Haddock Burials - The Haddock Family of English Seafarers

The Haddock tombs in the southeast corner of St. Clement’s churchyard, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, looking south toward the Thames Estuary — The Haddock tombs at St. Clement’s, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, lie in the southeast corner of the churchyard. This photograph was taken looking south toward the Thames Estuary. In the foreground the dilapidated tomb with a foundation of stacked brick is that of Admiral Nicholas Haddock, who was buried there with his wife, Frances, and a sister, Lydia. It is adjacent to a path that leads east to Leigh Hill Road. The tomb directly south of Nicholas’s was built by his father, Admiral Sir Richard Haddock. He and multiple family members were interred there. The two tombs at right are those of the Goodlad family of mariners (see 3 below). To encourage pollinators the church allowed summer vegetation to thrive.

It is likely that at least 25 Haddocks were buried at St. Clement’s, counting those inside the church and in the churchyard. Parish burial registers date only from 1685, and some published transcriptions include errors. To compile an accurate list of these burials, I referred to all the Sources listed at the end of this post.

Three points:

a) For further detail and more images, please refer to the pages [noted within brackets] of my book. Exact sources are listed in the Endnotes [228–69].

b) For consistency with modern dating, I adjusted dates below to the Gregorian calendar adopted in Britain in 1752 [5]. Therefore, dates for pre-1752 burials may differ slightly from those in the church’s register.

c) The Haddock Seafarers Family Chart 1581–1941 [xx–xxii] lists more family members.

Five or more inside the church

The Haddock vault at the entrance of the Resurrection Chapel in St. Clement’s probably contains the remains of at least five individuals: mariner Richard Haddok (the spelling at the time, d. 1453), his two wives, Christine and Margaret, and those of his son, John, and his wife, Alice. The monumental brass on the vault [17–18] depicts these individuals along with 21 children. The children are not named, nor are their parents identified. Whether any of the children were also buried in the vault is uncertain.

Twenty in the churchyard

As recently as 17 December 2015, the text on Admiral Sir Richard Haddock’s chest tomb, naming those buried within it, was still partially visible.* A photo (on his mother’s memorial, 39451680) was posted 14 July 2009 on the FindaGrave website. The following inscription is recorded there and by Bundock (see Sources):

This tomb was erected by Sir RICHARD HADDOCK Kt. in memory of his grandfather Capt RICHARD HADDOCK who died 22 May 1660 aged 79 years.

As also of his father Capt WILLIAM HADDOCK who died 22 September 1677 aged
60 years.

And his mother ANNA HADDOCK who died 6 January AD 1688 in the 78th year of
her age who all lie underneath the vault.

Also ye body of Dame ELIZ HADDOCK wife of Sir RICHARD HADDOCK who
died ye 26 of Feby 1709/10 aged 59 years.

And ye body of Sir RICHARD, Comptroller of His Majesties Navy who died ye 29 of January 1714/15 aged 85 years.

The double dates in the last four lines indicate they were most likely inscribed after 1752. Note that Anna was probably born c.1611. When I visited in July 2026, all the inscriptions on both Haddock tombs were unfortunately weathered away.

By merging multiple records, I found 20 Haddock burials in St. Clement’s churchyard. (Additional Haddock burials occurred at various parish churches in London.) In the list below, I corrected earlier transcription errors, added naval officers’ titles, noted family relationships (especially in connection with the family’s most prominent figure, Sir Richard), and verified burial dates.

The Haddock churchyard burials in chronological order are:

Merchant Commander and Parliamentary Vice-Admiral Richard Haddock (1581–1660) [Admiral Sir Richard Haddock’s paternal grandfather]
Merchant Commander and Parliamentary Captain William Haddock (1607–67) [Husband of 3, Adm. Sir Richard’s father]
Anna (née Goodlad) Haddock (c.1611–89) [Wife of 2, Adm. Sir Richard’s mother]
Lieutenant William Haddock (c.1677–97). [Second son of Adm. Sir Richard and 5]
Dame Elizabeth (née Hurlestone) Haddock (1651–1710). [Second wife of Adm. Sir Richard and mother of 4, 14, 16, and 18]
Adm. Sir Richard Haddock (c.1629–1715) [Husband of 5, father of 4, 14, 16, and 18]
Richard (1718) [Eldest infant son of 16 and his wife, 15]
Fleetwood (1721–23) [A twin and second infant son of 16 and his wife, 15]
Martha (1722–23) [Second daughter of 18 and his first wife, 10]
Martha (née Emes) Haddock (1691–1723) [First wife of 18, mother of 9 and 19, sister of 15]
Sarah Haddock (1728–29) [11 and 12 were infant siblings of 18 and his second wife, 13]
William Haddock (1729) “
Elizabeth (née Petre) Haddock (1693–1730) [Second wife of 18, mother of 11, 12, and 20]
Lydia Haddock (1681–1732) [Youngest daughter of Adm. Sir Richard and 5, sister to 4, 16, and 18)
Frances (née Emes) (1685–1735) [wife of 16, mother of 7 and 8, sister of 10]
Admiral of the Blue Nicholas Haddock (1685–1746) [Youngest son of Adm. Sir Richard and 5, brother to 4, 14, and 18]
Master Harman (1751)** [Unidentified infant son of 19 and her second husband, Edward Harman]
Captain and Comptroller Richard Haddock (1672–1751) [Eldest son of Adm. Sir Richard and 5, father of 9, 11, 12, and 20]
Elizabeth (née Haddock) Harman (1720–54) [Elder daughter of 18 and 10, half sister to 20, mother of 17]
Richard (1727–55) [Eldest son of 18 and 13, half brother to 19].

Note that at separate times, various monarchs appointed Adm. Sir Richard and his son Capt. Richard as “Comptroller” of the Navy, the 17^th– and early 18^th-century spelling, rather than “Controller,” the later spelling. This position was similar to a chief financial officer today.

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Map of St. Clement’s Churchyard, Leigh-on-Sea, with numbered grave locations — On this map of St. Clement’s Churchyard, the Haddock and Goodlad families remain close as they were in life. Adm. Nicholas Haddock’s slab tomb is 156, and the box tomb of his father, Adm. Sir Richard Haddock, is 157. Immediately southeast is 149, a box tomb where Capt. William Goodlad (1578–1640), Chief Commander of the Greenland Fleet of whalers, and his wife, Anna (née Salmon), a daughter of prominent mariner Robert Salmon (1566–1641), are interred. Sir Richard’s mother, Anna, was a niece to William. His son, Richard Goodlad (c.1629–90) a woolen draper (or merchant tailor) of London, is buried in tomb 150 with his wife, Elizabeth (c.1632–1713). *Map ©2000 by the Essex Society for Family History, used by permission and enhanced by Peter James Brooker*

Footnotes

*The FindaGrave posting for Adm. Sir Richard (memorial 39449978) contains several errors:

John Haddock I (1653–1728) was not a child of Adm. Sir Richard Haddock [87–89]; neither was he the first John (“I”) in this line as claimed.
Adm. Sir Richard Haddock’s first wife was Lydia Stevens (d. 1669) [55]. His second wife’s birth surname was Hurlestone, 5.
Elizabeth Wilkinson (d. bef. 1661), not 1670 [36], was the third wife of Sir Richard’s grandfather, Merchant Commander and Parliamentary Vice-Admiral Richard Haddock (1581–1660). As with most women in the 17^th century, she had no middle name.

**The unnamed Master Harman, buried in Adm. Sir Richard’s vault, was an infant son of Elizabeth (née Haddock, later Duffin) Harman (1720–54), 19. On 9 December 1749 at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Elizabeth married Edward Harman, who became executor of his father-in-law’s will. Ancestry.com mistranscribed the burial dates for Master Harman (24 February 1751) and his mother, Elizabeth (2 February 1754). These two dates are from images of St. Clement’s burial registers, Essex Archives Online, D/P 284/1/1.

Sources

Philip Benton, The History of the Rochford Hundred, vol. 1 (1867) 314–17, 350–55
John Bundock, Leigh Parish Church of St. Clement: An Historical Description (Phillimore 1978, reprint 1983) 45–6, 54–5
Burial Index from the Essex Society for Family History
Alfred John Dunkin, The Archaeological Mine, a Collection of Antiquarian Nuggets Relating to the County of Kent, vol. 1 (1855) 50–1. He counted 18 Haddock burials in the churchyard.
images from Essex Archives Online
images of St. Clement’s burial registers, mostly on Ancestry.com
probated wills
The London Archives
Trinity House (guild of mariners) brass inside the church