RINGHAM, Henry

1806 - 1866

Henry Ringham was born at Barkham, Lincolnshire in 1806, son of Thomas Ringham (1778-1857) and his wife Sarah née Watkins (1780-1854), who married at Barkham on 30 December 1799. Henry married at St Margaret's Church, Ipswich on 11 February 1830, Sarah Leech and in 1851, a 45-year-old builder employing 20 men, living at Carr Street, Ipswich with his 49-year-old wife Sarah with their two children Mary Ann 20 and William Henry 18, a wood carver, together with Henry sen's. younger brother, 39-year-old John Ringham, also born at Barkham and was a carpenter. By 1861 they had moved to St John's Road, Ipswich where Henry was a builder & carver employing forty-nine people, with his wife Sarah and daughter Mary. Henry Ringham was one of the finest church woodcarvers of the 19th century, exhibiting 'an ancient Buffet, restored by H. Ringham' at the Suffolk Fine Arts Association, held at the New Lecture Hall of the Mechanics' Institute, Ipswich in August 1850. His work is to be found all over East Anglia, but most notably in the churches of Woolpit and Combs, where it is almost impossible to tell the difference between Ringham's work and the surviving bench ends of the 15th century. Henry was building an extraordinary Gothic House further down St John's Road but was bankrupted and the couple never got to live in 'Gothic House' which was sold to pay creditors and an auction of his stock-in-trade from Trafalgar Road was held by Garrod & Turner in April 1862. Henry Ringham died on 30 March 1866 and was buried in Ipswich Old Cemetery on 4 April 1866, aged 59 and although there is no headstone for Henry Ringham in the Old Cemetery, the road which connects St John's Road to Cauldwell Hall Road, Ipswich, formerly Chapel Lane was renamed Ringham Road in his honour. His wife Sarah, who was born at Otley, Suffolk on 15 October 1801, was living in Alms Houses in St Lawrence, Ipswich in 1871 and was buried in Ipswich Old Cemetery on 21 August 1875, aged 74.

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Works by This Artist