Chapter 14: BULL'S OF 'THE POTTERIES', STAFFORDSHIRE

Our Bull family line starts with Thomas Bull and his wife Margaret Jenkinson. The couple married in Stafford in the summer of 1813. Thomas was a horse breaker who lived all his life in the same part of the city. The couple had ten children. The oldest of these was Thomas.

Thomas married Elizabeth Boughey in Stoke-on-Trent in the summer of 1855. At the time of the birth of his only know child, a son, in the autumn of the same year he was an innkeeper in Market Street, Hanley. White's 'History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire' (William White, Sheffield) of 1851 describes Hanley and neighbouring Shelton thus:

"Hanley and Shelton, though two distinct liberties, or townships, maintain their poor conjointly with the rest of the parish of Stoke-upon-Trent, and form one densely populated and well-built market town, ranking in size and consequence, the second in the county of Stafford, and the largest in the district called the Potteries, in which it holds a central situation, being pleasantly seated on rising ground near the Trent and the canal, about a mile N of Stoke, and two and a half miles ENE of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It has a population of 20,564 souls, 8609 in Hanley, and 11,955 in Shelton, which includes Etruria and part of Cobridge. Both are in the manor of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Hanley forms the north-eastern and highest part of town, and from it and Earl Granville's Coal and Iron Works, an old tram road, now worked by a locomotive engine, extends down to the Trent & Mersey Canal, at Etruria, where it now also forms a junction with a station on the North Staffordshire Railway. The houses have a neat appearance and some of them are spacious and elegant, there being here many of the most wealthy and extensive china and earthenware manufacturers in the Potteries, and in the suburbs are several coal and iron works......

Etruria, in Shelton Township, is now a populous suburb, with a wharf and railway station. It owes its origin and name to that late celebrated porcelain manufacturer, Josiah Wedgwood, Esq."

In 1861 Thomas Bull was a publican at the Shakespeare Inn, George Street, Newcastle under Lyne. At that time his married sister Mary Ann was living with him and his wife and son. Ten years later he was an innkeeper living at 179 Mill Street in Monks Coppenhall. Thomas was obviously successful at his trade, for in 1875 he was of sufficient status to describe himself as a gentleman i.e. retired and living on his own means. A family story has it that Thomas once 'owned all the pubs in Staffordshire', a somewhat unlikely claim that has yet to be born out by documentary evidence. Neither Thomas nor his wife, Elizabeth Boughey appear to have been alive in 1881.

Thomas Francis Bull was the only known child of Thomas and Elizabeth. He had a rather inauspicious start to his working life for throughout the 1870's he worked as a grocers assistant. First he lived in Burslem, which White described as "... a populous and well-built market town, which claims the honour of being 'the mother of the Staffordshire Potteries'...". Thomas Francis then moved to nearby Fenton.

Whilst living in Fenton Thomas Francis married Hanley born Elizabeth Ann Lawton in St Luke's Church in nearby Wellington. At that time the church, which stood on Well Street, was only some twenty-five years old. Elizabeth Ann's father, Henry Lawton, was a tailor. In keeping with the dominant industry in the area, Elizabeth Ann was a 'porcelain paintress'. Examples of her fine handiwork are still treasured by her descendants.

Portrait on Porcelain, believed to have been painted by Elizabeth Ann Lawton

Elizabeth Ann's brother, George Lawton married Sarah Halliwell. In about 1886 his growing family emigrated to Canada, from where his Henderson descendants still correspond with the authors of this family history.

By 1878 Thomas Francis Bull with his wife and first child had moved 20km (13mls) to the Northwest to the High Street of Monks Coppenhall in Cheshire. Until the middle of the 19th Century the community who lived in Monks Coppenhall and the surrounding area of South Cheshire were mainly farmers. In 1837 the Grand Junction Railway Company laid a railway line passing by Crewe Hall A railway line had been laid in 1837 by. A small railway station was built at Monks Coppenhall where the railway crossed the turnpike from Nantwich to Sandbach. Difficulties in access to the railway works at Edgehill, Liverpool forced the Directors of the Grand Junction to move their works. In 1840 they chose the hamlet near to Crewe Hall as the most satisfactory site being at the centre of a triangle of railway lines between Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. 1843 saw the opening of the Crewe Railway Works which was to become world famous for the quality of its steam locomotives. In 1864 the first ever plant for manufacturing steel by the Bessemer process was built in Crewe and it enabled the works to provide all the steel for locomotive production and to manufacture the rails for the LNWR. In 1877 the growing township of Monks Coppenhall was granted borough status, under the name of Crewe.

It was in Monks Coppenhall/Crewe that Thomas Francis first took a job as grocer’s assistant, later moving to 28 Wesley Street and becoming a barman. No doubt using the knowledge of the inn keeping trade that he had learned whilst at home it was not long before he moved to Birmingham to become a licensed victualler in his own right.

By 1888 the still growing family had moved to the 'Castle and Falcon' on the corner of Digbeth and Meriden Street in Birmingham. It was there, twelve years later, that Thomas Francis died. He left an estate valued at just under £85 after his debts and expenses were cleared. His relatively young widow soon took on a grocer's shop in Highfield Road, Saltley, before moving back into the city and a shop at 34 Bloomsbury Road. Elizabeth Ann died in 1915. Both partners were buried in Brandwood End Cemetery.

Elizabeth Ann Bull nee' Lawton

At least six, and possibly seven, children were born to Thomas Francis and Elizabeth Ann. Their first child, Thomas Henry (Chapter 15) became a professional soldier. Alice Maud married John Hancocks (Chapter 13). Samuel Edwin appears to have died in childhood. After working as a milliner, Laura, who was known as 'Tot' due to her small stature, married Alfred Thomas Couling, the son of Elger James and Catherine (aka Kate) nee Green, in Lichfield in 1907. Laura and Alfred Thomas had only one child, a daughter, Marjorie, who married John Prestige Gibbs before moving to the Devon to raise a small family of her own.

Family memory is not kind to Baron Lawton Bull. In 1901 he was a maker of wood patterns. He married a widow, Alice Maud Conyers nee' Mansell just before the First World War. The couple had only one child who died at just under two years old in 1917, AT 119 Benacre Street, Birmingham. Baron Lawton was probably serving in the army at the time. Following his return it is alleged that Baron Lawton drank away his wife's legacy from her first marriage. He died in Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham, in 1935 aged 49, after a long illness. He was buried at Brandwood End Cemetery in a family plot previously purchased by his sister Alice Maud Hancocks. His wife died 24 years later, apparently in a mental asylum. Having no living family it appears that she was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Baron Lawton Bull

Thomas Francis and Elizabeth Ann had at least one more child, Walter Frederick, and possibly another, Norman Bull. It is known that Ronnie Bull son of Norman Bull, having served in the REME in Ceylon during the Second World War and attaining the rank of sergeant, managed one of the Hancocks garages in Bordesley Green.

THOMAS BULL b.c1786 d.1836 m.MARGARET JENKINSON

..THOMAS BULL b.c1813 d.>1875 m. ELIZABETH BOUGHEY

…..THOMAS FRANCIS BULL b.1855 d.1900 m.ELIZABETH ANN LAWTON

……….THOMAS HENRY BULL b.1876 (Chapter 15)

……….ALICE MAUD BULL b.1878 d.1953 m. JOHN HANCOCKS (Chapter 13)

……….SAMUEL EDWIN BULL b.1880 d. ?<1891

……….LAURA BULL b.1883 d.- m.ALFRED THOMAS COULING

……........MARJORIE COULING b.1909 d.1983 m.JOHN PRESTIGE GIBBS

…………….....male GIBBS m.female BROOKS

……………….......female GIBBS

…………………….male GIBBS

………….....…male GIBBS m.

…………….....…..male GIBBS m.female HUNTER

………………….....….female GIBBS

……….BARON LAWTON BULL b.1885 d.1935 m.ALICE MAUD CONYERS nee' MANSELL

………......ALBERT EDWARD LAWTON BULL b.1915 d.1917

….......WALTER FREDERICK BULL b.1888 d.>1891

………......THOMAS FREDERICK NORMAN BULL b.- d.- m.- -

………….....… - BULL m.- -

…………….....….. Z. ELKIN

….......?NORMAN BULL b.c1901 m.- -

………......?RONNIE BULL b.-

.......MARY ANN BULL b.c1831 d.>1861 m.- WATSON

..ELEANOR BULL b.1815

..FRANCIS JOHN BULL b.1818

..WILLIAM BULL b.1821 d.>1861

..MARIA BULL b.1823

..SAMUEL GEORGE BULL b.1825 d.>1861 m.BARBARA MC GLOCH

.......SARAH G. BULL b.c1854 d.>1861

.......THOMAS J. BULL b.c1857 d.>1861

.......WILLIAM J. BULL b.1860 d.>1861

..CAROLINE BULL b.1829

..MARY ANN BULL b.1831 d.>1871 m.SAMUEL WATSON

..CHARLOTTE BULL b.1833 d.>1851

..MATTHEW OXLEY BULL b.1837

This page last updated 30 June 2007