Nat Gould

John Eld 1704-1796

John Eld was born in 1704, the son of Francis Eld 1650-1722 and his wife nee Mary Grove 1655-1743, and was baptised on 4 April 1704 at Rowley Regis. His mother was from a family that had lived at Rowley Hall for generations (1).

He married Catherine Cotton, the widow of William Cotton of Etwall in Derbyshire (maiden surname unknown). She had died by 1734 when he remarried.

John Eld married Catherine Holbrooke of Etwall on 22 April 1734. They had the following children:

Francis Eld. He was born in 1736. He married Elizabeth Rogers on 13 July 1772 at St Clement Danes church in London. Elizabeth died on 8 Jan 1833. Francis Eld died in 1817, and was buried on 17 July 1817 at Seighford in Staffordshire.

Catherine Eld. She was born in 1738, and lived at Dorking in Surrey. It was rumoured that she was going to be married to the Duke of Norfolk, but the wedding did not take place (2). She was married to Dr. Walter Kirby on 6 March 1793 in London.

Their mother Catherine Eld died in 1785, and was buried on 9 April 1785 at Seighford in Staffordshire.

Her husband John Eld died at Pit Place, Dorking in Surrey aged 92 years, and was buried on 16 April 1796 at Seighford.

(1) Rowley Hall was the Manor House of Rowley Regis, near the parish church of St. Giles. The original house dated from the twelfth century, but was rebuilt during the sixteenth Century and again in the nineteenth. It was demolished in 1970s. By the sixteenth Century the Grove family owned extensive property in Rowley Regis, where they were the local gentry family for several generations.

Thomas Grove, the father of Mary Grove, had another daughter Katherine Grove, who was married to Samuel Leigh (or Lea) of Aldridge in Staffordshire. Thomas Grove died in 1693 and was succeeded at Rowley Hall by his son John Grove. But in 1705 a dispute as to the ownership of the Rowley Hall estate resulted in its division between the Grove, Leigh and Eld families. In 1746 Rowley Hall itself was in Leigh hands. But when Thomas Fetherston Leigh (son of Samuel Leigh and Katherine Grove) died, his daughters sold it to John Eld (son of Francis Eld and Mary Grove). When he died in 1796 his Rowley estate was to be sold to set up a trust fund for his grandsons. Rowley Village, Rowley Regis http://rowleyvillage.webs.com/rowley.htm

(2) "The old mad drunken Duke of Norfolk is going to be married again to a Miss Eld, who is forty years old and a Protestant": Lady Mary Coke to Lady Ossory 20 June 1785. A footnote reads "Perhaps Catherine Eld who married Dr Kirby of Dorking; she was daughter of John Elde (ca 1704-96) of Dorking, and sister of Francis Eld (1736-1817) of Seighford Hall, Staffs (Burke, Landed Gentry, 1952. The Duke of Norfolk's branch of the Howard family was from Dorking. The marriage did not take place. Lady Mary Coke heard the rumour at the Duchess of Montrose's 13 June 'of many marriages, some of which are too improbable to make them worth naming, but one that is affirmed to be true, however ridiculous, is the Duke of Norfolk and a Miss Elde who I have not seen for many years but remember about twenty years ago, a tall thin person with a neck like a swan' ". The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence: volume 33 (1965) page 467.