Nat Gould

Mary Grove 1655-1743

Rowley Regis Church

Mary Grove was born in 1655, the daughter of John Grove of Rowley Hall (1) at Rowley Regis in Staffordshire.

She was baptised on 21 July 1655 at St. Giles' parish church (2) in Rowley Regis.

On 20 May 1703 she was married to Francis Eld at Rowley Regis (3). She was his second wife.

They lived at Newport in Shropshire, and had the following children:

John Eld. He was baptised on 4 April 1704 at Rowley Regis. He was twice married. He married Catherine Cotton, the widow of William Cotton of Etwall in Derbyshire (maiden surname unknown). Secondly on 22 April 1734 he married Catherine Holbrooke of Etwall. She 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.

Mary Eld was baptised on 25 Nov 1708 at Rowley Regis.

Their mother Mary Eld nee Grove died in 1743, and was buried on 21 April 1743 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) Not only has Rowley Regis village been completely transformed by industrial development since the days of the Grove family, but the church has been rebuilt. In 1913 a disastrous fire destroyed the church that had replaced the medieval building where the Grove family had been baptised and married, with the unfortunate loss of the parish register dated 1685 to 1714 and serious damage to some of the others: "Note from the Vicar of Rowley Regis (The Rev. A.F. Dauglish) concerning the Fire at Rowley Regis Church, 18th June, 1913" Staffordshire Parish Registers Society: Rowley Regis Parish Register Part III (1915) introduction.

(3) The following documents held at Staffordshire Record Office relate to Francis Eld and Mary the sister of John Grove of Rowley Hall: D798/1/11/5 6 March 1702 Six documents including a Grove lease in Rowley Regis dated 1696, and documents concerning property in Seighford.