Robert Amberson Marten was born in Glastonbury in 1699. His father was William Martin, a soap boiler in Bristol. The origin of the Martin (sic) family was almost certainly from the Glastonbury area – but William appears to have married Elizabeth the niece of a Bristol trader and adventurer Robert Amberson in 1678. Robert Amberson Marten was the youngest of at least four children. Continue reading →

James Shaw was born approximately in 1710 in Dudley Worcestershire. He was to become a well respected attorney working for a succession of the Dudley and Ward families of Dudley Castle.  He also worked for and had a strong friendship with Samuel Hellier, a prominent member of the Staffordshire gentry. Samuel Hellier was a renowned collector especially of Musical Instruments. Continue reading →

John Evans was born about 1740, possibly in Shifnal in Shropshire. Most of what we know about him comes from his will of 1784 obtained from Lichfield Record Office, where he is described as an Innkeeper. He made his will “being sick and weak in body” at the age of about 44. He died a short time later, but his signature is relatively firm. He had married Mary Owen on 28 Jun 1767 and had six children. At his death, his eldest son Richard was 15, his youngest son John was only 3. Continue reading →

Thomas Styles was probably born in the small Worcestershire village of Kington in 1739. Importantly his will of 1811 identifies his surviving children. These include Sarah Evans, wife of Richard Evans, to whom he left £1000 and who was in fact to die in the year following her father. Thomas Styles was a wealthy inn holder and his family formed a very natural alliance with the Evans’s of the Red Lion in Wolverhampton. The picture below shows the “Crown Inn” in Stone Staffordshire that he appears to have acquired later in his life. It is more than likely, in fact, that he had it built as the image would appear to be advertising a new inn and its strategic position as an interchange of coach routes between Chester, Liverpool, London, Bath and Bristol Continue reading →