▶Date of birth:   1829       Place of birth: Alford, Lincolnshire

▶Father:  Rowland Pennington     Mother: Georgina Wells

▶Spouse(s): (1) Eliza Honora Webster; (2) Beatrice Ernestine Florence Bolton    Date(s) of marriage:   (1) 18 July 1854; (2) 26 August 1893     Place(s) of marriage: (1) Leckhampton Church, Leckhampton, Cheltenham; (2) St Peter’s, Pimlico

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican)

▶Lifestory: Lewis Theodore Pennington served for many years as a Curate in various parishes in the north of England, before moving to the Midlands as a Vicars, and latcterly to Somerset; he died possessed of a substantial fortune.

Pennington was the sixth son of Captain Rowland Pennington, of the 5th Fusilliers and the Royal Cumberland Militia, of Whitehaven, Cumberland, and his wife Georgiana, daughter of Dymoke Wells, of Grebby Hall, Lincolnshire. Pennington was educated at Christ’s Hospital School, trained for the priesthood at St Bees Theological College, Cumberland, and was ordained Deacon (Gloucester and Bristol) in 1853.

From 1853 until 1855 he was a Curate at St Paul’s Church in Cheltenham. He was noted as a witness in reports of a court case in Cheltenham that year relating to the alleged assault by flogging of a pupil of the son of his landlady Mrs Jane Micklewright at Cheltenham Grammar School. In the following year, when he lived in Leckhampton, he was married at Leckhampton Church to Eliza Honora, youngest daughter of James Webster Esq., of Cheltenham; they had no children. Later in 1854 he was ordained Priest (Gloucester and Bristol).

In 1855 Pennington lived at 17 Wellington Square, Pittville, but left Cheltenham later that year when he was appointed Curate of St Mary’s, Workington, Cumberland, where he remained until 1859, when he briefly served as Assistant Minister at St John’s Church in Moulsham, Chelmsford, Essex. At the time of the 1861 census he was Curate of St Mark’s, Longwood, Yorkshire. After Longwood he moved as Curate to Tonge with Alkrington, in Lancashire 1870-4, and then as Curate to Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire 1874-6. In 1876 he was preferred to the position of Vicar of Grimston, Leicestershire 1876-7, moving to Greatworth, Northamptonshire as Rector 1877-80, before accepting the vicarage of Englishcombe, Somerset 1881-2.

His wife died in 1891, and he remarried in 1893 in Pimlico to Beatrice Ernestine Florence, daughter of Thomas John Bolton Esq.; the couple had one son. The family moved to Hove by 1894; Pennington died there in 1909, at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried at the Brompton cemetery in London. His wealth at death was sworn at over £290,000.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Elsewhere in Cheltenham      Moved from Pittville to: Workington

▶Date of death:  16 March 1909      Place of death: Hove, Sussex

▶Date of burial:   1909      Place of burial: Brompton cemetery, London

▶Notes:        ID: 8456

Contributor(s):  John Simpson