The Cruses of Rode, Somerset

Russell Cruse has been in touch concerning my posting about Archelaus Cruse the newsvendor of St Botolph, Aldersgate. Russell has been researching the Cruse family from Rode in Somerset. He has in his tree an Archelaus Cruse who was born in 1760 in Rode. It would appear that this Archelaus is the one who moved to Aldersgate and became a newsvendor. It is such an unusual name that it seems most unlikely that there could be anyone else of the same name living at the same time. The evidence seems even more convincing as the Archelaus born in Rode had a brother called Jeremiah born in 1758, and Archelaus the newsvendor named his second son Jeremiah, presumably after his brother.

Jeremiah Cruse from Rode was a well respected land surveyor and also the head of the Frome Lodge of Freemasons. His son Robson Cruse, born in 1785 in Rode, had a distinguished naval career. He was at the first Battle of Copenhagen on 2nd April 1801 and was a midshipman on the HMS Tonnant at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October 1805. He subsequently became a Lieutenant and was involved in the dramatic rescue of the officers and crew of the Nightingale when it ran into trouble off the coast of the Isle of Wight in 1829. One of Jeremiah's grandsons, George Cruse, born in 1818 in Frome, Somerset, served in the King's First Royal Dragoon Cavalry Regiment, fighting at the Battle of Balaclava on 25th October 1854 and later at the siege of Sebastapol.