Re: POTTER, of BOLTON LANCASHIRE UK
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In reply to:
POTTER, of BOLTON LANCASHIRE UK
8/12/01
Dear David,
I am researching my Potter family male line and at present find myself descended from the union of William Potter and Sarah Chambers who married at St Paul, Bedford in 1799.
They had at least two sons Richard, born 1801, and John born 1802, both christened at St Paul, Bedford.
I am descended from Richard who next appears as a gardener and marries Ann Eastham in 1820 in Fishwick, Preston, Lancs.
I have only found possibles but no firm connection as to what happened to his brother John.
Richard and Ann have various chldren including Richard, born 1830, and William born 1828. This Richard is my great grandfather, William married Ellen Beardmore of Wheelton, Lancs. William and Ellen do not appear to have had any children.
The family mixes its interests with employment in the burgeoning cotton industry but retains a long term interest in salmon fishing the River Ribble and the associated activity of net making. This section of the family live throughout most of the 19th century in a group of houses on the river bank close to the Ribble Bridge between Fishwick and Walton le Dale.
My great grandfather Richard married Julia Ann Clarke in Preston, they have a daughter, Ellen and emigrate to America circa 1853, they have a son John James, who does not survive and a son William, born 1857 but christened later in Preston, my grandfather John Potter was aparently born on the return trip to England.
Except that William Potter, by family reference appears to have married, he was a policeman in Clitheroe at the 1881 Census, I have no trace as to his marriage or progeny.
To complicate matters my grandfather John Potter, also a policeman, had one son (possibly Henry) by his first marriage to Susannah Dobson. He remarried to Maria Hickey following which he had by that union two daughters, Mabel, William (my father) and Isabel.
In 1976, after the death of my father and his sister Mabel, and in correspondence with my Aunt Isabel, she told me
"there is a William Potter at Bolton also a John and a Richard".
The Potters in my line were not much for handing down folklore however there was some scandal attached to the background and I have a memory that one relative was said to be a very tall bookmaker whose grave had to extend into the pathway. I have extensive correspondence from Illinois/New York/Wisconsin, from the Clarke/Bimson branch as received by the Potter family in Preston 1858-1887.
If you believe this has any connection with your own researches I would be pleased to keep in contact,
Alan Potter