Rebecca Agard

Biography

Rebeckah was born in 1659. She married Thomas Rivett of Derby on 29 January 1677 in All Saints Church Derby. They had a son Thomas who was born in 1678, and the following year 1679 Thomas, her husband died .

Thomas had made Rebeckah 'the legal guardian and sole executrix of her husbands will" and was required by law to take out Letters of Tuition binding herself to carry out the deceased’s wishes’. Her father Francis Agard agreed to share the responsibility and also signed the bond, and probably contributed more than the child’s mother towards his grandson's upbringing and education.

One pictures Rebeckah as an attractive widow whose mind soon turned to remarriage, for within a short time - perhaps no later than 1682 (for the eldest son of this second marriage was himself married at St Peter’s in Derby in 1705) she found another husband, a Derby ironmonger named Joseph Bloodworth. With him she had three sons and two daughters. Joseph although Mayor of Derby in 1703, he failed as a businessman and from 1706 had money troubles. At one point he had to skip town to escape his creditors. He also proved himself to be an incorrigible spendthrift. Both her father and her son left her money in their wills with the rider that “.... her Husband to be Excluded from the same and not to Intermedle therewith ...." But Douglas R-C ends by saying “We must hope that with the aid of these bequests and those of her first husband Thomas Rivett, she was able to spend the last years in reasonable comfort and that her life with the prodigal Joseph grew less turbulent as time went on” (p52,54)

Rebeckah is thought to have died in 1720.

Sources

The Rivett Family of Repton and Derby (15380-1909) by Douglas Rivett-Carnac All Saints Church Derby Parish Register Internet Research on family Ryvett, Revett, Rivett and Rivett-Carnac by E Trace.