Biggleswade, Bedfordshire

Henry Tingey - Ancester

My great grandfather Henry Tingey, was born November 18, 1819, in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.  He was the son of James Tingey and Elizabeth Boniss.  James and Elizabeth, and family later moved from Bigglewade, Bedfordshire, and moved Lower Caldecut near the 46th milestone from London in the perish of Northhill.  The family of father and mother and two boys and four sisters were in the business of raising wholesale vegatable and garden seeds and were very successful.  
In 1849 the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, (Mormons) told their gospel message to Henry and his wife Ann Young, (daughter of James and Lucy Young).  Henry and Ann joined the Latter-Day-Saint church and migrated to America in 1849.  They spent three years in St Louis, Missouri and then traveled by oxen and wagon train to Salt Lake City, Utah arriving in September 1853.  Henry became a very devote follower of the Mormon Church.  He settled in Sessions Settlement (now Bountiful, Utah), and later moved to Brigham City Utah, where he was in the garden and fruit business.  He was named Bishop of the First Ward in Brigham in 1877, and set apart by Brigham Young, who was the president of the LDS church at that time.  Henry Tingey was given a blessing that his family would be numerous.  This blessing was fulfilled as Henry lived during the time of polygamy and he married four wives and fathered 31 children.  Henry Tingey passed away at the age of 77, on February 14, 1896 in Brigham City, Utah.  He is essentially, the father of the well known, Tingey families in Davis and Box Elder Counties, in Utah.  Almost all of his children, grand children and great grand children, and great grand children (as of December 2007) number into the thousands and have been pillars, leaders and devote members of their community, and of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Henry Tingey was truely regarded as noble man and respected citizen in Brigham City, Utah.  Biggleswade, England can be proud that such a good man was born in their city.  It is astonishment, that such a young man as Henry Tingey, could come from humble circumstances in England in 1849, and accomplish what he did as a pioneer in the American West,.   

Bedford Photographic Memories

Three miles south of Sandy we reach Biggleswade, now by- passed by the A1. It is a town of considerable antiquity with a large triangular market place, partly encroached by later buildings. In the distance is the Town Hall, which was designed by John Wing of Bedford and built in 1844. The building with the parapet and tall chimney on the left is the 1565 Market Hall, refaced in 19th- century render.

Bedford Photographic Memories

The photographer is looking east from the top of High Street, where there is now a roundabout, with the churchyard walls and lime trees on the left. The wall and railings have now gone. Apart from the White Horse, little on the right side of Shortmead Street survives. The corner of the building on the far left is a good timber-framed house with a jettied east front facing the church; both it and the church escaped the 1786 Great Fire.

Bedfordshire Photographic Memories

An interesting picture revealing the extent of the differences in working practices that have occurred over 75 years. Tucked into the entrance on the left, the trader’s cart that suggests a mobile ice-cream seller would be a motorised parlour and probably banned under a ton of directives nowadays. The Health and Safety Executive would take a very dim view of the decorator’s ladder without any assistance at ground level and not a traffic cone in sight. Bicycles piled against the lamp post on the right constitute a thief’s delight with not a padlock and chain between them. And the piled tins in the shop window? Just imagine what a 21st-century toddler could do with those.