Hellesdon church link to first US President

In this 250^th anniversary of American Independence year, Hellesdon has its own connection to the first United States President and commander of the Revolutionary Army, George Washington.

St Mary’s Church Lower Hellesdon is an ancestral church to George Washington, the first President of the United States and has a plaque to celebrate that connection. Further investigations have revealed that is an ancestral church to our current royal family too!

For George Washington the line comes from the Sotherton and Warner families. The Sothertons were a family that produced MPs, Mayors and a sheriff. Elizabeth Sotherton married Thomas Warner (October 15, 1602) at Hellesdon and they had a son Augustine Warner (September 28, 1611- December 24,1674). Augustine Warner was a politician and planter and he emigrated to the United States. He had a son called Augustine Warner Jr, who was born in the American colonies and lived from 1642-1681.

Augustine Jr married Mildred Reade and had a daughter Mildred Warner, and Mildred married Lawrence Washington, and their son, Augustine Washington, was the father of George Washington.

The connection to our royal family is again from Thomas Warner and Elizabeth Sotherton via their grandson Augustine Warner Junior, whose other daughter, Mary Warner married John Smith and their daughter Mildred Smith married Robert Porteous and their child, also called Robert Porteous, married Judith Cockayne.

Their daughter, Mildred Porteous, married Robert Hodgson and their son, Robert Hodgson married Mary Tucker and produced Henrietta Mildred Hodgson who married Oswald Smith. Their child Frances Dora Smith married Charles Bowes-Lyon whose granddaughter was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother, so there is a direct link to our little church in Hellesdon.

The article is based on research by Linda Sandell – Danny Buck.