The William Webb Wagg Investigation (9)
Post 9: Mary Ann Clark
The documentary trail of William Wegg’s wife
In reconstructing William Webb Wagg’s birth family, the identity of his parents, William Wegg and Mary Ann Clark, rests upon a firm documentary foundation. Their marriage at St Paul’s Church, Norwich, on 23 February 1819 provides a clear starting point. From that date forward, the Norwich parish registers preserve a consistent record of their life together and the family they formed.
While William Wegg’s origins can now be traced securely into the Norfolk parish landscape, his wife’s earlier identity is less immediately transparent. Mary Ann emerges clearly in the records from the time of her marriage, but her parentage must be reconstructed from parish evidence alone. Unlike the Wegg line, no autosomal DNA matches have yet been identified that can be confidently attributed to her Clark family. For this branch, the analysis rests on careful documentary correlation.
Names, spelling, and identity
Mary Ann appears in contemporary records under both Mary Ann and Ann, and with her surname recorded as Clark and Clarke. Her marriage entry names her Ann Clarke, while later records — including those relating to her death — identify her as Mary Ann Wegg. The baptismal entries of her children consistently record her as Mary Ann Clark or Clarke.
Such variation was entirely typical in early nineteenth-century parish registers. Given names were often used interchangeably, and surname spelling remained fluid. These forms represent different expressions of the same identity rather than separate individuals. Taken together, the records demonstrate continuity across the stages of her life.
A baptismal candidate in Norwich
Within this framework, a baptism recorded in Norwich provides a compelling candidate for her earlier identity.[1] On 24 June 1798, a Mary Ann Clark was baptised at St James with Pockthorpe, Norwich, her birth recorded as 17 June 1798.
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Geography reinforces the identification. St James with Pockthorpe lies within easy walking distance of St Paul’s Church, where Mary Ann later married William Wegg and where several of her own children were baptised. The movement between these parishes reflects normal internal mobility within Norwich rather than migration.
Chronology also aligns. A woman baptised in June 1798 would have been twenty-one years of age at the time of the 1819 marriage — entirely consistent with the recorded bride.
A reasoned conclusion
Taken together — surname usage, the Clark–Riches marriage, chronological alignment, and geographic continuity within the Norwich parish landscape — the evidence supports the conclusion, on the balance of probability, that the Mary Ann Clark baptised at St James with Pockthorpe in 1798 was the daughter of Henry Clark and Hannah (Riches) Clark, and is the same woman who married William Wegg in 1819.[3]
No competing baptismal candidates have emerged within the Norwich registers, and no contradictory evidence has been identified.
This identification remains open to refinement should further evidence emerge, particularly through future DNA matches to Clark descendants. For now, the documentary structure holds: Mary Ann Clark stands securely within the Norwich parish network that shaped the early life of the Wegg family.
The children of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches
Parish reconstruction and demographic contraction
Before turning back to the earlier baptisms of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches, it is necessary to examine the children attributed to this couple in the Norwich parish registers and recorded in the documented family tree. The identification of these children rests upon the working assumption that the Henry Clark who married Hannah Riches at All Saints in 1787 is the same Henry Clark appearing in subsequent Norwich baptism and burial entries. No other Henry Clark–Hannah Riches combination has been identified in the Norwich registers during this period, and no conflicting evidence has emerged to suggest the presence of a second couple of the same names within the same parish network.
When considered in chronological sequence, the resulting pattern is both coherent and sobering — and it provides important context for the current absence of identifiable DNA matches for the Clark line.
The parish evidence identifies the following children of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches:
Ann Clark, baptised 25 November 1791 at St Paul’s, Norwich. The baptism entry records the mother’s name as Riches. No burial has yet been identified for this child. However, the later use of the name “Ann” for Mary Ann Clark raises the possibility that the earlier Ann may have died in childhood and the name reused, a common naming practice of the period.
Mary Ann “Ann” Clark, born 17 June 1798 and baptised at St James with Pockthorpe. She is the only child of the family located in the registers of that parish.
Sarah Clark, born 1800; buried 1 June 1806, aged six.
Henry Clark, born 1802; buried 30 March 1802, an infant.
Hannah Clark, born 1803; buried 17 August 1806, aged three.
Elizabeth Clark, born 1804; no early burial identified.
Henry Clark, born 1807; buried 18 January 1807, an infant.
Hannah Clark, born 1809; buried 22 January 1809, an infant.
Following Mary Ann’s baptism at St James with Pockthorpe in 1798, the later children were baptised — and, where applicable, buried — at St John Maddermarket, Norwich. This shift in parish affiliation remains within the same tightly connected urban landscape and reflects normal internal movement within the city rather than migration.
A thorough search of the Norwich parish registers between 1791 and 1798 has not revealed additional Clark baptisms attributable to Henry and Hannah. However, given the later pattern of infant mortality within the family, it remains possible that other children were born and died before baptism or were not recorded in surviving registers. Urban mortality in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Norwich was high, and incomplete baptismal survival is not uncommon in such contexts.
When read sequentially, the pattern is clear. Between 1791 and 1809, Henry and Hannah experienced repeated cycles of birth and loss. At least four children died in infancy. Two more died in early childhood. The number of children who survived to adulthood appears to have been small.
This demographic contraction has direct implications for the genetic record. Autosomal DNA persists only through surviving descendant lines. Each child who died in infancy or early childhood represents a branch that closed permanently.
At present, no documentary evidence has been identified to demonstrate that any child of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches, other than Mary Ann Clark, survived to adulthood. While it remains possible that Ann or Elizabeth lived longer — and further research may yet clarify this — the parish evidence currently available does not establish additional enduring lines.
If Mary Ann was indeed the only child of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches to leave surviving descendants, then the Clark contribution to the modern DNA pool would have passed forward through a single demonstrable branch — the line descending from her marriage to William Wegg, and ultimately into the William Webb Wagg line examined in this series. The DNA matches attributable to that branch have already been analysed in earlier posts. No additional independent Clark descendant lines have been identified within the present research.
Over six or more generations, the effects of recombination and random inheritance substantially reduce both the size and detectability of inherited autosomal segments. Where a family’s genetic contribution travels forward through only one confirmed branch, the likelihood of identifying further distinct Clark-line autosomal matches outside that branch becomes correspondingly low.
In this context, the absence of additional Clark DNA signals does not weaken the documentary reconstruction. Rather, it reflects the demographic reality of a small sibling group whose enduring genetic legacy appears to have flowed primarily through the Mary Ann Clark → William Wegg → William Webb Wagg line.
The problem of origins: Henry Clark and Hannah Riches
Tracing the earlier origins of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches proves considerably more problematic than reconstructing their children. Unlike the later generation — where baptisms, marriages, and burials cluster coherently within a defined Norwich parish network — the evidence for their own births is far less secure.
At present, only one plausible baptism has been identified in Norwich for each individual. However, neither can be accepted with confidence, and both must be treated as provisional working hypotheses rather than established conclusions.
A possible baptism for Henry Clark
One baptism of potential relevance appears in the Norwich registers:
Henry Clarke, baptised 27 October 1771, St Julian’s, Norwich, Norfolk, son of James Clarke and Elizabeth Clarke.[4]
Several cautions must immediately be noted.
First, the surname appears consistently in this entry as Clarke (with an “e”). While Clark and Clarke were often used interchangeably in the eighteenth century, the variation does not in itself establish identity. It does, however, require careful comparison with later parish entries.
Second, no direct documentary link connects this Henry Clarke of St Julian’s with the Henry Clark who married Hannah Riches at All Saints in 1787. The geographic proximity makes the identification possible, but proximity alone is insufficient proof.
Third, it remains entirely possible that Henry Clark originated outside Norwich and entered the city prior to marriage. The absence of alternative Norwich baptisms does not eliminate that possibility.
Accordingly, this baptism is recorded as a plausible candidate only.
A possible baptism for Hannah Riches
Similarly, a single Norwich baptism aligns chronologically with the expected age of Hannah Riches:
Hannah Riches, baptised 1 November 1767 at St Peter Parmentergate, Norwich, daughter of Henry Riches and Mary Riches.[5]
This entry is geographically consistent with the later marriage of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches at All Saints in 1787. St Peter Parmentergate and All Saints lie within the same compact Norwich parish landscape.
However, as with Henry, no direct evidence links this Hannah Riches of 1767 to the woman who married in 1787. The identification rests solely on:
Name
Chronology
Parish proximity
No additional corroborating records have yet been located.
A deliberately provisional conclusion
It must therefore be emphasised that these baptisms are presented as possible but unproven identifications.
The absence of alternative Norwich candidates strengthens their plausibility but does not eliminate the possibility that either Henry Clark or Hannah Riches originated outside the city and migrated into Norwich prior to marriage.
At present, the documentary trail cannot be extended further back with confidence.
These entries are recorded transparently so that future research — whether through newly digitised parish registers, supplementary documentary sources, or additional DNA evidence — may test, confirm, refine, or contradict the working hypotheses outlined above.
In genealogical reconstruction, it is sometimes necessary to distinguish clearly between:
What is established
What is probable
And what remains possible
The origins of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches currently remain within that third category.
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The diagram above sets out the reconstructed ancestral structure of William Webb Wagg.Individuals marked with 🧬 represent lines for which autosomal DNA matches have been identified among tested descendants. In these cases, genetic evidence aligns with the documentary record and supports the proposed relationships.
Individuals marked with ❓ indicate generations where documentary reconstruction is possible but no independent DNA confirmation has yet been identified. In these instances, the relationship rests on parish evidence, chronological alignment, and geographic continuity rather than genetic corroboration.
The contrast is deliberate.
The Wegg and Broughton lines are reinforced by converging documentary and DNA evidence. The Clark and Riches lines, by contrast, are supported by parish reconstruction but remain genetically unconfirmed beyond the Mary Ann Clark and William Wegg branch.
This distinction does not weaken the reconstruction. It clarifies the evidentiary status of each generation and identifies precisely where the current research frontier lies.
Research status: Clark–Riches line
Established
Marriage of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches, 5 November 1787, All Saints, Norwich.
Reconstructed children of the couple in Norwich parish registers.
Identification of Mary Ann Clark as daughter of this couple on the balance of documentary probability.
Descent through Mary Ann Clark → William Wegg → William Webb Wagg, supported by parish records and previously analysed DNA evidence within that line.
Probable
Mary Ann Clark baptised 24 June 1798 at St James with Pockthorpe as daughter of Henry and Hannah (Riches) Clark.
Demographic contraction of the Clark sibling group, with Mary Ann appearing to be the only demonstrably surviving child to leave descendants.
Unproven / working hypotheses
Henry Clarke baptised 27 October 1771 at St Julian’s, Norwich, son of James and Elizabeth Clarke.
Hannah Riches baptised 1 November 1767 at St Peter Parmentergate, Norwich, daughter of Henry and Mary Riches.
Earlier origins of the Clark and Riches families, including the possibility of migration into Norwich from surrounding Norfolk parishes.
Further documentary discovery or additional DNA evidence may confirm, refine, or overturn the unproven elements above; they are recorded here transparently to support ongoing research.
While the evidentiary status of the Clark–Riches line can be summarised analytically, the family’s story is perhaps best understood geographically. The parish registers do more than record names and dates; they map a lived landscape. When the baptisms and marriage entries are placed back into their physical setting, a striking pattern emerges — one written not only in ink, but in stone.
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A Family in Stone
The churches of Henry Clark, Hannah Riches, Mary Ann Clark and William Wegg
Before there were census returns.
Before there were civil death certificates.
Before there were digitised databases and DNA matches.
There were churches.
And for this family, the churches tell the story.
St Saviour’s, Norwich
Henry Clark baptised, 1771
Henry Clark first appears in the parish register of St Saviour’s Church, Norwich — a medieval flint church standing close to the River Wensum, within the tightly clustered urban parishes north of the city centre.
St Saviour’s served working households: artisans, small tradesmen, families living within walking distance of Magdalen Street and the river crossings. It stood within the living economic heart of the city.
Henry’s baptism there places the Clark family firmly within urban Norwich.
St Peter Parmentergate, Norwich
Hannah Riches baptised, 1767
Across the city — but still within that compact medieval network — Hannah Riches was baptised at St Peter Parmentergate, on King Street.
King Street was one of Norwich’s oldest thoroughfares, historically associated with trade, warehouses, and river traffic. The church, largely rebuilt in the late fifteenth century, stood among merchants’ houses and working families tied to the city’s commercial life.
Hannah’s baptism situates the Riches family within the same urban ecosystem as the Clarks.
Different parish.
Same city.
Same world.
They were not strangers from distant places.
They were Norwich people.
All Saints, Norwich
Henry Clark & Hannah Riches married, 1787
In 1787, these two parish lines converge.
Henry Clark and Hannah Riches married at All Saints Church, Norwich, a medieval parish church at Westlegate, within the city walls and close to the market district.
All Saints was centrally placed. Marriages there often drew from neighbouring parishes. It functioned almost as a nodal point within the Norwich parish network.
Their marriage confirms something important:
The Clark and Riches families were already moving within shared social and geographic space before the next generation was born.
St James with Pockthorpe, Norwich
Mary Ann Clark baptised, 1798
In 1798, a Mary Ann Clark was baptised at St James with Pockthorpe, just beyond the medieval city wall near the river and the industrial suburbs of Norwich.
Pockthorpe was not remote. It was an extension of the city’s working districts. Families moved there as housing and employment patterns shifted. It lay within easy walking distance of St Paul’s and St Saviour’s.
Mary Ann’s baptism shows the next generation continuing within the same urban orbit.
This is not migration.
It is micro-movement inside Norwich.
St Michael's, Plumstead by Holt
William Wegg baptised, 1800
While the Clark–Riches story unfolds inside Norwich, another thread begins in rural Norfolk.
William Wegg was baptised in 1800 at St Michael’s Church, Plumstead by Holt, a small parish north-west of Norwich.
Here the landscape changes.
From dense urban parish clustering to a rural Norfolk village church.
St Michael’s stood among agricultural households and small rural trades — fields, hedged lanes, and the quieter rhythms of village life.
William’s origins are rural. Mary Ann’s are urban.
The marriage that follows will bridge those worlds.
St Paul’s, Norwich
William Wegg & Mary Ann Clark married, 1819
In 1819, William Wegg married Mary Ann Clark at St Paul’s Church, Norwich.
St Paul’s stood in a working district close to the river and within reach of the parishes already associated with the Clark family.
The rural Wegg line had come into the city. The urban Clark line had remained within it.
Their marriage marks the joining of countryside and city — a common and deeply Norfolk pattern in the early nineteenth century.
The children of St Paul’s
From 1819 onward, the baptisms of William and Mary Ann’s children appear consistently in the Norwich parish registers — the first of their eight children at St James with Pockthorpe, and the subsequent seven at St Paul’s.
The pattern is unmistakable. What we see is stability.
No long-distance relocation. No disappearance from the record. No break in parish continuity.
Instead, a family anchored within a defined Norwich neighbourhood for nearly two decades — their children baptised within walking distance of one another, their lives unfolding inside the same compact parish landscape.
The geography of their lives
Place these churches on a map and something striking appears.
With the exception of St Michael's, every one of them lies within a remarkably compact urban space.
In about half an hour, you could walk from:
St Peter Parmentergate
to All Saints
to St Saviour’s
to St Paul’s
to St James with Pockthorpe.
This is a single lived environment. A single social world.
What this tells us
This sequence of churches reveals two Norwich families — Clark and Riches — living, marrying, and baptising their children within the same compact parish network. Mary Ann Clark belonged fully to that world before her marriage joined the urban Clark line to the rural Wegg line.
For more than half a century, their lives unfolded within a remarkably small geographic orbit. With the exception of William Wegg’s rural beginnings, every stage of the Clark–Riches–Wegg formation took place inside the same interconnected Norwich landscape.
This is not, at this stage, a story of migration.
It is a story of continuity — of parish boundaries crossed on foot, of baptisms recorded within walking distance of one another, of families rooted in place.
The rupture would come later, when William Webb Wagg’s crime carried him far beyond Norfolk to Van Diemen’s Land and then to Sydney. But that belongs to his story. The generations before him remained anchored in Norwich.
The stones of these churches mark the formation of this family line.
Where the stones end
The parish landscape tells a coherent and internally consistent story. Henry Clark and Hannah Riches lived, married, and baptised their children within a defined Norwich world. Their daughter Mary Ann carried that line forward into the Wegg family and ultimately into the William Webb Wagg line examined here.
Yet beyond those church doors, the trail grows uncertain.
The baptisms tentatively identified for Henry in 1771 and Hannah in 1767 remain possible rather than proven. The parish registers show where this family stood; they do not yet reveal where they came from.
For now, the origins of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches remain unresolved — not a flaw in the reconstruction, but the next frontier of enquiry.
Webb-Clark DNA clustering: The next question
With the framework of the Wegg–Clark line now established, the enquiry moves forward along two parallel paths: the continuing search within the documentary record and the examination of emerging patterns within the genetic evidence.
The parish registers have defined the structural foundations of the line. The DNA data, meanwhile, presents clusters of matches that align with this branch yet cannot presently be placed securely within the documented framework. These patterns do not displace the reconstruction; rather, they sit alongside it — sometimes reinforcing, sometimes extending beyond it.
What follows, therefore, is not a shift away from records, but an expansion of the enquiry. The documentary and genetic strands now proceed together, each capable of clarifying, challenging, or refining the other as the wider family network comes gradually into view.
The Clark–Riches investigation does not conclude at this point. Nor are the Wegg and Broughton lines exhausted. The foundations have been laid. The wider network remains to be mapped.
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William Webb Wagg investigation series
This post forms part of the ongoing investigation into the origins of William Webb Wagg. The full series, including all published posts and supporting material, can be accessed here:
View the complete investigation series:
https://webbwagg.blogspot.com/p/the-william-webb-wagg-investigation.htmlSeries navigation:
→ Next post: (Not yet published)
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[1] Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600–1935, baptism of Mary Ann Clark, born 17 June 1798, baptised 24 June 1798, St James with Pockthorpe, Norwich, Norfolk, daughter of Henry Riches.
{2} Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1938, marriage of Henry Clark and Hannah Riches, 5 November 1787, All Saints Church, Norwich, Norfolk, England.
[3] Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600–1935, marriage of William Wegg and Ann Clarke, 23 February 1819, St Paul’s Church, Norwich, Norfolk, England; parish register transcript.
[4] Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600–1935, baptism of Henry Clarke, 27 October 1771, St Julian’s, Norwich, Norfolk, son of James Clarke and Elizabeth Clarke.
[5] Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600–1935, baptism of Hannah Riches, 1 November 1767, St Peter Parmentergate, Norwich, Norfolk, daughter of Henry Riches and Mary Riches.
