Robert Thomas St Aubyn (1786-1875) was the third of nine curates at Badsey and Wickhamford to serve during the 43-year tenure of the absentee Vicar, the Reverend Charles Phillott.
Robert Thomas St Aubyn was born on 6th August 1786 in Cornwall, the second son and third child of Sir John Aubyn, Baronet, of Clowance, Cornwall, by his partner, Martha Nicholls. The 5th Baronet was a cultured man but led an exotic private life. He had a total of 15 children, all illegitimate, although he did marry Juliana, the mother of the last nine, once she was past child-bearing age. On his death, his title became extinct.
Robert St Aubyn was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, being awarded BA in 1810. He was ordained a deacon at Exeter Cathedral on 23rd September 1810 and was appointed as Curate to St Breoke, Cornwall. According to a list of Curates displayed in the Church of St James, Badsey, Robert Thomas St Aubyn was Curate of Badsey in 1812. He conducted a marriage at Badsey on 21st May 1812, and possibly two at Wickhamford in February and October 1812 but as the officiant was not named in baptism and burial registers until 1813, it is difficult to determine exactly how long he was in the parish. He had certainly left by the beginning of 1813 as his successor, William Squire Rufford, was in situ on 10th January 1813 when he performed his first baptism ceremony.
It was in January 1813 at St Michael’s, Worcester, that Robert Thomas St Aubyn married Frances Fleming St John, the second daughter of the Reverend John Francis Seymour St John, Prebendary of Worcester and Vicar of Powick.
Robert St Aubyn was ordained a priest on 13th November 1814 in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Palace, Exeter. According to a list of Oxford University Alumni, in 1814, Reverend St Aubyn was appointed to the rectory of Ruan Minor, Cornwall (where the St Aubyn family estate was located), but the Clergy of the Church of England database refers to him being appointed as Curate at Powick on 7th March 1814. Powick was the home of Frances’ family and all their seven children were baptized at Powick: Robert John (1814-1879), James Pearse (1815-1895), William St John (1816-1844), Frances Zenobia (1817-1905), Edmund Prideaux (1820-1903), Geoffrey St Andrew (1820-1887) and Richard (1821-1821).
When Frances’ father died in 1833, she was described as the wife of the Reverend Robert Thomas St Aubyn but, by 1841, the two had separated. It is not known where Robert St Aubyn was but, in 1841, Frances was living with her widowed mother and unmarried daughter, Frances, in Hanover Street, London. In 1851, Frances, describing herself as a widow and an annuitant, was living at Chase Side, Enfield, with two of her unmarried grown-up children and two grandchildren (the children of her eldest son by his first wife who had recently remarried). In 1861 she lived at 8 Victoria Square, Reading, with granddaughter, Frances. When Frances died in 1863, in her will, she was described as “wife of the Reverend Robert Thomas St Aubyn, Clerk”. A memorial window was placed in the Church of St Peter, Earley, Reading, in her memory.
Meanwhile, Robert St Aubyn began a liaison with Ann Catherine Russell in the 1840s and three children were born – Catherine Eliza Susannah Gordon (c1844-1919), Marion Wilhelmina (c1845) and Edmund Charles Reynolds (1853-1943) – all thought to have been registered with the surname of Russell at birth, but the whereabouts of the family at the time of the 1851 and 1861 census are unknown.
On 7th August 1866 at the Church of St Peter & St Paul, Milton next Gravesend, Kent, Robert St Aubyn was able to marry Ann Catherine Russell, his wife having died three years earlier. From then on the children all took the surname of St Aubyn.
Reverend St Aubyn died on 26th September 1875 at Bromley St Leonard’s, Middlesex, and was buried at Brompton Cemetery, in the same grave as his sister, Martha Pearse, who had died in 1861. His nephew, James P St Aubyn, as executor of the will of Robert’s elder brother, James, wrote to give permission: “I hereby give my full permission to the interment of my late uncle Mr Robert Thomas St Aubyn in the grave purchased by my late father, Mr James St Aubyn for his sister, Mrs Martha Pearse, in the Brompton Cemetery, daughter of the late James St Aubyn Esq. I hereby authorize the opening of the grave for the within purpose, Jas P St Aubyn, Acting Executor of the will of the late James St Aubyn.”
Robert’s widow, Ann, died on 27th October 1897 at Nelson Crescent, Ramsgate, and was buried with her husband at Brompton Cemetery. She was described as “the widow of the Rev Robert Thomas St Aubyn, BA, second son of the late Sir John St Aubyn of Clowance and St Michael’s Mount, Bart.” She, too, was buried at Brompton Cemetery. The inscription on the gravestone reads:
Sacred to the Memory of Martha, Relict of the Late Thomas Deane Pearse, Esq. Formerly in Her Majesty's 14th Regiment of Light Dragoons and daughter of the late Sir John St. Aubyn of Clowance, in the County of Cornwall, Baronet; died Oct 25 1861 in the 77th year of her age. Also Robert Thomas, second son of the late Sir John St. Aubyn, who died September 26, 1875, in the 90th year of his age. Also Ann Catherine, wife of the above Robert Thomas St. Aubyn, who died October 27th, 1897, aged 80 years