Jeremiah (Joseph) Crutchley
Jeremiah Crutchley, born in 1745, was a young man in his twenties who was soon to be a constant visitor to Streatham and to the Southwark house. Mrs. Thrale began to think that Jeremiah Crutchley was her husband’s natural son. However every legal source sustains Jeremiah’s legitimacy.
His father, Jeremiah Sr, had been a close friend of Henry Thrale’s father - Ralph Thrale. The Crutchley family were successful dyers in Clink Street, Southwark where Jeremiah, Sr. also ran a brewery. When Jeremiah, Sr. died at 43 (in 1752) both Ralph Thrale and Henry Thrale received bequests, and both served as executors of his estate (together with Alice Crutchley, his widow, and Thomas Wimbush, his clerk).
Jeremiah, Jr., was six years old when Jeremiah Sr died, and the Thrales acted as guardians, Henry continuing in this protective capacity after Ralph Thrale died. That Henry Thrale should suggest Jeremiah Crutchley for a godparent of the new baby was wholly understandable.
Jeremiah Crutchley bought Sunninghill Park in Berkshire on 8 June 1769 from Thomas Draper Baber. Crutchley also sat as Member of Parliament for Horsham in Sussex. He was one of the Executors to Henry Thrale's will, and was present when Henry Thrale died.
Although Jeremiah Crutchley never married, it was said at different times that he was in love with Queeney Thrale and later Fanny Burney.
On 17 May 1781 Hester Thrale wrote the following account of Jeremiah Crutchley in Thraliana, as follows…
“Mr Crutcheley lives now a great deal with me; the Business of Executor to Mr Thrale’s Will makes much of his Attendance necessary; and it begins to have its full Effect in seducing and attaching him to the house: Miss Burney’s being always about me is probably another Reason for his close Attendance, & I believe it is so—what better could befall Miss Burney? or indeed what better Cd befall him, than to obtain a Woman of Honour; & character, & Reputation for superior Understanding—I would be glad however that he fell honestly in Love with her; & was not tricked or trapp’d into Marriage poor Fellow: he is no Match for the Arts of a Novel-writer. A mighty particular Character Mr Crutcheley is: strangely mixed up of Meanness and Magnificence—liberal & splendid in large Sums, & on serious Occasions; narrow and confined in the common Occurrences of Life; warm & generous in some of his Notions, frigid & suspicious however for 18 Hours at least out of the 24. likely to be duped, though always expecting fraud; and easily disappointed in realities, though seldom flattered by Fancy. He is supposed by those that knew his Mother & her Connections, to be Mr Thrale’s natural Son,& in many Things he resembles him, but not in Person; as he is both ugly & aukward. Mr Thrale certainly believed he was his Son, & once told me as much, when Sophy Streatfields affair was in question; but nobody could perswade him to court the S:S:”
On 17 September 1781 Hester Thrale wrote about Jeremiah Crutchley and Fanny Burney in Thraliana…
“l begin to wish in good earnest that Miss Burney should make Impression on Mr Crutchley; I think She honestly loves the Man, in his Turn appears to be in Love with some one else—Hester [Queeney] I fear! Oh that would indeed be unlucky!People have said so a long while, but I never thought it till now: Young Men & Women will always be serving one so to be sure, if live at all together; but I depended on Burney keeping him steady to herself. Queeney behaves like an Angel about it.”
Jeremiah Crutchley, Sr., was married at St. Paul’s Cathedral on 4 March 1742 to Alice Jackson, from a good Devon and Cumberland family. Their first child was a daughter, Alice, who was born in June 1744 but lived for only a few days. Jeremiah was born on 20 December 1745 (Henry Thrale at this time was 17); a daughter, Elizabeth, was born in October 1747; a second son, John, was born in October 1749 and died 1752; and another daughter named Alice in July 1751.
The Crutchley family Bible at Mappercombe Manor names all the godparents, and Henry Thrale appears, not as Jeremiah’s godfather, as has sometimes been said, but as godfather to the younger son, John, who lived only to the age of two and a half, dying in 1752, ten days after his father. In his will Jeremiah, Sr., who died on 29 March 1752 provided generously for his wife and all his children, and showed his "dear son Jeremiah" the preference due to an elder son and heir. Jeremiah is buried in the same tomb with his father and his infant brother, John. (Tomb 210, in the cemetery at Lee, a town which is now part of Kent).
Because Crutchley never married, his estate was inherited at his death on 28 December 1805 aged 60 by George Henry Duffield, the eldest son of his second sister, Alice, who took the surname of Crutchley.
