Sir William Brandon father of First Duke of Suffolk - Charles Brandon
The Battle of Bosworth Field which took place on the 22nd August 1485 near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire marked the end of the War of the Roses. The Battle was fought between the supporters of King Richard III and Henry Tudor. As the battle progressed with a stalemate to his front, Henry accompanied by a bodyguard of about 200 knights including Sir William Brandon of Soham (his standard bearer), decided to ride across to the Stanleys to see if he could persuade them to enter into the fray on his side.
Richard observed Henry's dragon banner moving across the battlefield and saw an opportunity to end the battle at one fell stroke. Richard led the charge of his knights (approximately 1,000 men) downhill towards Henry's banner. With the whole power of the charge behind him, Richard transfixed Sir William Brandon of Soham with his lance. The lance broke and Sir William Brandon and the dragon banner crashed to the ground. The battle was eventually won by Henry Tudor with the death of Richard III and as a result he became King Henry VII of England and Wales.
Parents:
Sir William Brandon of Soham Court (Senior 1425-1491) and Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Robert Wingfield.
William married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Bruyn and widow of Sir Robert Darcy, with whom he had five children:
William Brandon, (b. 1476)
Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Sir Thomas Brandon
Sir Robert Brandon
Eleanor Brandon
Charles, 1st Duke of Suffolk with his third wife Mary Tudor - sister to Henry VIII and grandmother to Lady Jane Grey.
Olaudah Equiano otherwise known as Gustavus Vassa
Perhaps the most famous marriage at St. Andrew's Church, Soham in Cambridgeshire was between Olaudah Equiano (The African) and Susannah Cullen (Spinster of the Parish of Soham) on the 7th April 1792. Slavery was still in force at the time of their marriage. Olaudah Equiano otherwise known as Gustavus Vassa was the African slave who gained his freedom and became an activist for the abolition of slavery in the 18th Century. He wrote his celebrated Autobiography - 'The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African 1789' which is still available to buy to this day.
Evidence to suggest that the couple took up residence in Soham comes from the fact that both of their children were born here. He had two daughters Anna Maria Vassa born on 16th October 1793 and was baptised in St. Andrew's Church on 30th January 1794. His second daughter, Joanna Vassa was born on 11th April 1795 and baptised in St. Andrew's Church on 29th April 1795. Susannah was always thought to have died during Joanna's birth, however, records show that she died a year later, and was buried in Soham as Susanna Vassa, wife of Gustavus the African on 21st February 1796, aged 34.
Gustavus died on 31st March 1797, aged 52, his death occurred in London, but the whereabouts of his burial is unknown. Sadly Anna Maria died a few months later on 21st July 1797, aged just 4 Years and is buried in St. Andrew's Church, Chesterton, Cambridge where there is a commemorative plaque in her memory. Joanna Vassa inherited a sizable estate from her father equivalent to £100,000 in todays money. She went on to marry the Reverend Henry Bromley and they ran a Congregational Chapel at Clavering near Saffron Walden in Essex, before moving to London in the middle of the nineteenth century. Joanna died in March 1857 at the age of 61 and is buried along with her husband in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington. It's not yet known whether Joanna had any children.
The Slave Trade was finally abolished on British ships 10 years after the death of Olaudah Equiano, in 1807. It took a further forty years to see the abolition in the British colonies.
Andrew Fuller 'English Baptist Divine'
Andrew Fuller was born on the 5th February 1754 at Wicken. in his boyhood and youth he worked on his father’s farm, his parents, were poor farmers who rented a succession of dairy farms. In 1761 his parents decided to move a short distance to Soham, where he and his family began to attend the local Calvinistic Baptist Church which had been formed in 1752 at Brook Dam.
Fuller was converted in November 1769 and after being baptised at the age of 17 he became a member of the Church. His gifts as an exhorter met with so much approval that, in the Spring of 1775, he was called and ordained as pastor of the Soham congregation. He later he became close friends with William Carey and helped him in his cause for foreign missions. He is still relatively unknown, being greatly overshadowed by the more famous George Whitefield and the Wesley Brothers who also ministered at the time, but is still affectionately called 'The English Baptist Divine'.
Baptists in Soham - a short history
Late in 1693 Soham was chosen for its central position as one of two meeting places for a congregation, then Baptist, drawn mainly from surrounding villages; Soham itself produced only five members in 1706. After 1750 that became the Isleham Independent church, which long maintained a branch and admitted members at Soham. It still held monthly services there in the early 1740s.
A minority at Soham who still supported its original practice of adult baptism seceded from it in 1748, after 'watermen' advocating such baptism were barred from preaching. In 1752, with support from Cambridge Baptists, they formed a Baptist congregation under a High Calvinist minister who served until 1771. In 1774 he was succeeded as minister, following disputes on free will, by the young Wicken-born Andrew Fuller, baptized in 1770, after a youth of wrestling and gaming, in the river at Soham. Fuller, chosen for his rhetorical gifts, served at Soham until 1782.
In 1783 he registered the Baptists' newly built meeting house on Clay Street. Another minister, newly arrived, registered a house in 1806. His successor, a 'pious but cheerful' shopkeeper, died in 1836. The chapel, rebuilt in 1837, which still stands north of Clay Street, is a plain two-storeyed building of grey brick, slated, with corner pilasters. In 1815 it was attended by 65 or more people. It was reckoned to seat 450 people in 1875, when there were c.160 members and two Sunday services were held. From c.1825 the Baptists ran a Sunday school, still kept up in the 1970s.
There were 170 members in 1885 and still often 90-100 in the early 20th century and 60 c.1960. The chapel, which celebrated a '215th' anniversary in 1967, still had its own pastor in the 1990s. About 1959 the Baptists opened on the Downfield council estate a mission hall, closed 1967 × 1976.
From: 'Soham: Nonconformity', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10: Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (north-eastern Cambridgeshire) (2002), pp. 542-545.
The Old Manse House, 4 Fordham Road was purchased on 28th October 1850 by the Soham Baptists to house their minister and family. The building was originally one of only two houses from the 17th century left standing, as Fordham Road at this time was merely farm land and not the direct route into Soham, as it is now.
Internal structures and some outlying features still show evidence of the original 17th century building, converted into a more modern dwelling in the early 19th century. The Sunday school is now the garage and still retains the Victorian fire place, overmantel, chimney and wash room facilities from those days. An outside, hand, water pump also remains attached to the outside flint wall, which is now the kitchen. The house was sold in the early 1960's and rented out until purchased by Mr & Mrs M A Johnston in Sept 1997.
William Case Morris (Dr Barnardo of Argentina)
The most famous son of Soham was William Case Morris, who made his mark many miles away in South America. Born in the town on the 16th February 1864, he and his father left Soham after the death of his mother in search of a new life, eventually settling in Argentina. William was horrified by the terrible poverty of the street children, which led to him founding a network of children's homes across Argentina saving thousands of youngsters from abject poverty and a life on the streets. He returned to Soham a poor elderly man where he died on the 15th September 1932 and is buried in the Fordham Road cemetery.
Grave location William Case Morris - Fordham Road Cemetery (Soham), back plot behind left hand chapel, 5th row up, first one, lying directly by a small footpath opposite large square clipped laurel hedge and domed yew (both of these are to right of grave).
Grave location of their daughter Sarah - Fordham Road Cemetery (Soham), back plot behind right hand chapel, right in the furthest corner at the very top right hand side, in front of the flint wall to the 'Butts' allotments, after the paupers' graves section. Easy to spot as it is the only marked grave in this forgotten area.
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