There is little doubt that Phillip was the son of one of the descendants of William and Joan Ripper who lived in Crawle in the 1500s, but recording Phillip as the child of one specific parent has not yet been possible.
There is an entry in the parish register which gives no name for the child and the parents as Henrie & Dorothie, according to the IGI.
The entry is worthy of another investigation. The script of the day could have made Temperance appear as Dorothie to a modern eye. There are no other Henries available for fatherhood to the child and the timing of the baptism, just a few months after the marriage of Temperance and Henry is about right.
For the purposes of linking Phillip into the family this seems the most likely link, as explained below.
Phillip married in 1685 to Mary Richard. He then had three sons in the next fifteen years. This would encourage the proposition that he was born no later than 1668 and probably not before 1650.
The baptism of Phillip was, therefore, during the interregnum and there was a widespread destruction of records following this period. Breage records suffered as did many other parishes across the United Kingdom and Cornwall.
As there is a finite number of Ripper family members it is possible to survey all living Ripper family members in Breage at the time to reveal potential fathers for Phillip, but more than ten fathers fit this proposition. The potential also exists for Phillip to have been born outside marriage and, therefore, have taken his mother's name which just serves to increase the possible number of parents.
Of all the possibilities it is most likely that Phillip is the son of either Henry Ripper & Temperance Harrie or Edward Ripper & Blanch or Phillip Ripper.
Given the entry described above I believe Phillip's parents are likely to have been Henry & Temperance. Even if this link is not correct, the link to the family within two or three generations is undeniable.
His burial entry reads "Phillip Coyles Ripper of Balwest". The meaning of Coyles has not been established.
Henry is a beneficiary to the value of one ewe sheep in will of his uncle Richard, 1617.
At the time of the baptism of his son, John, in 1655 Henry is described as being of "Lemezion". This has not been identified as a place but could be a household in the area around Trew. This is based upon the travels of the collector of the Poll Tax in 1660/1. The records clearly show that the list was compiled as the collector moved from place to place. The first route for the parish of Breage starts at Sethno to the east of Breage and continues south towards the coast and Porthleven. The route then turns west, taking in many farms and settlements until it finishes at Kennegy. The second route starts north of Breage at Trevena and commences its route north toward Trew. Trew includes Henry in its listing and shortly after Trew the collector arrives at Mount Pasco, home to Thomas' elder brother Robert.
Henry and his wife are mentioned in the 1661 Poll Tax listings as living at Trew and paying one shilling.
It is possible that Henry had died by 12th May 1666 as on that a seating plan was drawn up for Breage parish church and he is not mentioned, whilst his wife is shown with a regular seat in the central nave.
The little hamlet of Trew, means 'black farm' in Cornish. Most of the cottages here date from the mining boom of the 19th century, when men, women and children were employed at the great mining complex of Wheal Vor. According to the 1841 census, around 50 families lived in the village, but by 1881 the number had more than halved, a reflection of mine closure and emigration. The big house on the village green was once called The Trelawney Arms and was a thriving concern during the 19th century. It was here that the tenants of the Trelawney Estate came to pay their rents on quarter days. The Green was a popular place for events such as Cornish wrestling, travelling fairs and menageries.
!Documents
02194/01 - Poll Tax 1661, Breage; photocopy of transcript
On the 12th May 1666 a seating plan for Breage parish church was drawn up. Temperance is shown in a pew in the nave immediately on the south side of the main aisle, eight rows from the front. Temperance shared her pew with Margaret Goninan and Margaret Peirce.
Church "sittings" or pews - by Dr Kevin Feltham (updated January, 2000)
"Most English parish churches had no formal seating arrangements until the late 17th century. Prior to this, the congregation either stood, sat or knelt on the hard mud, sand or stone floors or leant against the outside walls or pillars. Services included stories from the bible, the reading of psalms, and prayers but little formal "music". Sermons or talks were very short.
"After Charles I was executed, the Puritans' concept of lengthy teaching sermons soon helped speed up the introduction of seating! Families began to bring their own benches or chairs and group them together. This became more formalised with the introduction of enclosures known as "sittings". In order to better keep the family together, the designs were as a box - hence the term "box" pew. These private pews were normally rented or bought by families and so only those with sufficient substance in the community were able to afford them. The larger and more wealthy families had the larger, more ornate, box pews, and these were always in the best positions in church. In these early schemes there were no standard designs so a church would be filled with different shapes, different heights and frequently different materials. As many private pews were lockable, churches appointed official "pew openers"! There were few church organs or formal music and rarely choirs and so the chancel area was also usually rented out and filled with box pews; the families having to face the pulpit with their backs to the altar!
"Poorer families, who were unable to buy or rent box pews, stood in the aisles or against the back or side walls of the church, or in a gallery. Not all box pews had seats and some churches installed special enclosures for the poor with sloping rails along the rear against which to rest, but not sit. Examples of various types of box pew can be seen in St Mary's Church at Whitby in Yorkshire.
"Private box pews allowed families to sit together in one place and frequently younger children would sit on a rug on the floor and read or play quiet games during the service without causing too much distraction to other members of the congregation. As box pews were rarely uniform in style or size, the interior of the church would have looked extremely untidy with different sizes, styles, paint colours and shapes of pew.
"From the 1830s until the 1860s, churches all over the country began to realise the problems of not providing space for everybody. Frequently the aisles were crammed with people, while whole areas of locked private pews remained untenanted. Eventually the courts ruled that parishioners controlled all seats in the nave of the church, that no-one could own property in seats, and that seats were "private" only through ancient rite or faculty.
"John Mason Neale from Crawley published 24 reasons in the 1820s for removing box pews. Here are a selection:
" box pews were invented by people who thought themselves too good to pray by the side of their neighbours
"they made it impossible to pay proper attention
"they endangered safety, they harboured dust and mildew
"they caused quarrels in the parish
"they spoilt the look of a church and they allowed parishioners to go to sleep without fear!"John Neale eventually took an axe to his church's box pews and hacked them to pieces!"
This entry in the parish register gives no name for the child and the parents as Henrie & Dorothie, according to the IGI.
The entry is worthy of another investigation. The script of the day could have made Temperance appear as Dorothie to a modern eye. There are no other Henries available for fatherhood to the child and the timing of the baptism, just a few months after the marriage of Temperance and Henry is about right.