that Boults lived in Berkshire from way back. The difficulty is teasing out which ones were born to which parents because they had such common given names.

Other pages explain my complete confidence in putting Henry Boult (1865 - 1919), Henry John Boult (1828 - 1912) and Henry Boult (1794 - 1877) into the chart for Neil's Boult ancestry. This page is about taking the ancestry back further. Currently, though, it has to be largely speculative. If you can shed further light or add any photographs, please get in touch.

The search for the father of Henry Boult (1794 - 1877) began with two hypotheses. One was that his given name would be John because it was accepted practice to pass names on in families and Henry's eldest son was named John. The other was that as families tended to move around less then, he would have been been associated with Winkfield in Berkshire.

In fact these hypotheses fit the records so well that my confidence in them is effectively complete:

According to the parish records for Winkfield (not in the IGI but available in the Berkshire Record Office), a son Henry was born to John and Elizabeth Boult of Chawridge. The birth date of 2 Jan 1793 (baptised 27 Jan) fits very well with Henry the father of Henry John who was born about 1794 according to the censuses. (According to the History of the County of Berkshire the manor of Chawridge consisted of 151 acres of woodland granted in free alms by Henry III as parcel of the manor of Cookham and Bray to the priory of Bromhall in lieu of rents from Windsor and Cookham and Bray. After the Dissolution the manor was granted to St. John's College, Cambridge with whom it has remained to the present day.)

Furthermore according to the IGI, a John Boult did marry an Elizabeth in the right general time period: He married Elizabeth Winder in Bray, Berkshire, on 23 Oct 1784. She was born to Edmond Winder and Elisabeth, baptised 10 Feb 1762 in Bray, Berkshire.

These records make it reasonably certain that this John and Elizabeth Boult were the parents of Henry Boult (1794 - 1877). Being too early for the censuses and the more complete BMD record, however, the link cannot be confirmed from other sources.

The burial records of Winkfield show that a John Boult of Marden Green was buried on 5 October 1832. This date would give 'our' John, if 'our' John he was, an age at death of 74, which is well within the bounds of possibility. Being before 1841 it would also explain his absence from census records. Validy rests of course on whether John had moved from Chawridge to Marden Green.

An Elizabeth Boult, widow of Winkfield, left a will dated 1840, but there is nothing in it to indicate whether she was Elizabeth the widow of John. She left little of any account as presumably that had passed to one of her sons upon the death of her husband. The will did mention a William, as 'my late husband's nephew who lives with me', but so far this has not shed any further light on which Elizabeth she was. A William Bolt [sic] was baptised in Warfield on 1 March 1805 to Zechariah and Esther, but it has not been possible to trace Zechariah's parents. A Pedigree Resource File online entry gives him born in Warfield in 1770, spouse Esther Powell, father unknown. However there is no baptismal record for him in in the Berkshire Record Office, either in Warfield on in neighbouring parishes. 

The parish records in the Berkshire Record Office show that John and Elizabeth had the following children:

• John Boult, baptized on 1 Sep 1785 at Bray. He must have died before 1791 as a younger brother was given his name
• Elizabeth Boult, baptized on 27 Jul 1786 at Bray
• Ann Boult, baptized on 19 Dec 1788 at Bray
• John Boult, baptized on 25 Nov 1791 at Winkfield
• Sarah Boult, born on 27 Nov 1791, baptized on 9 Dec 1791 at Bray
• Henry Boult, born 2 Jan 1793, baptised 27 Jan 1793 at Winkfield
• Thomas Boult, baptized on 5 Jan 1795 at Winkfield
• Mary Boult, baptized on 18 Sep 1796 at Winkfield
• Thomas Charles Boult, baptized on 24 Feb 1798 at Winkfield

There may of course have been other children whose baptisms were entered in records which I did not consult.

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Working backwards in time, as is the way with genealogy research, a John Boult was baptised on 28 Feb 1758 to John Boult and Ann. This record would seem a reasonable fit for the baptism of the John who married Elizabeth Winder. Hence John and Ann go into the speculative Boult ancestry chart. On the basis that people marry at around 25 years old, the marriage record of 27 Sep 1756 at Bray for John Boult and Ann Turner seems reasonable. Furthermore the burial record in Winkfield for John Boult of Chawridge on 16 Oct 1773 fits well with this John.

According to online sources a John Bolt [sic] was baptised on 9 March 1737 at Bray to Henry Bolt and Grace Simmonds. Hence the earliest speculative entry on the chart. However the details vary between the sources, and I am therefore not inclined to try to trace back further. From the point of view of research into family history, it is unfortunate that there were so many Boults in Berkshire who are indistinguishable from the records because of their common names. It may be worth noting, however, that the earliest baptism for a John Boult that I noticed in the Winkfield parish records was on 19 November 1674 to John and Esther Boult.

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According to information passed down in the family, 'our' Boults were related to the well known orchestral conductor, Sir Adrian Boult (Adrian Cedric Boult, born 1889, Chester, died 1983). Can anyone confirm this link? Nothing in my research does. According to various censuses, Sir Adrian Boult was the son of Cedric Boult an oil merchant born in Oxton, Cheshire.