Articles | Page 19 of 23 | Morgan Web Site

Dec

2009

Jeremiah Dimmack

Jeremiah Dimmack was born in Kingswinford in about 1781, the only son of Richard Harper Dimmack and Jane Thomings. He was baptized on 7 Oct 1781 in Brierley Hill. His mother died when he was very young and was buried in Brierley Hill on 9 Sep 1783. His father promptly remarried his wife’s sister Sarah Thomings on 6 Dec 1784 in Halesowen. His grandfather was Jeremiah Thomings. Continue reading →

Dec

2009

George Benjamin Thorneycroft and his family

There are a number of connexions between the Thorneycroft family and the Dimmacks, Bagnall and Martens, whose detailed ancestry is discussed on this site. George Benjamin Thorneycroft was the first mayor of Wolverhampton. His wife was Eleanor Thorneycroft (nee Page) and lived until 1874. Continue reading →

Dec

2009

Robert Amberson Marten

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 →

Dec

2009

Thomas James Morgan

Thomas James Morgan was born in Mile End in Jul 1876 the eldest son of Thomas Morgan and Margaret Sarah Chiswick. In about 1895 he emigrated to the United States and joined the family of his Aunt, Mary Jane Kerslake in Iowa. He spent the rest of his life as a labourer and farmer successively in Mount Vernon, Clinton and Low Moor, all in the state of Iowa. In 1911 he was back in England visiting his father and mother being caught by the 1911 UK census. Continue reading →

Nov

2009

Martha Marten

Martha Marten was born about 1726 the eldest child of Robert Amberson Marten, almost certainly in Bristol. The family moved to London in the 1730’s to Millbank and then to Stepney. She married on 5 Sep 1756 at St Dunstan’s, Stepney. Her brother Nathaniel Marten writes about her crisis of faith in about 1763 when her three children and her husband had all died in the space of four years. Continue reading →

Oct

2009

Spout House, Smethwick

The Spout House, Smethwick, was probably built in the early 1700’s and was demolished in 1937. It was situated on the corner where Londonderry Road meets Taylor’s Lane. Continue reading →

Oct

2009

Priscilla Onions

Priscilla Bacon or Onions was born on 12 May 1782 in Kingswinford, Staffordshire. The date of birth is recorded in the Cheshire bible. There is also a baptismal entry for St Mary’s, Kingswinford, on exactly the same date for Priscilla Croft, the base born child of Maria Bacon. It seems improbable though that she was baptized on her day of birth. Her mother’s full name was Anna Maria Bacon, referred to just as Maria Bacon in a number of documents. Her mother went on to marry a John Onions on 12 July 1785, when Priscilla would have been three years of age. It seems unlikely John Onions was her father, and much more likely that her father was therefore a Mr Croft. Continue reading →

Oct

2009

Cheshire Bible

The Cheshire family bible is a large bible published by Brown and Bentley in Birmingham in 1789. Its original owner was Edward Cheshire and he gives a date of 10 June 1796. Continue reading →

Sep

2009

John Cheshire

John Cheshire was born on 2 Mar 1776, the eldest son of Edward Cheshire and his wife Eleanor. Details of his siblings all survive in the Cheshire Family Bible. He was baptised on 12 May 1776 at St Leonard’s Bilston and seems to have spent most of his life in the Smethwick-Oldbury area. Continue reading →

Aug

2009

Mary Shaw-Hellier Prayer Book

This Common prayer book, published in Oxford in 1770 comes down the family from Mary Shaw-Hellier (b 1801) through her daughter Sarah Evans to Molly Evans. Continue reading →

Aug

2009

James Shaw

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 →

Jun

2009

South Staffordshire Regiment in Gibraltar, 1911-1913

We have a fine collection of annotated photographs of the Presentation of Colours to the 1st Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment by King George V on 31 Jan 1912. The event took place on the Alameda Parade, Gibraltar and would have been redolent of historical connections of the regiment – the Old Colours had been presented on the same ground on 5 Jan 1887. Continue reading →

May

2009

Wilmot Evans in South Africa 1913-1914

The South Staffordshire Regiment was based in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa from 1913 to 1914, in the prelude to the Great War. Charles Wilmot Evans, a young lieutenant seems to have had a very enjoyable time, with little hint of the horrors of the war to come, that was to take his life at the age of 25. Continue reading →

May

2009

Drummer Wheeler

Two weeks after the South Staffordshires had landed in France, they were to be in full action at the first battle of Ypres. Wilmot Evans writes a striking letter of condolence to the brother of Drummer George Wheeler, shot as they stood side by side. He was one of the few surviving officers left in the battalion. Continue reading →

May

2009

Charles Wilmot Evans

Charles Wilmot Evans was born on 28 March 1891 in the Green House Tettenhall. He was the only son of Henry Evans, a Wolverhampton bank manager and Florence Evans (nee Marten). Wilmot, as he was known, had both an elder sister, Molly and a younger sister, Fiffy. Continue reading →

Apr

2009

John Evans of the Old Bell Inn

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 →

Mar

2009

Ann Maria Downing Letter

This letter is from George Downing’s wife Ann Maria Downing (nee Collins). It is written to Sarah and Eliza, her husband’s sisters. Her brother-in-law William did not marry in fact until 1856. The ‘sly miss’ probably refers to the fact that Sarah has just married or got engaged to William Laister in North Wales. The dates of this wedding have not been checked (Q3 1853 Bangor). The Donkeys reference could therefore be to some kind of honeymoon and could even be the earliest evidence of the Downing’s holiday interest in Llandudno. Continue reading →

Mar

2009

Aunt Cropley’s letter

Below is a transcript of a 1849 letter to Sarah Downing. It is written compactly on both sides of small red rimmed writing paper – horizontally and then continues superimposed vertically – making it very difficult to read. Further research is needed to identify ‘Aunt Cropley’ – the letter was stored in a non contemporaneous envelope stating “Aunt Cropley’s letter” Continue reading →

Mar

2009

Sarah Downing

Sarah Downing was born in 1828 in Smethwick and was the younger sister of William Downing. We have a small collection of three letters that were sent to her from 1845 to 1853 that shed some light on early life in Smethwick in this period. It is not clear why these essentially insignificant letters have survived or who kept them. However with their age they have become rare and fragile objects of considerable interest. Continue reading →

Mar

2009

Thomas Styles

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 →

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