John Henry Schoen

Johannes Heinrich Schoen was born in 1724 in Mulhouse, Alsace.
He became a naturalized British citizen in 1753, a year after he married Dorothy Finch at Mortlake in Surrey.
In a letter from his granddaughter, Anne Davies of Bracknell to her nephew George Schoen Davies in 1864 about their ancestry, [he] "came to England from the Canton of Berne in Switzerland with his sister - he was quite a gentleman but no profession and little property - he set up a business at Newgate Street London as a wholesale merchant; this was a great offence to the family as he was the first tradesman in the family and he was a great pull to poor Mrs Finch and much reduced her income.  My mother was the only daughter - there were 7 sons but only 3 lived to grow up -that was my uncles George, Henry and William"
John Henry Schoen died about same time as his wife in 1788. Their daughter Dorothy was aged 13 and at boarding school.

Dorothy Anna Maria Schoen

Dorothy Anna Maria Schoen was born in London in 1763. She was the only daughter of John Henry Schoen and Dorothy Finch. She had five older and one younger brothers. Three of her brothers survived. George Letheuillier Schoen was a Doctor of Law at Oxford, and Henry and William "went on to occupy important positions".
Dorothy's parents died in 1788 when she was 13 and at boarding school. She then lived with her grandmother Mary Finch and her great Aunt Anne Letheuillier.
Mary Finch died shortly before her marriage to Rev. John Davies in 1796, soon after he finished his studies. It seems [from other ancestors] that a wife was a useful acquisition at this stage of a clerical career.
Family information received suggested that although she had been brought up strictly in the established church, she had incurred the displeasure of her family by becoming a non-conformist and had further increased the rift by marrying a Methodist minister. I wonder if this may have occurred in her parents' generation as later information has suggested that the Schoens came from a background of dissent, while the Finches were aristocratic.
Dorothy and John Davies had four daughters and two sons. Their eldest daughter who was not married, lived with them. Ebenezer, the youngest, emigrated with his young family, to Victoria in 1849.
Dorothy died at Warfield in 1846 aged 81. They had moved from Reading to Bracknell Congregational Church in Berkshire in 1844.

Sarah Lee

Sarah Lee was baptised in December 1760  at St Peter, Birstall Parish in Yorkshire. She was the daughter of Abraham Lee of Heckmondwike and we believe she was the young woman who married Rev. Robert Simpson at this church by licence in 1780 in the presence of George Scott and Thomas Thompson. She signed her name with a mark. I have a note that her sister was married to a nephew of James Scott, the principal of the Heckmondwike theological academy.
Robert had just completed his studies at Heckmondwike  and was taking up his first post in the village of Haslingden in Lancashire. They moved to Bolton, where Robert was ordained in 1782, and their eldest daughter Christiana was born in 1786. A large family followed with nine children recorded but the Surman index suggests that Sarah had 12.
In 1791, the family moved to Hoxton Square in London and remained there. Sarah outlived her husband by seven years. They are buried at Bunhill Fields Burying Ground.
A Memoir of Rev. Robert Simpson in Fathers and Founders of the London Missionary Society [1844] ends -
In comparatively early life Dr. Simpson entered into conjugal relation with a lady of truly amiable character, and distinguished piety, with whom he lived in unbroken harmony and love to the close of his earthly pilgrimage. He was much blessed in his children, several of whom survived to emulate the virtues of their revered parent, and occupy spheres of honour and usefulness in the church and in the world.

John Dickinson

John Dickinson was born in 1755. He married Mary Friend in Alston, Cumberland in 1780. They were active members of the Garrigil Independent Chapel until he became moor master in Alston in 1790. His eldest son also became a moor master.
John Dickinson died in Alston in 1833.

Janet Alice

It is interesting to find that the name Alice which appears among members of the Hart family and descendants was a surname.
It seems that she was born in 1743. Her father was Mr Ellis of Blairengone in Perthshire.
She married Rev. Andrew Mitchell, anti-burgher minister at Beith in Ayrshire in 1766, and had seven sons and three daughters, the youngest being our ancestor.

Edinburgh Annual Register 1822 Vol 15 page 456 ed. Sir Walter Scott
March 22 - at Newtonhill, Mrs Janet Alice, relict of the Rev. Andrew Mitchell, minister of the gospel, Beith, in the 80th year of her age.

The United Secession Magazine April 1844 No IV Vol 1 p 161
Memoir of the Rev. John Mitchell DD born 1768 - second son of Janet Alice, daughter of Mr Ellis of Blairengone in Perthshire

Janet Alice Millar

Janet Alice Millar was born in 1810 at Garscube Mills in Dunbarton, Scotland. Her father was a flour miller and her mother was the youngest daughter of an anti-burgher minister from Beith in Ayrshire. She was named after her maternal grandmother Janet Mitchell nee Alice or Ellis. It is interesting that this name has passed down female descendants without perhaps realising it was their ancestors' surname.
Janet Alice Millar married Robert Hart, a paper maker, in Glasgow in 1838. She had four daughters and five sons, her second daughter dying at 8 tears of age.
Two of her daughters married Steel brothers, Isabella going to Australia in 1871, not long before Robert Hart died. The two youngest sons went to India as tea planters but the youngest returned to Glasgow and lived with his mother. She died in 1881, five years after her husband. They are buried in the family plot at Craigton cemetery in Glasgow.

Rev. Robert Simpson DD

Robert Simpson was born at Little Tillerye Farm, Orwell in Kinrosshire, Scotland in 1746. His father had been destined for the ministry, but had remained on the farm after his father had died. Around 1753 the family lost the lease of the farm, after holding it for several generations, and moved to Lochgelly.

Robert was sent to his maternal grandmother, to assist her on her farm, and later apprenticed himself to a cloth dresser and dyer in Dunfermline and was there about 10 years. He went to England to learn more of his business, reaching Cotherstone, near Barnard Castle  in Durham where he was influenced to become an independent minister 'with extraordinary communications of Divine influence'. He was admitted to the Independent Academy at Heckmondwike in Yorkshire under Rev. James Scott in 1776 and spent four years there.
He married Sarah Lee of Heckmondwike at St. Peter, Birstall Parish, Yorkshire in August 1780. His record from Dr William's Library suggests that they had 12 children, [although the nine we have recorded seem to fill her life to 1801].
His path then took him to Haslingden in Lancashire, then Elswick and Bolton where he was ordained in 1872 and remained nine years.

this portrait may come from the Evangelical magazine February 1795

In 1786 he was sent to London to solicit funds and was invited to become minister at Crispin street. After two more visits he was invited to become a tutor at the Evangelical/Hoxton Academy and came to London with his family in March 1791. He took part in the establishment of the London Missionary Society and the Evangelical Magazine, but his health became affected in 1797, when he visited his native land with his eldest son, Robert. The last four years of his life were affected by ill health. A portrait was commissioned by his pupils by the eminent artist G Dawe Esq in 1816 and an engraving done from it by E Scriven Esq.

1816

Dr Simpson tendered his resignation in May 1817 and died on December 21 1817, aged 72 years.
His eldest son Robert become a stockbroker, James Charnock became an architect, Abraham Colovius studied at Glasgow University and became a dissenting minister, William Skinner went to Virginia, USA in 1819, becoming an insurance agent, and John's career is not known.
His elder daughter Christiana married Rev Thomas Scales who had been a student at the Academy second daughter Sophia married Rev Robert Hooper, another student,  and the youngest Sarah  married Richard Lee.