The Parish Priests

The list of incumbents stretches back to John the Clerk in 1118 and some of the incumbents are worthy of particular note.

Thomas Johnson was a Reader but it seems likely that as the result of the plague he was appointed "Reader in Charge" in 1571. The plague did not discriminate and many of the clergy died and this is probably why Johnson was promoted to curate in 1597 and then incumbent in 1604. We think he tried to help his parishioners, but without diocesan consent, so he was brought before the Vicar General to answer charges of "Practising medicine without a Bishop's Licence." Later he was again brought before the Vicar General but this time for trying "to divine the sex of unborn babies." We are not sure about the punishments meted out but he seems to have continued as vicar until he in turn succumbed to the plague.

Robert Wright was vicar in the 1650s and during this time the marriage registers most unusually record the marriages of couples from other parishes, Fulbeck, Welbourn, Silk Willoughby, Wellingore and Carlton. We assume that the Reverend Robert Wright was willing to risk the wrath of Parliament to marry according to the Rites of the Church of England when those rites were supposedly suspended...

INCUMBENTS OF CRANWELL

1118

John the Clerk

 

1209

Robert de Gravel

 

(Records incomplete)

1526

Peter Giles

 

1547

Thomas Yates

 

1571

Thomas Johnson - a Reader-in-Charge, Curate 1597,

Incumbent 1604, probably died from the plague.

 

1607

Robert Flear

 

1650

Robert Wright

 

1711

Thomas Spencer

Also Rauceby and Dorrington

1729

Abraham Wilcox

Also of Rauceby

1744

William Gunnell

Also of Rauceby

1771

John Pugh

Also of Rauceby

1786

Fristney Gunniss

Also of Leasingham

1799

Matthew Barnett

 

1833

George John Skells

 

1834

Owen Davys - later Archdeacon of Northampton and Peterborough

1846

Robert Allan Scott

 

1870

John Thorold

 

1892

George Whit White

 

1897

Walter Harrington

 

1934

Sidney L Clarke - formerly of St Andrew's University, Chaplain to the King and Chaplain-in-Chief, Royal Air Force

1939

Frederick J G H Disbrowe

 

1942

Thomas Leonard Ivens

 

1945

Charles Ernest Hutchinson

 

1953

Clarence David Roberts

Also of Rauceby

1962

Henry William Robert Cullen

Also of Rauceby

1978

Thomas George Williamson

Also of Leasingham

1981

Michael John Feit

Also of Leasingham

1986

Frank Rodgers

Also of Leasingham

1994

Gerald Smith

Also of Leasingham

1997

Charles Thody

Also of Leasingham

2003

Alan James Littlewood

Also of Leasingham

 2009 Sandra Rhys Benham Also of Quarrington and Silk Willoughby
 2011 Christine Pennock Also of Ruskington, Anwick, Evedon and Leasingham.
 2021  David Alan Jenkins (Preferred name Al) Also of Ruskington, Anwick, Evedon and Leasingham.