Reverend Benjamin Gibbons
(1824-1912)
30 April 1863

Volume 10, page 195, sitting number 13,148.

Born in Birmingham on 16 January 1824, Benjamin Gibbons was the son of John Gibbons, a South Staffordshire iron master and patron of the arts. John Gibbons and his two brothers had inherited their father’s iron making business in 1813. 

On 15 May 1851 ‘at South Kelsey, Lincolnshire, by the Rev Dr Parkinson, assisted by the Rev. Marmaduke Skipworth, brother of the bride, the Rev Benjamin Gibbons, MA, only surviving son of John Gibbons, Esq., of Regent’s-park, London, [was married] to Charlotte Jane, daughter of George Skipworth, Esq., of Moorton House, Kelsey’ (Hull Packet, 23 May 1851). 

The couple appear on the 1861 census living at Blakebrook near Kidderminster in Worcestershire. Also present on the night of the census were their five sons, one daughter, and four servants. 

Reverend Gibbons ‘of Waresley House Hartlebury Worcestershire and 16 Hanover-terrace Regents Park’ died on 18 June 1912 at the age of 88. He left an estate valued at £88,935. 

‘The death, which took place on Tuesday at his residence, Waresley House, Hartlebury, of the Rev. Benjamin Gibbons removes one of the oldest clergymen in the diocese of Worcester and a most munificent benefactor to Stourport, of which parish he was for many years vicar. He had reached the advanced age of 87, and had been living in retirement for 12 or 14 years. He came of a Staffordshire family, and after his University career at Oxford he was ordained to the curacy of Kidderminster Parish Church during the vicariate of the late Dr Claughton, afterwards Bishop of St Albans. Possessed of very ample means, Mr Gibbons used them unstintingly in Church and charitable work. He built Worcester Cross Schools at Kidderminster. 

‘Afterwards he became vicar of Stourport, where he spent over 30 years, and did a really great work. He kept a large staff of curates and a strong church was the result of his ministry. He set his hand to build a new parish church on a magnificent scale from plans of the late Sir Gilbert Scott. Almost unaided he carried on the building for 30 years, upon which he had spent a sum probably approaching £20,000, when, by the influence of the Bishop of Worcester two or three years ago, the land on which the church stands was transferred by Mr Gibbons to the church authorities, and the nave of the church completed and consecrated. There are many other memorials at Stourport of Mr Gibbon’s generosity’ (Shrewsbury Chronicle, 21 June 1912).