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‘Richard, son of Isaac Gilpin, of Strickland Kettle,’

which is our Worthy, as after-dates will shew.6 He might be born a week more or less previously, according to the then ‘use and wont’ of infant baptism. The same Register furnishes another earlier entry, which—if we are correct in surmising that the Isaac Gilpin of Strickland Kettle in 1625, was the same with the Isaac of it—informs us Richard was a younger son:—

‘1623, May 3, Henry, y^e soun of Mr Isaacke Gilpin of Helsington.’

Elsewhere he is named ‘of Gilthroton, co. Westmoreland;’ and seems to have been the same who was clerk to the Standing Committee of county Durham in 1645.7 That Isaac Gilpin was ‘steward of several manors’ probably covers the different local designations. There are so many Gilpins, and so many of the same Christian name, that it is hard to decide on given personalities; but, after considerable comparison and sifting, such appears to us to be the parentage paternally of Dr Gilpin. Maternally I have come on nothing; for an Elizabeth Gilpin, widow of Isaac Gilpin, merchant, Newcastle, though of the same stock, was not his mother. This ‘widow’ was buried in All Saints, 7th November, 1694.8 Archdeacon Cooper, of Kendal, in transmitting these data, remarks: ‘The mode of writing, and the insertion of Mr, indicates a person of some importance.’ But with reference to ‘Mr,’ I suspect it is rather accidental, as it is inserted in the one, and left out in the other; and moreover, is frequently omitted when, from other sources, we know the family was of importance. Little Richard must have been just beginning to toddle about when his venerable grandfather’s snow-white head [‘aged 92’] was laid in the old Church-yard. One delights to picture the aged Simeon, before his serene departure, ‘blessing’ by prayer his dear little grandchild, after the manner of such ancient Puritans as were the Gilpins in every branch.