Rev H Tingcombe

© Prospect Heritage Trust Inc.

Rev. Henry Tingcombe officiated at St Bartholomew’s on a few occasions during Rev. Donkin’s incumbency. (1855-1875)

Henry Tingcombe was born in Hartley, near Plymouth, England in 1809. Henry and his younger brother, George, migrated to Australia in 1832, after being urged to do so by their uncle, Robert Copland Lethbridge, who had settled in the Penrith district. The two brothers settled in the Monaro district where they became sheep farmers, having bought sheep from the Macarthur family at Camden. After four or five years Henry left the Monaro district and settled in Penrith where he did clerical and administrative work, becoming the Clerk of Petty Sessions around 1840. He married Flora McLeod, who was his brother John’s sister-in-law, in 1840, at Bathurst.  The newly married couple first made their home at Penrith but the next year Henry was transferred to the Audits Office in Sydney.  Mrs Tingcombe died in 1842. In 1846 Henry was ordained Deacon by Bishop Broughton in Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney and then worked in Trinity Parish, Dawes Point.

Reference – Jean Newell, ‘Henry Tingcombe (1809-1871) Clergyman and Educator’, Armidale and District Historical Society Journal, No 44.

Bishop Broughton sent Rev. Henry Tingcombe to be the first Anglican minister in the Armidale district. He conducted his first Baptism at Armidale in April 1846. He was ordained Priest by Bishop Broughton in February 1847.

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/03/dec/21/29.html

Rev. Tingcombe served in this parish, which stretched from Muswellbrook to Stanthorpe, Queensland until 1854.

www.stpetersarmidale.org.au/content/StPetersArmidaleHistoryLeaflet.pdf

Henry Tingcombe is honoured in Armidale by having a street in the centre of town named after him. Central Park which is the centre of the city is bounded by Faulkner, Barney and Dangar Sts and Tingcombe Lane.  It is an attractive, dignified reserve which was dedicated in 1874 as a recreational area.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/New-South-Wales/Armidale/2005/02/17/1108500192597.html

Rev Tingcombe re-married in 1849 to Jane Lydia Clements, a resident of Bathurst. After the family left the Armidale area, they moved to the western plains, where Henry worked at Kelso and O’Connell Plains for two years, then Carcoar for another two years, before moving to Camden. In 1861 he took a year’s leave of absence to visit England, returning to Camden to work there until he retired in 1872.  Henry died in Sydney in 1874.

Reference: Jean Newell.

Rev and Mrs Tingcombe had 5 children:

1.   Henry C    born 1852,   married 1882 Margaret A .Forsyth at Sydney.

 died 1928 at Brewarrina

2.   Ellen A    born 1853, died 1876 at St George

3.   Margaretta   Mary  born 1859 at Camden, married 1882 Francis Henry Woodriff at Sydney, died 1952 at Penrith

4.   George  born 1862 Camden, married 1887 Maria C. Bluett at Canterbury, died 1940 Wyong

5.    John Lethbridge  married 1888 Ada M. Carter at Paddington, died 1906 at Burwood

The Church of St John, Camden was consecrated in 1849. A window near the Pulpit was given by public subscription in memory of Rev. Henry Tingcombe, who was the third Rector of the Church.

http://www.camdenanglican.org.au/mod/group/view.php?group_id=8

Page 248 of the 1860 Australian Almanac states that he was an Anglican Minister in the Camden and Narrellan area.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZxQOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA248&lpg=PA248&dq=henry+tingcombe&source=web&ots=e1aSRu4Im7&sig=-CilBn7TeyNuvZvVht31iG3bC5s

The 1863 Australian Almanac, page 116, lists Rev. Tingcombe as being at Camden in the Diocese  of Sydney.

http://books.google.com/books?id=yRAOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=toc#PPA116,M1

8 March 1864 he is listed in the Western Post and Mudgee Newspaper as being in the Diocese of Sydney, and receiving an allowance of 200 pounds per annum.

Both  his grandsons, Private Henry Lethbridge Tingcombe and Private Noel Tingcombe were killed within a few days of each other during WW1

Henry died on 29 July 1916, and was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.  He is buried at the Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, France.

Noel Lethbridge Tingcombe was killed in action on 4 August 1916. He is remembered with a commemorative plaque on Villers-Bretonneux Memorial Cemetery. No body was recovered.