Following my brief thread on Barmour, this is a little more complicated.
James Mather was quite an interesting man, having owned the Endeavour and at least one of the First Fleet that sailed to Australia, while running a whaling company. I'm trying to establish whether he was a cousin of Rebecca and Thomas Mather, particulalrly (see later) as they both moved to London from Northumberland.
1. When Thomas Mather (1736-1776/7) died, the executor of his will was James Mather. Thomas was the commander of the ship Pitt of London, who named (amongst others), his wife Margaret; and his mother and two sisters who lived in Newcastle).
2. Thomas' sister married Christopher Watson, a shipwright/boatbuilder, who invented the floating dry dock in 1785. Christopher Watson often built boats for James Mather who was something of a business partner.
3. James Mather named one of his daughters Frances, the name of Thomas and Rebecca's mother.
The last point is fairly unimportant, but it seems clear that James and Thomas/Rebecca were close, so it is possible that they were related, Mather not being a particularly common name.
James Mather's will (1796) mentions six children, his wife, and sister Margaret; and, through apprentice records it can be shown that James was the son of Alexander Mather, a farmer of Twizell, Durham, who had died by 1765. James' baptism is almost certainly the one in 1737 in Norham (2/3 miles from Twizell).
Thomas/Rebecca's baptisms - and those of their siblings - were in Newcastle from 1732-1741 children of Robert and Frances (nee Unthank) Mather.
Can anyone link Robert Mather of Newcastle with Alexander Mather of Norham? I can see some possible baptisms for each (such as Robert b 1706 Longframlington whose mother's maiden name is Unthank, the same as Robert's future wife, Frances), but not to the same father. Or shouldn't I be trying to link them? Perhaps it's all just a co-incidence of surnames.
Richard
Just to confuse the issue, a James Mather, son to Peter Mather, husbandman of Barmoor, was apprenticed to the original James Mather in 1770 in London.