William Thomas King-Church
(1828-1887)
15 April 1863

Born in Hackney in or about 1828, William Thomas King-Church was the son of Henry John King-Church and his wife Lydia née Eyre.

On 12 May 1860 he joined the 3rd Hertfordshire Rifle Volunteers as a Lieutenant. He resigned his commission in August 1862.

He appears on the 1861 census living at the Holt Farm near St Albans in Hertfordshire. He described himself as a ‘Farmer of 195 acres employing 8 men and 3 boys.’ The household included four servants.

On 23 September 1869 in the parish church of Albury he married Susan Ann Woodhouse, elder daughter of Francis Valentine Woodhouse of Northfield. Their marriage produced eight children.

‘The families of Mr King-Church and of Mr Woodhouse have both been residents of Albury for more than thirty years and they have enjoyed the respect and good opinion of their fellow parishioners and of the neighbourhood. […] The bride wore a white silk dress, trimmed with Honiton lace; the bridesmaids, eight in number, were dressed in white and green’ (West Surrey Times, 25 September 1869). What the report doesn’t mention is that the fathers of the bride and groom, Francis Valentine Woodhouse and Henry John King-Church, were two of the twelve so-called ‘new apostles’ of the sect known as the Catholic Apostolic Church.

In 1881 William and Susan were living at Clive Lodge in Albury near Guildford with two daughters, three sons, a governess and seven servants.

William Thomas King-Church died, aged 59, on 23 April 1887 at Clive Lodge. He left an estate valued at £11,151.