
Abigail Bellingham was diarist Thomas Bellingham’s wife with whom she had three daughters and a son. She was the daughter of William Handcock, of Twyford, in Co. Westmeath. A. R. Maddison, in his introduction to Bellingham’s diary, comments waspishly, ‘His wife, Abigail, was no beauty, and looking at her picture one cannot be surprised at two out of the three daughters remaining single.’[1]