Ince, John snr (1699-1745)
Ince, John snr
Worcestershire and London; glass grinder (b.1699-d.1745)
John Ince was baptised in Stone, Worcestershire, on 10 April 1699. He was the son of William Ince, husbandman, who died in 1728. His elder brother, William, became a wheelwright in Kidderminster, but John went to London to begin an apprenticeship. On 26 July 1720 he was apprenticed for seven years to James Welch, a member of the Joiners’ Company. He probably did not serve the full seven years because he must have married his wife, Mary, some time in the 1720s, perhaps not long before his first child was baptised on 6 March 1726 at St Faith’s Church in Watling Street. A second child was baptised in March 1728 at St Martin-in-the-Fields. John and Mary soon moved their growing family to Covent Garden where their next eight children were baptised between 1733 and 1743, most of them in the parish church of St Paul. Among these was William, the future cabinet maker and partner of John Mayhew.
It seems likely that John obtained the capital to set up in business from the sale of land inherited by his mother. From at least 1736 John paid rates on a house in Wards Alley, off Bow Street, Covent Garden. This was presumably both the family home and the location of his glass grinding operation. In 1743 Ince moved to Hart Street, north side, where he died in early September 1745. His will is dated 3 September and on 12 September he was buried in Stone, Worcestershire.
John Ince’s will stated that he wished his widow, Mary, to continue the glass grinding business until his eldest son John reached the age of 21, whereupon he was to be admitted as a partner equally with his mother. Provision was left for William, then aged eight, to be apprenticed at the age of fourteen, either to his mother or to a different master. In the former case he was to become an equal partner with a third share of the business and in the latter he was to receive twenty pounds to pay for an apprenticeship and a third part of the family business on completion.
On 21 January 1747 Mary was re-married to a frame maker, Hugh Lethard. This triggered the provision in John Ince’s will concerning any future marriage, causing the business to be sold up to pay for legacies to Mary and the children. On 31 March 1748 the General Advertiser published a sale notice for John Ince’s business: To be sold by auction Entire Household Goods Stock and Implements in Trade of Mr John Ince Glass grinder deceased by express Direction of his Will at his late Dwelling House the Upper End of Bow Street Covent Garden. The House to be Lett and Possession given immediately after the Sale.
The Ince/Lethard family probably left the area the same year and Hugh Lethard died in April 1751, aged 31.
Source: Ingle, William Ince Cabinet Maker 1737-1804 (2nd edition, 2020).