Comerford Library opens at University of Virginia and honours the memory of leading lawyer James D Comerford

The Comerford Library opened last week at the Center for Politics in the University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Patrick Comerford

The Comerford Library opened last week at the Center for Politics in the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and honours the memory of a leading lawyer James D (Jim) Comerford of Atlanta, Georgia, who died two years ago (21 April 2024) at the age of 64.

Jim Comerford was vice-chair of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Politics, actively engaging with the development of teaching resources for students at the University of Virginia and working tirelessly to strengthen its programmes and operations.

Because of his philanthropic support of the centre and its building expansion, the centre has named the Comerford Library in his honour and memory. He often described his support of the centre as ‘an act of patriotism,’ supporting it as a means of strengthening democracy and civic institutions.

Jim loved politics and the history of politics, and his recollection of campaign and political history was second to none. He donated his large collections of political and campaign memorabilia, including pamphlets, buttons, stickers and posters, to the centre’s archives.

Inside the Comerford Library at the Center for Politics in the University of Virginia

Jim was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on 6 June 1959, the only son of Neil Dexter Comerford Jr and Margaret (née Dower) Comerford (1920-2016), a former navy nurse. He was seven when his father died suddenly. Margaret soon moved them to Atlanta, where Jim grew up. She later married physician Dr Mark Lindsey, who considered Jim a son.

Jim attended Marist High School, Atlanta, where he was President of the Student Council and developed a lifelong Catholic faith. He then attended the University of Virginia. There he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity; a Student Council representative; and a guest pundit for student weekly The Declaration, where he predicted the 1980 Reagan landslide state-by-state.

He majored in history and government and graduated with the class of 1981. He counted Professor Boots Mead and Professor Irby Cauthen as his mentors and he remained a life-long friend of the political analyst Professor Larry Sabato.

After earning his law degree at the University of Georgia in 1984, Jim began a legal career with a small law firm in Marietta, Georgia, and went on to practice in some of the south-east’s leading firms, specialising in government affairs. Eventually he went out on his own, creating a group of successful investment partnerships and business ventures.

When we met, he was a practicing lawyer or attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, and a counsel with Hunton and Williams LLP, a law firm with offices in 19 cities across the US, including Atlanta, and in Europe and Asia.

Jim remained close to the University of Virginia throughout his life. He was an early supporter and long-serving board member of Professor Sabato’s nationally renowned Center for Politics. He was also a member of the Atlanta selection board for the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, the most prestigious scholarship at the University of Virginia.

Jim was also involved in the economic development of Sandy Springs, Georgia, and was engaged in the efforts leading to the incorporation of Sandy Springs as a city.

Jim loved being the father of three children and encouraging their successes at Blessed Trinity, Marist, Oglethorpe University, Mercer University Atlanta, Auburn University and Georgia Institute of Technology. He had a love of story-telling and had a passion for his family, his home state of Georgia and his Irish heritage.

On the battlements of Ballybur Castle, Co Kilkenny, with Jim and Camilla Comerford, Jimmy Comerford and Frank Gray

When Camilla and Jim Comerford visited Ireland with their son Jimmy 14 years ago (May 2012), I hosted them on a genealogical tour that brought them to Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin and the Comerford ancestral home at Ballybur Castle at Cuffesgrange, near Callan, Co Kilkenny.

They had been in London and Oxford the previous week. On a warm sunny, early summer afternoon in Dublin, after a thorough tour of the cathedral and the crypt, we sat for an hour or more outside the Bull and Castle on Christchurch Place and had lengthy conversations that ranged from Handel to Pugin, liturgy to architecture, and through politics and music to travel and politics.

We were guests the next day of the late Frank Gray, who bought Ballybur Castle from the Marnell family for £20,000 in 1979 and spent over three decades lovingly restoring the 16th century tower house, bringing it back to its Tudor glory.

In Cuffesgrange, I showed them the remains of a Comerford memorial from the early 17th century, rescued in the 19th century by Bishop Michael Comerford and placed in the corner wall of the parish church. Back in Kilkenny, we visited Kilkenny Castle, had lunch in the Kilkenny Design Centre, and met members of Camilla’s extended family.

Jim Comerford died on 21 April 2024 after a six-year battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Camilla (Corrigan), their sons James ‘Jimmy’ Dower Comerford Jr and Joseph ‘Joey’ Corrigan Comerford of Atlanta, their daughter Margaret ‘Margeaux’ Eileen Comerford of Seattle, and their granddaughter Abigail Genevieve. His funeral Mass took place in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta, on 24 April 2024, and he was buried at Arlington Memorial Park.

Jim and Jimmy Comerford visiting the baptistery in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 2012 (Photograph: Patick Comerford)

Finding the other Lady Fitzgerald who had family roots in Lichfield, who was married three times, and whose life was marked by tragedy

Dam Street, Lichfield, where Lady Fitzgerald’s grandfather Christopher Heveningham was a mercer and draper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was recalling last night (15 May 2026) the social scandal that became a point of gossip in Staffordshire in the mid-18th century when Sir William Wolseley took his supposed second wife Anne Whitby to court in Lichfield seeking a divorce or annulment. The case involved allegations and accusations of greed, manipulation, cheating, forgery, desertion, perjury, bigamy, adultery, bribery, drugged drinks and corrupt and dishonest clergy.

Quite separately, I wrote some time ago (4 June 2020) about Sir James Fitzgerald who lived decades later at Wolseley Hall and in Lichfield and who managed to convincingly persuade people far and wide – and even Burke’s Peerage – that he was the rightful holder of an Irish title of baronet given to a different branch of the Fitzgerald family in Co Limerick.

Fitzgerald’s wife, Augusta Henrietta Fremantle (1803-1863), was known in polite circles as Lady Fitzgerald. They married in 1826 and lived for some years at Maple Hayes Hall near Pipe Hall and Lichfield. When he died in France in 1839, he was described as living at Wolseley Hall, but his widow continued to live at Maple Hayes and in 1841 she was attending Holy Cross Church, Lichfield. She later moved to Castle Ishen, Co Cork, where she died in 1863.

But there was another Lady Fitzgerald, the wife of a real Irish baronet, who also lived in Lichfield in the 19th century, and who had strong connections with Lichfield through her immediate ancestors, her mother and grandparents, her cousins and her grandchildren, and who was a direct descendant of the Comberford family of Comberford Hall.

Margaret (Warner) Fitzgerald was a direct descendant of Margaret Comberford and William Stanley who lived at Comberford Hall 250 years before she was born (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Margaret Warner (1806-1883), who eventually became the other Lady Fitzgerald in Lichfield, was a cousin of a number of prominent clergy in Victorian Lichfield, she was married three times, and the family of her third husband is still remembered in Ireland for the tragedies that befell successive generations, decade after decade, until the family line died out in 1917. Her life is a sad tale that includes drownings, suicide, a child’s death at play, crushing family debts, being widowed three times and her final days lived out in genteel poverty with fading memories of life among minor aristocracy.

This Lady Fitzgerald was born Margaret Warner in 1806, the daughter of Elizabeth Heveningham (1774-1823) from Lichfield and William Warner (1762-1835). They were married in Saint Philip’s Church, Birmingham, now Birmingham Cathedral.

Her mother Elizabeth Heveningham was born in Lichfield on 18 August 1774, the daughter of Charles Heveningham (1737-1782), a mercer and draper of Dam Street, Lichfield. He may have spent part of his childhood at Pipe Hall, the Heveningham ancestral home near Lichfield, and he was a direct descendant of Charles Heveningham (1540-1574) of Pipe Hall and his wife Dorothy Stanley (1530-1587), only daughter of William Stanley of Comberford Hall and Margaret Comberford (1494-1568). I have written last year (23 July 2025) about the Heveningham family and their links with the Comberford family.

Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield, at night … many members of the Heveningham family were baptised and buried from there (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Charles Heveningham’s first cousin Mary married the Revd Daniel William Remington, Vicar of Saint Michael’s (1757-1772) and of Saint Mary’s (1772-1789), Lichfield, and sub-chanter of Lichfield Cathedral; Elizabeth (Heveningham) Warner was a second cousin of two successive Vicars of Saint Mary’s, the Revd William Remington, who founded the first Sunday school in Lichfield, and the Revd Edward Remington; another second cousin Mary Remington married Thomas White, Procurator of the Ecclesiastical Court in Lichfield and a cousin of the poet Anna Seward, the ‘Swan of Lichfield’.

Elizabeth’s daughter Margaret Warner was married three times, and she was 47 and twice widowed when, on 27 April 1854, she married her third husband, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald (1787-1860), an Irish baronet, as his third wife.

Margaret was only 20 – perhaps even younger – when she married her first husband, Robert Jones Parry of Aston-juxta-Birmingham and Hendre, Flintshire. They were the parents of three children, a daughter and two sons:

1, Margaret Parry (1827-1894), who married the Revd Evan Pughe (1807-1869); her son-in-law, Major Philip Halliley Carter (1866-1949) of Birmingham, continued the research into the history of the Heveningham family. Some of her descendants returned to live in the Lichfield area.
2, Robert Jones Parry, who died an infant.
3, (the Revd) William Warner Parry, (born 1832), a naval chaplain whose research into the Heveningham family tree is also an important source.

Margaret Warrners’s second husband was Samuel Banks of Rugeley, but he died soon after their marriage.

The Town Hall in Cashel, Co Tipperary … Margaret Warner’s husband, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald, was Mayor of Cashel and High Sheriff of Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Margaret was twice widowed and was 47 when she married the widowed 67-year-old Irish baronet, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald (1787-1860). He was her third husband and she was his third wife. He was the son of Sir Thomas Judkin-FitzGerald (1754-1810) of Cashel, Co Tipperary, who was given the title of baronet in 1801 as a reward for his role in suppressing the United Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Co Tipperary, his support for the Act of Union, and for his time as High Sheriff of Tipperary (1798-1803).

During the 1798 Rising, he became known as ‘Flogging Fitzgerald’, When he died in 1810, an obituary’ referred to his excessive use of the cat o’ nine tails as a magistrate, saying: ‘The history of his life and loyalty is written in legible characters on the backs of his fellow countrymen.’

Margaret’s husband, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald, was born on 27 August 1787. He was 23 when he succeeded to his father’s estates in Cashel and his title as the second baronet in 1810. He lived in Golden, near Cashel, and was the Mayor of Cashel and High Sheriff of Co Tipperary (1819-1820).

Sir John married his first wife, the widowed Elizabeth Moore (née Pennefather), in Cashel Cathedral in 1816. They were the parents of one child, Margaret’s future husband, Sir Thomas Judkin-Fitzgerald (1820-1864). Elizabeth died on 26 April 1835, and Sir John married his second wife, Geraldine Fitzgerald, on 10 November 1837. They were the parents of one child, Geraldine Caroline (1839-1916), and this second Lady Fitzgerald died in childbirth on 11 February 1839.

By the time Margaret Warner married Sir John married on 27 April 1854, he was selling off large tracts of land in furtive attempts to clear his mounting debts. The land he sold between 1852 and 1856 included over 3,800 acres in Co Wexford, Co Waterford, Co Tipperary and Co Cork, and he sold another 1,500 acres in Co Cork in 1857. He was living at Golden Hills, near Golden and Cashel, when that too was advertised for sale in 1858, though it remained unsold.

Less than six years after he married Margaret, and now heavily indebted, Sir John was drowned on 28 February 1860. He was onboard the PS Nimrod, an Irish paddle steamer plying between Cork and Liverpool, when it ran aground at St David’s Head in Wales, smashed into three pieces and sank with the loss of 45 lives, 25 crew and 20 passengers. He was 72, Margaret was 52 and now a widow for the third time.

Sir John’s title, his remaining lands and his crushing debts were inherited by his only son, Margaret’s stepson, Sir Thomas Judkin-FitzGerald (1820-1864), as the third baronet. He was a magistrate and a Deputy Lieutenant for Co Tipperary, and continued to live at Golden Hills, which had not yet been sold off.

Three years before succeeding his father, Sir Thomas’s eldest son and heir, nine-year-old John Judkin Judkin-FitzGerald, died in another family tragedy in 1857 when he accidentally hanged himself in the garden. Two stories try to explain what happened: one account says it was an accident while the boy was playing on a swing; the other version says he was showing his younger siblings how their great-grandfather hanged rebels in 1798 when he slipped and accidentally hanged himself.

Sir Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald drowned himself in the River Suir at Golden on the night of 26/27 April 1864 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But the family tragedies do not end there. Margaret’s stepson, the boy’s father, Sir Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald, drowned himself in the River Suir at Golden on the night of 26/27 April 1864 when he was only 43.

A letter in the Clonmel Chronicle said reports that he was living in ‘greatly embarrassed circumstances’ and ‘greatly in debt’ were ‘much exaggerated’. But he was living with financial difficulties, finding he was liable for the debts of his father, Sir John Judkin Fitzgerald, totalling £7,000, or about £1.1 million today. Sir Thomas had insured his life for several thousand pounds so his family might not suffer from ever-mounting debts.

The jury reached a verdict of death as a result of temporary insanity. But local people tried to stop him being buried in consecrated ground in Ballygriffin churchyard because of his suicide. On the day of his funeral they packed the graveyard in Ballygriffin, filled the fresh-dug grave with stones, and blocked the priest from continuing with the burial. When he was buried eventually, his funeral was guarded by a large police presence.

By then, his step-mother, Margaret (Warner) Fitzgerald, now a widow for the third time, had moved to Moss Side, Manchester, with her son William Warner Parry and her step-daughter Geraldine Fitzgerald. Geraldine married Dr Walter Bourne in 1870 and they lived in Calcutta and later in Bradford. The Revd William Warner Parry, studied at Oxford, became a naval chaplain, and his research into the Heveningham family tree has been an important source.

Margaret died in genteel poverty in Southsea on 8 September 1883 at the age of 77. By then, her step-grandson, Sir Joseph Capel Judkin-FitzGerald (1853-1917), had succeeded to the Fitzgerald title as the fourth baronet as an eight-year-old in 1864. Golden Hills was advertised for sale again in 1878, when it was described as a ‘large castellated building’ with a drawing room opening into a conservatory, dining room and morning room, eight bedrooms and a servants’ hall. Most of the house had disappeared by the early 1940s, or was incorporated into a modern farmyard.

Sir Joseph Capel Judkin-Fitzgerald was the last and final baronet in his family. He lived a sad and dissolute life in England, accused of stealing jewellery, defrauding gullible divorcees, defaulting on loans and debts, leaving unpaid hotel and restaurant bills in London and Paris, and working as an unlicensed cab driver. He was threatened with imprisonment and was eventually declared bankrupt. He outlived his two sons, and when he died in 1917 his family title of baronet died out.

Saint Michael’s Church, Greenhill, Lichfield … many members of the Heveningham family are buried in the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, some of Margaret Warner’s descendants through her first marriage to Robert Jones Parry would return to live in Lichfield and some of them had interesting roles in Church and academic life.

In 1847, her daughter Margaret Parry (1827-1894) married the Revd Evan Pughe (1807-1869), Vicar of Bangor, and later Rector of Llantrisant. Their large family included: Margaret Constance Pughe (1862-1930), whose family returned to live in Lichfield; and Alice Gertrude Pughe (1869-1892), whose husband Major Philip Halliley Carter (1866-1949) of Birmingham, continued the research into the Heveningham family history.

Margaret Constance Pughe (1862-1930) married the Very Revd Charles Walter Carrington (1859-1941) in Cambridge in 1890. He became the mission chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield, and some of their children were born in Lichfield before the family moved to West Bromwich and then to New Zealand, where he was the Dean of Christchurch.

Margaret and Charles Carrington were the parents of a large family, including Philip Carrington (1892-1975), who was born in Lichfield and became Bishop of Quebec (1935-1960) and Metropolitan of Canada (1944-1960). Another son, the historian Charles Edmund Carrington (1897-1990), was Professor of History at Cambridge and the biographer of Rudyard Kipling and Graham Greene.

According to Margaret’s great-grandson, CE Carrington, writing in 1966, Lady Fitzgerald had ‘brought up her family to believe that they were the last survivors of one of the most ancient families in England, the Heveninghams of Heveningham, from whom she had inherited some old documents and a great deal of family pride.’

The two women known as Lady Fitzgerald had strong family links with Lichfield in the 19th century and both married Irish baronets. I sometimes wonder whether their paths ever crossed either in Lichfield or in Ireland, whether they knew each other, and whether they were ever confused with one another.

Most of the remains of the Fitzgerald estate in Golden, near Cashel, Co Tipperary, have had disappeared by the early 1940s and are difficult to find (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sources and references include:

The Visitations of Staffordshire and Warwickshire.
Michael Greenslade, Catholic Staffordshire 1500-1850 (Gracewing, 2006).

The Heveningham family tree on Geni (last accessed 21 July 2025).
‘The Heveningham Family of Staffordshire’ (last accessed 21 July 2025).
The St. Leger-May Family Home Page (last accessed 15 May 2026).
‘Townships: Wall with Pipehill’, in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, ed MW Greenslade (London, 1990), pp 283-294. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol14/pp283-294 (last accessed 21 July 2025).
‘Burntwood: Manors, local government and public services’, in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, ed MW Greenslade (London, 1990), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol14/pp205-220 (last accessed 21 July 2025).
Aleyn Lyell Reade, Johnsonian Gleanings, ‘Notes on Dr Johnson’s Ancestors and Connexions’, pp 1-41 (London: 1909).

When Sir William Wolseley married the widowed Ann Whitby in 1752, who was the real bigamist?

Wolseley Hall was destroyed in a serious fire in the early 1950s and was demolished in 1966

Patrick Comerford

Accusations of bigamy, adultery, infidelity and seduction in rural Staffordshire in the mid-18th century were at the heart of a complex legal battle over 270 years ago. The case and the appeal were drawn out between 1752 and 1754, and the stories that unfolded involved accusations of greed, manipulation, cheating, forgery, desertion, perjury, bigamy, adultery, bribery, drugged drinks and corrupt and dishonest clergy.

I came across these stories once again during a number of visits to Staffordshire in recent weeks, including visits to Wolseley, Rugeley, Stafford, Lichfield and Tamworth. These stories centre on the widowed Ann Whitbey (1724-1782), who went through some sort of a marriage ceremony with the widowed Sir William Wolseley (1692-1779) of Wolseley Hall, in 1752. Ann was then 28, a widowed mother with two young children; Sir William was 60, more than twice her age, and the recently widowed father of three sons and a daughter, then aged from one up to 12.

But were they ever truly married? And if there was bigamy, who was the guilty partner?

Sir William Wolseley was the fifth baronet of Wolseley, and the son of Captain Richard Wolseley, who established the Irish branch of the family at Mount Wolseley. When his uncles, the third and fourth baronets, Sir William Wolseley and Sir Henry Wolseley, died in quick succession in 1728 and 1730, he unexpectedly succeeded to the family title as the fifth baronet of Wolseley and inherited Wolseley Hall in 1730. A younger brother, Sir Richard Wolseley (1696-1769), inherited the family’s Irish estates at Mount Wolseley, Co Carlow, and became a baronet in his own right in 1744.

The High House, Stafford … John Robbins was MP for Stafford in 1747-1754 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Sir William Wolseley married his first wife, Ann Fieldhouse (1706-1752) from Rugeley, in 1738, when she was 31 and he was 46, and they were the parents of four children, three sons and a daughter:

1, Sir William Wolseley (1740-1817), who became the sixth baronet.
2, Admiral Charles Wolseley (1741-1808).
3, Sophia Wolseley (1749-1801), who married William Piggott (1743-1802).
4, James Wolseley (1751-1773).

Ann (Fieldhouse) Wolseley died of smallpox in January in 1752, and nine months later the widowed Sir William married the widowed Anne Whitby, daughter of William Northey, on 23 September 1752.

But soon a complex case of separation from bed and board was being played out in the ‘Bawdy Court’ of the Diocese of Lichfield, and then in the Court of Arches appeal court. The case and the reputations of all involved became major points of gossip in the coffee houses of London and in the parlours of country houses in Staffordshire.

Sir William Wolseley’s case against Ann Whitby or Ann Robins was heard in 1753 before Richard Smalbroke (1716-1805), who was Chancellor of the Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry for 64 years. Sir William stated that his wife, Dame Ann Wolseley, had committed adultery with John Robins, MP for Stafford, and he alleged fraud involving the falsification of the parish register in the Castle Church, Stafford.

Wolseley alleged that John Robins and Ann Whitby were married bigamously on 9 October 1752, but claimed that marriage was falsely recorded by the Revd William Corne, the curate of Castle Church, and that had been changed in the register variously to 9 June 1752 and then to 16 June.

These dates are pivotal to grasping the intricacies of the case. The records indicate that William and Ann were married on 23 September 1752; if she married Robins in October, her marriage to Robins was null and void and bigamous; however, if she married Robins in June her marriage to Wolseley was bigamous and null and void.

If William wanted to access Ann’s inherited wealth, an annulment would not suit him. In their marriage contract, Ann agreed to pay him £300 a year and undertook to make no claims on the Wolseley estate should she survive him. A separation based on adultery could lead to further claims on her fortune, while an annulment would not, because in the eyes of the law the marriage would never have taken place.

Ann Whitby’s father, William Northey (1690-1738), was MP for Calne in 1713 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ann Whitby was the daughter of William Northey (1690-1738) and his wife Abigail (Webster). He was MP for Calne in 1713 and for Wootton Bassett in 1714. He had inherited large property near Chippenham in Wiltshire and bought the Compton Basset estate near Calne. He accused his wife Abigail of adultery and claimed her son Thomas was not his but was in fact the son of Edward Thomas. Indeed, when William Northey died, Abigail married the same Edward Thomas. William Northey left only £1,000 in his will for Thomas, and so his daughter Ann inherited most of his wealth as a result of her mother’s alleged adultery.

Some writers suggest this acrimonious atmosphere of infidelity and adultery influenced Ann in her formative years. Ann was considered to be beautiful and when she married John Whitby of Whitby Wood (1716-1750) in 1743 she was 19. They were the parents of two sons: the Revd Thomas Whitby (1746-1828) of Creswell Hall, High Sherrif of Staffordshire, who is buried at Saint Mary’s Church, Stafford; and William Whitby (1748-1792).

John Whitby died in 1751 and within a month of his death the widowed Ann had started an affair with John Robins (1714-1754), MP for Stafford (1747-1754). She soon became pregnant again, but soon suspected the 38-year-old MP had ‘abandoned’ her. Ann then looked to the 60-year-old widower Sir William Wolseley to save her name and reputation. However, after her marriage to Wolseley, Robins returned and Ann left Wolseley to live with the much younger Robins.

George Winfield, a Lichfield publican, tried to serve a decree from William on Ann at Robins’s house in Stafford on 11 October 1753. He ‘searched diligently’ for her, but having waited an hour he pinned the decree to the door and left.

The case for Sir William and for Ann were handled by their lawyers: John Howard and Edward Burslem Sudell respectively.

William sought separation or divorce from bed and board and mutual cohabitation on the grounds of adultery. He graphically described her alleged adulterous behaviour, claiming Ann, ‘unmindful of their conjugate vows did in violation thereof behave herself in a very lascivious, incontinent and adulterous manner and did contract a criminal correspondence and intimacy with John Robins Esq and without any lawful cause quitted the conversation with her said husband Sir William Wolseley and in or about the month of October, went to live with said John Robins at his house in Stafford in an adulterous manner and went by the name of Robins and as the pretended wife of John Robins.’

He went on to say that in Robins’s house they had ‘frequently lain naked in one and the same bed together and have at such times had carnal use and knowledge of each other’s bodies and have committed the foul crime of adultery’. The court heard that two body impressions were found on the bed and that Ann had been frequently ‘lighted’ up to Robins’s bedchamber by servants and that Robins had later ‘followed on’.

William maintained that from June to September 1752, he had proposed marriage to Ann and that they had agreed to marry each other. Meanwhile, Robins asserted that he had proposed marriage to her between April 1751 and May 1752.

William presented a copy of the parish register with their marriage on 23 September 1752 at Colwich Church. The wedding was conducted by the Revd John Clements, Vicar of Colwich, and the witnesses included his nephew, Lieutenant Richard Wolseley, later Sir Richard Wolseley (1729-1781), the second baronet, of Mount Wolseley, Co Carlow.

Sudell, Ann’s lawyer, told the court that on 16 June 1752 John Robins and Ann Whitby were married in the Castle Church, Stafford, by the Revd William Corne. He presented an extract of the register, but this was a copy and not the original, and was not evidence that the date 9 June had been scratched out and replaced with 16 June.

Mount Wolseley, Co Carlow … Sir William Wolseley’s nephew, Sir Richard Wolseley, was a key witness in the case (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Throughout the case, Wolseley’s lawyer John Howard referred to Ann as ‘Ann Robins, falsely called Dame Ann Wolseley’, and he called Lieutenant Richard Wolseley as a witness. He said he was present at the marriage in Colwich Church on 22 September 1752, although the parish register indicates they were married on 23 September.

He described the domesticity of the Wolseley household, how he dined with William and Ann on 26 September, when she took her place ‘at the head end of the table’, and how he saw William and Ann walking together in the garden.

The judgment in Lichfield favoured Sir William. But Ann appealed and her case was heard by Sir George Lee in the Arches Court of Canterbury and began on 5 April 1754. The new evidence before the court involved the importance of the dates of the alleged marriages of Ann and John Robins, the alleged drugging of Ann and the pressure on her to sign a marriage agreement with Sir William.

Ann pleaded that she and Robins were married by the Revd William Corne on 16 June 1752. Corne, however, appears to have a crisis of conscience, and he later admitted to several witnesses and in a signed affidavit, that he acted illegally but with the best intentions.

The evidence suggested that Ann was pregnant by Robins and the date of the actual marriage was 9 October 1752, seven days after she married William. Robins begged Corne to enter the date of 9 June to save her ‘dignity’ – a reference to her pregnancy before marriage.

Corne was told that it was well known that Robins was with Lord Uxbridge on 9 June and could not have married Ann that day. Robins then told Corne to change the date from the 9 June to 16 June, and in what appears to have been bribery or inducement gave Corne £1,000.

In court, Sir Brooke Boothby (1710-1789), a Derbyshire landholder, alleged Corne asked him to see if Sir William would forgive him if he told him the whole truth. Boothby’s family once owned the Moat House, the former Comberford family home in Tamworth, and his son, also Sir Brooke Boothby (1744-1824), was a member of the intellectual and literary circle in Lichfield.

John Dunn claimed to have seen a change in the register to 16 June when he knew the marriage was on 9 October. Phoebe Booth, who also knew Corne, said that she had heard him say he had ‘grievously injured’ William. Richard Derry, Ann’s servant, claimed Ann and John Robins were married on 9 October and that he gave Ann away.

Corne confessed to fraudulently altering the parish records and inserting an incorrect date for the marriage. Although he said he falsified dates for the sake of Ann’s dignity, he admitted receiving £1,000. This would make him a party to a bigamous marriage, as he must have known that Ann had married William 17 days earlier.

There were allegations that Ann had been drugged or forced to drink too much at a dinner on 26 August 1752 in the vicarage of the Revd John Clements who had married Ann and William. The next day they signed a contract to marry, and the implication was that Clements and his wife were involved in some subterfuge along with William.

The Wolseley Arms, by the River Trent, near Rugeley in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The judge, Sir George Lee, initially rejected suggestions from Ann’s legal team that Corne’s affidavit should be ignored because of his fraudulent actions, that he was guilty of a clandestine marriage, that he had excommunicated himself and that he was not a reliable witness. In fact, Corne had died 19 months before the appeal, on 22 November 1753, and could not be questioned on his affidavit. In Lee’s opinion, no credible witness supported Sir William’s cause. He dismissed as unreliable allegations that Corne had married Ann and Robins on 9 October, as Corne had previously perjured himself.

To complicate all these matters, the parish register where the alleged altered marriage dates for Ann Whitby and John Robins were entered, shows no sign of any significant and meaningful alteration.

The final judgment was that William’s marriage to Ann was invalid because she was already married to Robins at the time. Lee also ruled that Ann should pay no costs, and so these probably fell on Sir William.

Robins absconded to France for fear of being charged with perjury, and died shortly after on 17 December 1754. Ann also absconded, but never faced charges of perjury or bigamy and held on to her fortune. When Robins died she married her third – or fourth – husband, Christopher Hargrave, a chancery solicitor. Sir William Woseley was never charged with bigamy, never married again and died on 12 March 1779.

A scandalous book, The Widow of the Woods (1755), published after the appeal, was written by a one-time associate of Sir William, Benjamin Victor. The Wolseley family tried to buy up as many copies of the book they could and burned them, but is still available online.

Further reading:

Alan Wiggins, The Bawdy Courts of Lichfield, ‘Sir William Wolseley 5th Baronet v Whitby or Robins or Wolseley – Trying to divorce somebody you might not actually be married to!’ (19 June 2019)

Sir Brooke Boothby (1710-1789) gave evidence in the case … his family lived in the Moat House, the former Comberford family home in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A bus shelter in Tamworth now blocks a restored listed building on Lichfield Street, but was this the chapel of the Moat House?

The former Peel School at No 17 Lichfield Street, Tamworth, has been restored in recent years … was this once the private chapel of the Moat House? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Mark Sutton and a small team of dedicated local skilled tradesmen in Tamworth have dedicated the last three years to restoring one of Tamworth’s lost jewels. They are close to completing a beautiful and sympathetic restoration of a long neglected grade II listed property, the former Peel School at No 17 Lichfield Street.

Mark has also been running No18 Coffee House and Wine Bar next door for the past three years too, and they celebrated that third birthday on Friday night at No18 with live music from Matt Sutton. Earlier, on Friday morning, I called into No 18 for a double espresso, but also visited No 17, the former Peel School, to see the work in progress as they put the finishing touches to the building, installing a new floor.

The old wooden doors have been removed, the original front stone window has been recreated, and all the stonework has been restored by Jason Petricca. The front is as close as Mark Sutton and his team can imagine how the building was originally designed when it was commissioned in 1837 by Sir Robert Peel.

But just before the window board was removed, in what can only be described as a work of cultural vandalism on the weekend before last, Staffordshire County Council erected a fresh new green bus shelter right in front of the newly created window, blocking it from view all along Lichfield Street.

‘I could cry if it wasn’t so laughable,’ Mark posted on social media. ‘Why they couldn’t put it 10 feet to the left where the bus stop actually is I'll never know. We have had no consultation in this whatsoever.’

Inside No 17 Lichfield Street, Tamworth, with a glimpse of the new bus shleter at the front door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I have long had a personal interest in the former school Mark Sutton is restoring, not least because I have long wondered No 17 Lichfield Street may once have been the private chapel of the Moat House, the Comberford family Tudor-style mansion a little further west along the same side of Lichfield Street.

This building at 17 Lichfield Street looks like a Victorian chapel and it was built as a school for Sir Robert Peel in 1837. It was the second building for the Peel School, which was first founded in 1820 in Church Street, beside Saint Editha’s churchyard.

The school moved to Lichfield Street when this building was erected in 1837. But it was housed there for little more than a decade and moved once again in 1850 when Sir Robert Peel replaced it with a new, third school across the street designed by Sydney Smirke.

In recent years, No 17 was a betting shop and then a furniture shop until it was closed and was sold in 2018. Until it closed, it was a whitewashed building. It has a large Gothic window in the gable, flanked by a lower Tudor-headed window and door.

Inside No 17 Lichfield Street, Tamworth, as its restoration moves closer to completition (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In a comment on a Tamworth Facebook page some years ago, Andrew Hale suggested that this building was originally a private chapel and was located in the original grounds of the Moat House.

He says the original bill for moving the building was paid not by the owners of the Moat House but by Sir Robert Peel, on the condition that it was converted into a school.

Andrew Hale did his prize-winning history project on the Moat House and its history in 1978-1980 while he was at Wilnecote High School. His mother was the head chef at the Moat House for many years and much his information came from the trust and owners of the Moat House at that time. The history project earned him the school history and research prize for 1980.

When Sir Robert Peel was moving his school from Church Street to Lichfield Street in 1837, Dr John Woody was living at the Moat House, having bought it with his mother in 1821. The Woody family had been tenants of the Moat House, and they bought it when parts of the Tamworth Castle estate were being sold off by a London auctioneer, John Robins, to clear the debts of the Townshend family.

If Sir Robert Peel moved the former chapel at the Moat House lock, stock and barrel to a new location further each along Lichfield Street for use as a school, was this the original chapel at the Moat House? And does this explain some of its pre-Victorian details, including large the Gothic window in the gable and the lower Tudor-headed window and door?

The premises at No 17 Lichfield Street long after the furniture shop closed (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

I first visited the Moat House around 1969 and 1970, and have often been shown the panelling that was said to have hidden more than one ‘priests’ hole’ that allowed Catholic priests to escape searches of the house in Elizabethan times when the Comberford family was recalcitrant in its recusancy.

The Act of Uniformity in 1559 had made absence from church a punishable office. Those who failed to come to church were known as ‘recusants’ and were to be fined. The Comberford family remained staunchly Catholic at the time and family members were frequently in trouble and were accused of taking part in some of the many plots against Queen Elizabeth.

On 20 January 1573, the Earl of Shrewsbury informed Lord Burghley that he had apprehended Thomas Comberford of Comberford, near Tamworth, ‘where masses were frequented.’ He also arrested two mass priests who had said a very large number of Masses there. Shrewsbury added that he wished ‘bishops and others in authority … would have more regard unto their charges and not suffer dangerous vagabonds to rest unpunished in their jurisdiction.’

Thomas Comberford was released after a short period. He, his wife Dorothy, and many other members of the family were fined on several occasions in Wednesbury and Leek in the 1580s for non-attendance at church. Thomas appears to have more careful to conform for the rest of his life. Although he and his family were frequently in trouble for non-attendance, he appears to have avoided the punishments inflicted on him.

However, in April 1588, his tenants, including Thomas ‘Heethe’ [Heath], were accused of harbouring seminarians and priests, including one ‘James Harryson.’ Harrison and Heath were arrested at Comberford were imprisoned in London. They were eventually released, but Harrison was arrested again in Yorkshire in 1602 and executed in York.

The Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth … did it once have a private chapel? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the summer of 1606, acting on a tip-off, Sir Humphrey Ferrers of Tamworth Castle sent the bailiffs of Tamworth with a number of his servants to break into the locked Moat House, then the home of Humphrey Comberford. They were ordered to search all the rooms, including under the beds and behind locked doors and panels, for priests and for any evidence that the Mass was being said in the house.

Ferrers gave a dramatic account of the search when he wrote to the Earl of Salisbury on 18 June 1606. Three men were found hiding in the house and, with the search party also finding a number of religious tracts, they were arrested on suspicion of being seminarians. But, despite the weight of circumstantial evidence, there was no convincing proof that Mass was being celebrated in the Moat House.

A ‘priests’ hole,’ said to have been used by the Jesuits harboured in the Moat House by Humphrey Comberford, led to the River Tame. The river may have provided safe routes down to Wednesbury Manor or north to the homes of other Catholics among the Staffordshire gentry.

It was whispered that the oak panelling inside the Moat House hid more than one ‘priests’ hole’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Although I have often seen the location of the supposed ‘priests’ holes’ in the Moat House, I was not aware until recent years that there may have been a private chapel in the grounds of the Moat House. Until the late 17th century, members of the Comberford family used Saint Catherine’s or the Comberford Chapel in the north aisle of Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, as the private family chapel, including for family burials and memorials. There was also a private chapel in Comberford Hall until the late 17th or early 18th century, according to the historian of Catholic Staffordshire, Michael Greenslade. Some more research is needed on a possible chapel in the Moat House.

As for the third Peel school on the other side of Lichfield Street, it had been turned into church rooms by 1907, and after the 1930s it was used as the Civic restaurant. That building later became a small factory for Hart and Levy Tailoring and then part of the Shannon’s Mill housing complex.

After being shown around No 17, I called into No 18 on Friday for my morning double espresso, and sat out in the sunshine in the small open yard at the back shared by both No 17 and No 18.

I had a bus to catch to Hopwas, where I wanted to see some more church buildings and locations, and to walk by the canal banks before continuing on to Lichfield. After coffee in No 18, I waited for the Lichfield bus – in the new, eyesore of a bus shelter outside No 17.

I hope to return soon to see No 17 when Mark Sutton and his team have completed their restoration project. By then, too, I hope the bus shelter has been moved to another location along Lichfield Street.

The new bus shelter on Lichfield Street blocks most views of No 17, just at its restoration is near completion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A canal-side walk and a late lunch in Hopwas after searching for more Comberford family links

Hopwas is about five miles south-east of Lichfield and two miles west of Tamworth and had links with the Comberford family from the late 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my 10-mile hike a few days ago a few days ago in south Staffordshire, I was searching once more for places associated with the Comberford family, including Wigginton Manor, the site of the old manor house in Comberford before Comberford Hall was built in the 18th century, and the site of Comberford Windmill on Coton Lane.

I ended up in the village of Hopwas on the main A51 in Staffordshire, on the south-east edge of Lichfield District Council and about five miles south-east of Lichfield and two miles west of Tamworth. The place had links with the Comberford family from as early as the late 13th century until at least the first half of the 18th century.

Hopwas has a population of about 700, and is part of the civil parish of Wigginton and Hopwas, which includes Hopwas, Wigginton, Comberford and parts of Coton. I returned to Hopwas yesterday, to explore the history and the legacy of the village.

Hopwas is recored in the Domesday Survey (1086), when it was named as ‘Opewas’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The centre of Hopwas is at the junctions with School Lane and Hints Lane, where the historic parts of the village have a mainly linear layout. Hopwas is set in open countryside with two waterways passing through it, the Coventry Canal and the River Tame. The main road slopes gently down from west to east, from about 65 metres above sea level along the canal to below 60 metres by the river. However, the surrounding land slopes steeply from the heights of Hopwas Wood to the north down to the banks of the River Tame to the east.

The first documented reference to Hopwas is in the Domesday Survey (1086), where it was recorded as ‘Opewas’, and it soon became a well-stocked royal forest. At the time, the settlement was owned by the king and had a mill. The area was predominantly agricultural and was prosperous, due to the natural fertility of the Tame Valley lowlands.

The name evolved by the 12th century to ‘Hopewasin’, probably from the Saxon ‘hop’, meaning a fen island or valley, and ‘waesse’, meaning a swamp leading to an enclosure near a marsh. Agriculture was then an important source of employment, and this continued in the centuries that followed.

Hopwas was a royal forest in the middle ages, providing stone and oaks for Lichfield Cathedral and the friary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When Alexander de Stavenby was the Bishop of Lichfield, Henry III gave permission for the Dean and Chapter at Lichfield in 1235 to dig stone in the King’s forest to repair Lichfield Cathedral.

The Franciscans or Greyfriars had arrived in Lichfield ca 1229 and founded a friary with land and houses given by Bishop Alexander de Stavenby. Henry III gave them ten oaks from Hopwas in 1237 to help them rebuild their chapel.

Edward I ordered all undergrowth in Hopwas Wood to be cut down and rooted up in 1277 to prevent evildoers from lurking in the wood, which had become notorious for the frequency of robberies, assaults and murders.

A lease dated 5 April 1599 and signed by Thomas, John and William Comberford, involving Dean’s Wood in Hopwas Hay and other lands on the Lichfield to Tamworth road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Comberford family had connections with Hopwas from at least the late 13th century that continued for almost 4½ centuries until about 1718.

Alan de Comberford claimed Wigginton Manor in 1278 and had lands in Comberford, Wigginton, Coton and Hopwas. His younger grandson, Richard de Comberford, had an eldest daughter and heiress, Margery, who was ancestor of the Hopwas and Endsore families of Comberford.

John de Comberford and his wife Alice, were granted Hopwas in 1366, along with extensive estates between Lichfield and Tamworth, by his kinsman, Canon Hugh de Hopwas, a canon of Lichfield Cathedral. This may have been a legal expedient to ensure the estates did not become church property, and in 1382 John de Comberford returned the property to the Hopwas family when he granted them to John de Hopwas.

John Comberford (1440-1508) is named in court case in 1461 involving properties in Hopwas, Coton and Tamworth. His son, Thomas Comberford (1472-1532), who was admitted to membership of the Guild of Saint Mary and Saint John the Baptist in Lichfield in 1495, secured full rights over the manor of Wigginton in 1514, along with a mill, meadows, pastures and rentals in Wigginton, Hopwas, Coton, Comberford and Tamworth.

John Comberford held the rights of fishery on the River Tame from Lady Bridge in Tamworth to Hopwas Bridge in 1532 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John Comberford still owned these properties when he died in 1532. He also had the right to hold a fair in Tamworth twice a year, the rights of fishery for a 2½-mile stretch along the River Tame from Lady Bridge, marking the boundary between the Staffordshire and Warwickshire parts of Tamworth, to Hopwas Bridge, and the right to keep six swans on the river.

Humphrey Comberford inherited these extensive Hopwas estates in 1528, and by 1544 that he held Hopwas, a wooded manor on the banks of the Tame. His second son, Humphrey Comberford, was the intended heir to the Hopwas estates, but he died unmarried in 1545 before his father died.

Thomas Comberford, his wife Dorothy, and their son and heir, William Comberforf, were holding the Manors of Comberford, Wigginton and Wednesbury, in 1592, which included a free warren in Comberford, Wednesbury and Hopwas and the Hay of Hopwas. In 1599, Thomas, John and William Comberford leased lands, including Dean’s Wood in Hopwas Hay and other lands on the Lichfield to Tamworth road, assigned to them in 1588 by their brother-in-law Sir William Stanford of Packington. Stanford sold all his rights in Hopwas to William Comberford in 1590 for £200.

Hopwas Bridge was described in 1608 as a private bridge in the repair of William Comberford. This William Comberford was taken to court in 1629 by the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, seeking a disputed annuity of £29 from the Manors of Wigginton and Comberford along his lands and tenements in Hopwas, Coton and Tamworth.

Black and White Cottages on School Lane, Hopwas … Catherine Comberford owned at least two cottages or house in Hpwas when she died in 1718 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Colonel William Comberford, who had been the royalist high sheriff of Staffordshire and was involved in the Siege of Lichfield, incurred heavy debts through his activities in the English civil war. By 1649, he was in a position to claim back his lands and pay off many of his debts, using lands in Tamworth, Coton, Hopwas, Comberford and Wiggington and the Manor of Bolehall as security.

After Robert Comberford died in 1669, his widow Catherine continued to live at Comberford Hall until she died in 1718. By then most of the Comberford properties had been mortgaged or sold off and she was a tenant of the Skeffington family of Fisherwick. Catherine’s will shows she still held land in Wigginton, and some property in Hopwas, and in Tamworth, including a house in Hopwas occupied by Henry Ashmore and another property in Hopwas she had bought from Francis Astbury and that was then occupied by Thomas Astbury. She divided these properties between her granddaughters Catherine Brooke and Mary Grosvenor of Tamworth.

A year before Catherine died, the former schoolmaster’s house in Hopwas was built in 1717 at the request of Thomas Barnes, who was born in Hopwas and was then living in London. Thomas Barnes Primary School was founded in 1724 in the schoolmaster’s house, and more school buildings have been added since.

The former schoolmaster’s house in Hopwas was built in 1717 with a bequest from Thomas Barnes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The life of Hopwas was always associated with water, first because of its position on the River Tame and then because of its connection with the canal after James Brindley was commissioned to build the Coventry Canal.

Work on the canal began in December 1768. But because Brindley demanded high standards in construction, the Coventry Canal Company ran out of money by the time the canal reached Atherstone in 1769, and Brindley was replaced by Thomas Yeoman. The canal was finally completed in 1789 after the two adjoining canal companies, the Trent and Mersey Canal Company and the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Company, received permission to complete and operate the approved but still-unbuilt section from Fazeley to Fradley.

Meanwhile, what was left of the former Comberford interests in Hopwas seems to have passed along with Comberford Hall in the mid-18th century through the Skeffington, Swinfen, Hill and Egerton families until 1761, when they were bought by Thomas Thynne, Viscount Weymouth and later Marquis of Bath. He sold the Manors of Comberford and Wigginton, including lands in Hopwas and Coton, in 1789 to Arthur Chichester (1739-1799), 5th Earl of Donegall, who built Hopwas Hayes Lodge.

Eventually, the Chichester family was crippled by the gambling debts of a profligate son, and found it impossible to pay off their loans, so that they were forced to sell Comberford Hall and the manorial rights and lands that went with it, including those in Hopwas.

The canal dissects Hopwas and provides a framework for the village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Hopwas Bridge, an old stone bridge, formed part of the original turnpiked road from Lichfield Road through Hopwas to Tamworth over the River Tame, and tolls were paid at the bridge. The bridge was washed away in a flood in 1795 and was replaced by a new bridge ca 1800. This landmark is now a Grade II listed structure and it marks the crossing point between Tamworth and Lichfield District.

The canal dissects Hopwas and has helped to provide a framework for the village. The historic core of Hopwas developed in a linear pattern alongside the canal and the adjacent Hints Lane, and this linear core helped to provide the rural charm of the village that has been preserved ever since.

Hopwas was described in the 19th century as ‘a small settlement situated at the bottom of a gravely hill’. Hopwas Water Pumping Station was built ca 1890 to the west to take advantage of the natural connection to the waterways.

By the early 20th century, the village sprawled further along A51 between Lichfield and Tamworth and housing developments grew up on the east side of Hints Lane. Despite minor alterations to the façades of some buildings and their change of use, the village kept its appearance. The gradual infill of development followed in the late 20th and early 21st century.

The Tame Otter, on the corner of the junction of Lichfield Road, Hints Road and School Lane, has become the focal point of the village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Hopwas Conservation Area is a designated place of ‘special architectural or historic interest’ and has has a number of listed buildings, including the Saint Chad’s Church, built in 1879 in an idyllic and charming setting on the initiative of the Revd William McGregor of Tamworth.

No 1 Hints Road is a late 18th century house that epitomises the Staffordshire vernacular style. It is a red-brick building with a plain clay tile roof and architecturally it is the most distinguished building in that part of the village.

Black and White Cottages in School Lane form a row of three cottages, including one house that probably dates from the late 17th century.

Hopwas has two old public houses, the Red Lion and the Tame Otter, formerly the Chequers. Their neighbouring, facing beer gardens front onto the Coventry Canal, creating an attractive open space, and the steady traffic on the canal and its ambiance provide a vibrant yet relaxing atmosphere.

The Tame Otter, on the corner of the junction of Lichfield Road, Hints Road and School Lane, provides the main landmark for Hopwas. With its historic architecture, its canal-side location and its popularity, it has become the focal point of the village.

The Ministry of Defence warns members of the public to follow the route of the bridle path in the woodland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

North of Hopwas village, Hopwas Hays Wood is 385 acres of ancient woodland, also known as Hopwas Hay or Hopwas Hayes, and was Crown property until the mid-16th century.

Hopwas Hayes Lodge was built ca 1786. His interests were bought out by the Levett family of Wychnor Park, and by 1834 the wood was owned by the Revd Thomas Levett (1740-1843), who was the Rector of Whittington for 40 years (1796-1836). He was a large landowner and played a role in the development of the local educational system. The house was bought by the Price family in 1949, but when it fell into disrepair it was demolished by Lichfield District Council.

A large part of the woodland is privately owned, mainly by Lafarge (Tarmac) and the Ministry of Defence. Hopwas Wood and parts of the range may be used by soldiers for dry training and the use of blank ammunition. Members of the public are warned to follow the route of the bridle path, to observe warning signs, and not to enter the range complex.

The Tame Otter (left) the Red Lion (right), with their facing beer gardens by the Coventry Canal create an attractive open space with a vibrant yet relaxing atmosphere (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I ventured to the edges of the woods, climbed up to Saint Chad’s Church, and strolled along the canal towpaths before ending my day-long hike by rewarding myselff with a late (very late) lunch and a glass of wine at the Tame Otter.

I lingered in the sunshine a little longer than I had planned last week and missed the bus that would get me to Lichfield in time for choral evensong in the cathedral. Instead, I returned to Tamworth, had another wistful look at the Moat House on Lichfield Street, and caught the train back to Milton Keynes. But I returned to Hopwas yesterday, and managed to catch the bus to Lichfield in time for the mid-day Eucharist.

But more about Saint Chad’s Church in Hopwas, and some of the other churches, chapels and religious communities, in the days to come, hopefully.


A few moments in the sunshine on the Coventry Canal in Hopwas in the mid-day sunshine yesterday (Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Chetwynd family in Rugeley, MPs for Lichfield, Stafford and Tamworth, and Comberford family links

Lower Hall, the former residence of the Chetwynd family in Rugeley, was demolished before 1800 … it may have stood on the site of the Old Post Office (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

With my return visits to Rugeley, Brereton, Stafford, Wolseley, Lichfield, Tamworth and other parts of Staffordshire, I have written about the Chetwynd family, the supposed murder by Dorothy Chetwynd of Sir Walter Smyth, the elderly husband who was three times her age, and the complete lack of historical evidence or primary sources for the stories in local lore of that murder or of Dorothy’s alleged execution by being burned at the stake.

But the stories of the Chetwynd family led me to further genealogical and historical research into other family stories, and I came across stories of how one branch of the Chetwynd family in Rugeley were in direct descent from the Comberford family of Comberford Hall and the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Lichfield.

This branch of the Chetwynd family included another Dorothy Chetwynd who was a nun in Bruges, a 17th century; a 17th century MP for Stafford; and an 18th century MP for Lichfield who ran up heavy debts and whose funeral was delayed for weeks by his creditors.

The Rugeley branch of the family was founded by Dorothy Smyth’s nephew, Thomas Chetwynd (1561-1633), whose wealth came chiefly from the iron industry. His brother, the Very Revd Edward Chetwynd (1577-1639), was the Dean of Bristol (1617-1639) and chaplain to Queen Anne of Denmark, while a sister, yet another Dorothy Chetwynd, a nun in Bruges.

This Thomas Chetwynd married Dorothy Coleman, a granddaughter of William Comberford (1551-1625) of the Comberford Hall, who entertained Charles I, as Prince Charles at theMoat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth, in 1619. Dorothy Comberford married Walter Coleman of Cannock and Rugeley, a partner with the Comberford family in iron ore and mining interests in Wednesbury, and their daughter Dorothy married Thomas Chetwynd.

Dorothy (Coleman) and Thomas Chetwynd were the parents of Walter Chetwynd, named probably after his grandfather Walter Coleman, who married Dorothy Comberford; and of William Chetwynd, who became a merchant and shipowner in Bristol, probably through connections made by his uncle, Edward Chetwynd, Dean of Bristol.

The Ancient High House in Stafford … William Chetwynd was MP for Stafford in 1661-1679 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

William Chetwynd married Elizabeth Long, and this branch of the family returned to Rugeley when their son, William Chetwynd (1628-1691), inherited family estates in Rugeley, Staffordshire, and Grendon, Warwickshire, from his unmarried uncle Walter Chetwynd, who died in Rugeley in 1653.

At first, William was seen as hostile to the Stuarts. His election as chamberlain just before the Civil War was initially vetoed by the council, and he held that office even after the execution of Charles I. But back in his ancestral Staffordshire, after succeeding to his uncle’s estate in Rugeley, William Chetwynd was named to the Staffordshire assessment commission under the Protectorate, and he was clearly an Anglican and a royalist.

Shortly after the Restoration of Charles II, he was reported to be ‘well-moneyed, … loyal and orthodox’ and ‘an ingenious, sober man’. He was also described, though incorrectly, as a ‘burgess for Lichfield’.

William Chetwynd ploughed some of his money back into his family business. He began manufacturing garden-rollers at Madeley, bought several mills along the Trent, where he ground corn and produced starch and paper, and bought more land, increasing the value of his estate.

Chetwynd was the first of his family to enter Parliament when he became MP for Stafford in 1661. He was an active MP in the Cavalier Parliament, and sat on a number of committees, including one for restoring the bishops and another for ‘preventing mischief’ from Quakers.

He was involved in the Stour and Salwarp navigation, between the River Severn at Mitton, Kidderminster, and the edge of the Black Country at Stourbridge. He was involved in debates on confirming ministers in their livings, banning nonconformists (‘sectaries’ or ‘conventicles’) from meeting, preventing electoral abuses and on cattle imports from Ireland.

He was a political friend of the Duke of Ormonde and the Duke of Leeds, and was also high steward of Lichfield (1678-1686). After one vote in 1675, he was sent a hamper of German wine. Chetwynd later admitted he had scarcely been sober for five after, drinking in Lichfield with his cousin Sir Robert Holte of Aston, Matthew Smallwood, Dean of Lichfield, and Richard Dyott (1619-1677), MP for Lichfield.

Chetwynd decided not to stand for Stafford again in 1679, probably under political pressure locally, and he took no further part in politics. He was 63 when he died at Grendon, his Warwickshire estate about halfway between Tamworth and Atherstone, on 9 April 1691, and was buried at Rugeley.

William Chetwynd left a life interest in his estates to his sister Mary. She placed a memorial in Saint Augustine’s Church, Rugeley, describing his time in the militia and Parliament, and describing him as ‘conspicuous for intelligence, prudence, and constancy … and faithful to Church, King and country’.

Bore Street, Lichfield, at night … Walter Chetwynd was the MP for Lichfield from 1715 to 1731 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Chetwynd estates eventually passed to William’s first cousin once removed, John Chetwynd of Ludlow, Shropshire, a grandson of Ralph Chetwynd, a younger brother of Walter Chetwynd of Bristol. Grendon eventually passed in 1719 to John Chetwynd’s son, Walter Chetwynd (1680-1732), who was the MP for Lichfield from 1715 to 1731, and who amassed such large debts that he was forced to resign and then accepted an appointment as Governor of Barbados in the hope of escaping the debt collectors at his door.

This Walter Chetwynd succeeded to the Grendon estate when his grandfather, Charles Chetwynd, died at Grendon in 1719. He was first elected a Whig MP for Lichfield in 1715 and spoke and voted against the septennial bill, a law extending the maximum term of Parliament from three years to seven. It was designed to stabilise the Hanoverian regime against Jacobite threats and to reduce political volatility.

When he became Paymaster of Bounties and Pensions in 1718, his appointment forced a by-election in Lichfield, and in the by-election on 18 March 1718 he was defeated by one vote by the Tory, William Sneyd. Chetwynd’s supporters claimed they were ‘barbarously beaten and abused and their lives were endangered by a great mob with papers in their hats resembling white roses’, the emblem of the Jacobite pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie. Chetwynd challenged the result legally and he returned to Parliament as the MP for Lichfield on 10 December 1718.

From then on, Chetwynd voted with the Whig government, and he was re-elected for Lichfield in 1722 and again in 1727. His kinsman, John Chetwynd (1643-1702) of Rudge Hall, was MP for Tamworth (1698-1700), MP for Stafford (1689-1695, 1701-1702) and High Sheriff of Staffordshire (1695-1696).

Tamworth Town Hall … John Chetwynd (1643-1702) of Rudge Hall, was MP for Tamworth (1698-1700), MP for Stafford (1689-1695, 1701-1702) and High Sheriff of Staffordshire (1695-1696) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When Joseph Comerford erected his plaque to the Comberford family in the Comberford chapel in Saint Editha’s Chapel, Tamworth, in 1725, he says the family ‘died out with the death of Robert, last scion of the Staffordshire branch in England, when he died in AD 1671’. However, it is difficult to believe that he did not know of this powerful political family in Lichfield and Tamworth who were immediately descended from the Comberford family.

Perhaps, he ought to have known too that there were descendants of the Comberford family living in Heveningham family in the Lichfield area.

Chetwynd found himself in a financially straitened situation, perhaps because of his wife’s lifestyle, and he resigned his seat on 13 April 1731 to take the post of Governor of Barbados, with the promise of £2,000 a year. As he was preparing to set out for the West Indies, however, he died at his house in Sackville Street, London, on 5 February 1732. His funeral was delayed by three weeks or more by bailiffs seeking to extract debts owned by the dead man.

According to Lady Huntingdon, ‘poor Mr Chetwynd’s corpse … had been so barbarously treated, for since his death, which is now three weeks, there have been bailiffs by it night and day, and will not let it be buried. I think it should almost distract his wife, and more so when she reflects it is chiefly by her means the poor remains of him are used in so shocking a manner, for I believe it will be hardly in her power to do justice to many of his creditors.’

His wife, Barbara Goring of Kingston, Staffordshire, died a year later and left her mother as the guardian of their children. Their eldest son, Walter Chetwynd, died of a fever caught while attending a trial at the Old Bailey in 1749. Their second, William Henry Chetwynd, succeeded to Grendon, but he had no children when he died in 1755, though twice married, and he left Grendon and an estate of £3,000 a year to his brother’s granddaughter, Mary Blundell.

Anson Street, in the heart of Rugeley … the Anson family, later Earls of Lichfield, bought the ‘Manor’ of Rugeley from the Chetwynd family in 1768 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Mary Blundell was a granddaughter of John Chetwynd of Weeping Cross, between Stafford and Rugeley, and a daughter of Montague Blundell, Lord Blundell. Her second husband, General Lord Robert Bertie (1721-1782), was Governor of Cork (1762-1768) and Governor of Duncannon, Co Wexford (1768-1782). In 1768, Lord Robert sold what was described as the ‘manor’ of Rugeley to Thomas Anson of Shugborough, later Viscount Anson, who was succeeded in 1818 by his son Thomas William, later Earl of Lichfield.

When Mary died in 1800, these estate passed to a distant kinsman, Sir George Chetwynd (1739–1824) of Brocton Hall, who became a baronet in 1795. Brocton Hall, between Rugeley and Stafford and near Wolseley Bridge, was rebuilt by the Lichfield architect Joseph Potter in 1825 and was sold to a golf club in 1923; Grendon Hall remained in the Chetwynd family until it was demolished in 1933.

The title of baronet remains in this branch of the Chetwynd family, although the present title holder, Sir Peter James Talbot Chetwynd, is not appear on the official roll.

Another branch of the Chetwynd family – although not descended from the Comberford family though Thomas Chetwynd and Dorothy Coleman – has also been associated with the same parts of Staffordshire. They are descended from Anthony Chetwynd, a younger brother of that Thomas Chetwynd, and have long been associated with Ingestre Hall and the title of Viscount Chetwynd. A Chetwynd heiress, Catherine Chetwynd, brought her family names and some of the estates into the Talbot family when she married John Talbot.

That branch of the Talbot family were given the title Earl Talbot, donated land for Saint Michael’s Church in Brereton, and gave their name to many places in the Rugeley area, including the Talbot Arms, associated with the ‘Poisoner of Rugeley’ William Palmer. After one Earl Tabot also became Earl of Shrewsbury, the pub became the Shrewsbury Arms, and is now known as ‘The Shrew’.

There was another marriage involving the Chetwynd and Talbot families that resulted in a sensational divorce case in 1865. But that, perhaps, is a story for another evening.

Brocton Hall, between Rugeley and Stafford … home to generations of the Chetwynd family of Rugeley

Further Reading:

HE Chetwynd-Stapylton, The Chetwynds of Ingestre, being a history of that family from a very early date (London: Longman & Green, 1892)