Finding another Comerford family in London and links with Aylesbury and other places in Buckinghamshire

Thomas Comerford and Ann Underwood were married in Saint Botolph’s Church, Aldgate on 28 October 1770 … I have been trying to trace their family in recent weeks (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been researching two branches of the Comerford family in London in recent weeks and have visited some of the areas where they lived and the London churches where they were baptised, married and were buried from.

These two branches of the family (see here and here) share a common ancestor, Thomas Comerford, who came to London from Ireland and was a tobacconist in London from the mid-18th century. Although they went on to have contrasting social experiences and lives, they continued to share the same naming patterns when it came to naming patterns.

Now I have come across a third branch of the Comerford family in London that I believe may be closely related to these two. As I was putting together a family tree for this third London branch of the Comerford family, I found an unexpected connection with Old Wolverton, which is less than half an hour’s walk from Stony Stratford, and Castlethorpe and Hanslope, villages about three or four miles north of Stony Stratford, and in nearby Newport Pagnell.

I told the story of the Castlethorpe and Old Wolverton connections with this other Comerford earlier this week, and promised to outline the family tree of this third Comerford family too.

Naming patterns, inter-marriages with the Cox family and the places where this third London branch of the family lived seem to indicate they were descended from Charles Comerford (1784-1849), a London solicitor and half-brother of both James Comerford (1764-1833), ancestor of the Comerford family of Holborn and Belgravia, and Thomas Comerford (1769-1810), draper, of Bond Street, who has a large number of living descendants in London, Northampton, Leicester and other places.

These families are descended from Thomas Comerford, who came to London from Ireland and was a tobacconist in London from the mid-18th century. He was twice married and married his first wife Alice Davenport (1735-1769) on 26 October 1759 in Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel. They lived in Leman Street, Whitechapel (1759-1768), and they were the parents of three sons, including James Comerford (1764-1833), and Thomas Comerford (1769-1810).

Alice died in childbirth in 1769, and the widowed Thomas Comerford married his second wife, Ann Underwood (1734-1807), in Saint Botolph’s Church, Aldgate, on 28 October 1770. Thomas and Anne Comerford were the parents of two more children, a daughter and a son:

Charles Comerford (1784-1849), solicitor. He married Elizabeth Edings Morgan (1797-1867) in Saint Luke’s Church, Chelsea, on 1 May 1813. He lived at East Street, Lamb’s Conduit Street, off Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury (1807), 16 Clement’s Inn, off the Strand in Saint Clement Danes parish (1838-1840), 72 Old Broad Street (1848), and 21 Oxford Square, Paddington, at the time of his death (1849).

I suggest – although more research is needed – that this Charles Comerford was probably the father of:

Charles James Comerford (1817-1887), born ca 1817. He married Emma Haddow (born 1834) of Stepney, daughter of Joseph Haddow (1801-1875) of Shoreditch. They lived in Hammersmith, and their only known son was:

1, Charles James Comerford (1862-1930)

Charles James Comerford died in Kensington on 21 April 1887. His only known son that I can find to date was:

Charles James Comerford (1862-1930), a shipping accountant, was born in Bermondsey in 1862. He married Charlotte Cox (1857-1930) in London on 30 September 1882. They lived in Shepherd’s Bush, 41 Wardo Avenue, Fulham, Hammersmith and Islington. They were the parents of six sons and a daughter:

1, Charles James Comerford (1884-1887), died in childhood.
2, Charlotte Emma Comerford (born 1884), born in Shepherd’s Bush.
3, Herbert J Comerford (born 1886), born in Shepherd’s Bush.
4, Cecil Percy Comerford (1890-1928), born in Hammersmith, died in Henley, Oxfordshire, October 1928.
5, George Cyril Comerford (1892-1971), of whom next.
6, Harold William Comerford (1894-1963), born Marylebone in 1894, living in Fulham in 1901 and 1911. He married Lily Elizabeth Beale (1903-1990) of Fulham, daughter of Charles Frederick Beale (1867-1931) and Louisa Matilda Ebbitt (1869-1948). They lived at 116 Mornington Road, Ealing. He died in Worthing 19 October 1963. His widow Lily married her second husband, Charles Robert Howes (1892-1986) in Worthing in 1969, and she died in Worthing 16 September1990.
7, Roland Frederick Comerford (1900-1974), born in Fulham in 1901, living in Fulham in 1911, died in Brent 30 August 1974.

Charlotte (Cox) Comerford (1857-1930) died in Bristol in January 1930 and Charles Comerford died in Hammersmith six months later in July 1930. Their fourth child and third son was:

In later life, George Cyril Comerford (1892-1971) and his family lived in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

George Cyril Comerford (1892-1971) was born in Hammersmith, London, 7 June 1892, and grew up in Fulham. He was working as a clerk when he married Lottie Elizabeth Weston (1893-1958) in Fulham on 24 September 1916, and they first lived 17 Rostrevor Road, Fulham. He entered the military in 1918 at the end of World War I, and the couple later lived in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

Their only child was:

1, Herbert George Comerford (1928-2021), of whom next.

Lottie Elizabeth (Weston) Comerford died in Aylesbury 15 November 1958; George Cyril Comerford died in Aylesbury 18 February 1971. Their only son was:

Herbert George Comerford (1928-2021) of Bierton, Aylesbury, and Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. He was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, 2 January 1928. At the age of 21 in 1949, he was still living in Bierton, near Aylesbury. At 24, he married in July 1952 in North Buckinghamshire, Barbara R Whiting (1929-2016), daughter of Charles Reginald Whiting (1886-1954) of Manor Farm, Wolverton, and Gladys M Whiting (1893-1974).

Barbara Ruth Whiting was born in Potterspury, Northamptonshire, 29 March 1929. Her father, Charles Reginald Whiting (1886-1954), was born at Castlethorpe, Buckinghamshire, and later lived at Pottersbury, Hanslope, Newport Pagnell, and then at the Manor Farm, Old Wolverton. He married Gladys M Whiting (1893-1974) of Long Buckby Wharf, Northamptonshire. Charles died on 23 May 1954, Gladys died in Old Wolverton on 3 February 1974, and they are buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard, Old Wolverton.

Herbert and Barbara Comerford were the parents of a large family, including four sons and a daughter. They later lived in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, where Barbara Comerford died on 21 August 2016, and Herbert Comerford died on 27 February 2021. I understand they have many descendants living today.

Manor Farm, Old Wolverton … the home of Barbara (Whiting) Comerford’s parents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A Comerford family link brings me to Manor Farm in Old Wolverton and back to Castlethorpe

Manor Farm, Old Wolverton, the home of the Whiting family for over 40 years … Barbara Ruth Whiting married Herbert George Comerford in 1952 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I have been researching two branches of the Comerford family in London in recent weeks and have visited some of the areas where they lived and the London churches where they were baptised, married and were buried from.

These two branches of the family (see here and here) share a common ancestor, Thomas Comerford, who came to London from Ireland and was a tobacconist in London from the mid-18th century. Although they went on to have contrasting social experiences and lives, they continued to share the same naming patterns when it came to naming patterns.

Now I have come across a third branch of the Comerford family in London that I believe may be closely related to them. But as I was putting together a family tree for this third London branch of the Comerford family, I found an unexpected connection with Old Wolverton, which is less than half an hour’s walk from Stony Stratford, and Castlethorpe and Hanslope, villages about three or four miles north of Stony Stratford, and in nearby Newport Pagnell.

When I moved to Stony Stratford four or five years ago, I found opportunities to visit a number of places within a short distance in both Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire associated with branches of the Comberford and Comerford families.

For ten generations, members of the Comberford family of Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth in Staffordshire, and their ancestors in the Parles family owned large portions of land in north Northamptonshire. These families gave their name to the manor near Watford Gap that was known for centuries as the Cumberford Manor and, before that, the Parles Manor. When the heiress Joan Parles married John Comberford, she brought the fourth part of the manor of Watford once held by the Parles family to the Comberford family ca 1460, and from then on it was known as Comberford Manor or Cumberford Manor.

Joan and John Comberford owned the manor of Byfield, with extensive property there and in Watford, Murcott, Shutlanger, Stoke Bruerne, Shaw, Alderton and Wappenham, along with half an acre in Yelvertoft. The Comberford family sold the former Parles estates in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Wappenham in 1504. But the family continued to hold on to the Cumberford Manor until Thomas Comberford sold his share of the manor in Watford to Sir John Spencer in 1563.

Quite separately, John Comberford’s father, Judge William Comberford, bought properties in Newport Pagnell and Tickford in 1470-1471.

Later, John Comberford’s grandson, Canon Henry Comberford (1499-1586), Precentor of Lichfield Cathedral, was the Rector of Yelvertoft in 1546-1560. One of his predecessors there was his first cousin, the Revd Professor Thomas Babington, who was the Rector of Yelvertoft in 1510, and was also the Rector of All Saints’ Church, Milton Keynes, briefly in 1560, as well as Rector of Adstock and Sherrington, Buckinghamshire (1557), and Rector of Twyford, Buckinghamshire (1560-1563).

One of the London branches of the Comerford family has a number of members who have lived in Northampton for four or more generations, where they have been involved in the boot industry and the trade union movement. Another branch of the family closer to home in Buckinghamshire, orginally from Rosenalis an Ballinakill, Co Laois, has given its name to Comerford Way, a street in Winslow.

Barbara Comerford’s parents, Charles and Gladys Whiting, are buried in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

My interest in the London branches of the Comerford family led me to another connection with these parts of Buckinghamshire. In July 1952, Herbert George Comerford (1928-2021) from Bierton near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, married Barbara Ruth Whiting (1929-2016), of Manor Farm, Wolverton.

Barbara Comerford was born in Potterspury, Northamptonshire. Her father, Charles Reginald Whiting (1886-1954), was born at Castlethorpe, Buckinghamshire, and later lived at Pottersbury, Hanslope, Newport Pagnell, and then at the Manor Farm, Old Wolverton. Charles and his wife Gladys died in Old Wolverton and are buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard, Old Wolverton.

So in recent days I went back to Castlethorpe and to Old Wolverton went in search of Manor Farm, where Barbara Comerford’s parents lived from 1929, to see their grave in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church, to see the Whiting family graves in the churchyard at Saint Simon and Jude in Castlethorpe, and to find out more details of the history of the extended family Whiting family who had become intertwined with this branch of the Comerford family through the marriage of Barbara Whiting and Herbert Comerford.

The mediaeval village of Wolverton was divided east and west by the Grand Union Canal in 1800 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Manor Farm in Old Wolverton was managed by the Gleed and Wilkinson families for a long period before the Whiting family took over the farm in 1929 and they farmed the land for the next 41 years. Their time represents the last chapter of active agriculture on the property before the area was transformed with the development of Milton Keynes.

Historically, the expansive Wolverton Manor estate was divided into three main tenant farms: Warren Farm, Stacey Bushes Farm, and Manor Farm. The original village of Wolverton seems to have been founded in the early mediaeval era, with the name deriving from the Old English for ‘Wulfhere’s settlement’. The village is recorded as Wluerintone in the Domesday Book in 1086, with around 50 households. A small motte and bailey castle was built just east of the site of the church in the Norman period, with a manor house also probably located in the vicinity.

The extent of the village was divided by the Grand Union Canal in 1800, although its plan appears to have been fairly linear, with central trackways surrounded by housing plots, and surrounding fields of ridge and furrow.

By the late mediaeval period, the village was owned by the Longville family. Many deserted villages declined due to the Black Death, but Wolverton is thought to have declined due to the Longville family enclosing the land for more profitable sheep pasture, or for deer hunting, with the inhabitants forced off the land.

Manor Farm House in Old Wolverton stands on the site of the mediaeval Gilbertine monastic grange (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Manor Farm House is a Grade II* listed house dating back to the 13th century, when the Gilbertine monastic foundation had its grange there. Manor Farm includes a farmhouse range dating from ca 1700 with 19th century additions. In the early-to-mid 19th century, it was built into an extensive model farmstead arranged around five-fold yards, built of local brick and stone with a two-storey tower.

The early 19th century house is a two-storey limestone house with an attic and a cellar. It is basically ‘L’-shaped with steep pitched gabled roofs, red tiles, and brick chimney stacks with stone bases. The south front has three segmental headed dormers and there is a two-storey extension at both ends of the front.

The central entrance has a stone doorcase, two three-quarter columns supporting a plain entablature and a blocking course. Inside, there is a wide oak staircase with turned balusters and finials.

Castlethorpe Lodge in the early 1900s, one of the many homes of the Whiting family in North Buckinghamshire (Pat St John / Milton Keynes Heritage)

The Whitings who moved to Manor Farm House, Wolverton, in 1929, were a prominent family with widespread farming interests across North Buckinghamshire and south Northamptonshire. As well as Manor Farm in Wolverton, family members also farmed at nearby Lodge Farm or Home Farm in Castlethorpe, Lower Farm in Castlethorpe, and Cosgrove Lodge or Elms Farm.

The Whiting family can be traced back to at least the mid-18th century:

Richard Whiting (born 1759) from Horton, halfway between Northampton and both Roade in Northamptonshire and Hanslope in Buckinghamshire. He was the father of at least two sons and a daughter:

1, Benjamin Evans Whiting (1785-1863).
2, Elizabeth.
3, Henry Whiting.

The eldest son:

Benjamin Evans Whiting (1785-1863), was born in Horton, Northamptonshire, in 1785. He married Sarah Manton (1793-1871) in West Haddon, Northamptonshire, on 7 November 1814, and they were the parents of two daughters and a son:

1, Caroline (1817-1856), who married Thomas John Ashby (1817-1890) in Moulton, Northamptonshire, on 14 March 1839.
2, Joseph Evans Whiting (1820-1888), of whom next.
3, Eliza (1826-1911), who married George Everard from Naseby, Northamptonshire.

Benjamin Evans Whiting died in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, on 1 April 1863, and his widow Sarah died in Castlethorpe on 7 November 1871. Their son:

Joseph Whiting (1849-1923), top, and two of his sons, Charles Whiting (1855-1914), below left, grandfather of Barbara (Whiting) Comerford, and George Whiting (1858-1920), below right

Joseph Evans Whiting (1820-1888), was born at Eakley Lanes, Stoke Goldington, Northamptonshire, in 1820. He married Caroline Higgins (1822-1913), who was born at Eakley Lanes in 1822. They were married in Saint John’s, Southwark, on 14 May 1848 and were the parents of eight children, six sons and two daughters:

1, Joseph Evans Whiting (1849-1923) of Caldecote. He was born at Eakley Lanes, 1 October 1849, and died in Newport Pagnell 7 June 1923. He bought Lathbury Manor in Newport Pagnell from Viscount Hood in 1904. He was married twice: (1), Elizabeth Tressler Manning (1842-1892), from Moulton, Northamptonshire, in Old Saint Pancras Church, London, 11 July 1870; (2) Elizabeth Syratt (1866-1935), from Soulbury, Buckinghamshire, in Saint John’s Church, Wembley, 23 June 1914; and he was the father of five daughters.
2, Henry William Whiting (1852-1918), born Eakley Lanes 25 February 1852, and died in London 29 December 1918. He bought Manor Farm, Willen, bought the Manor of Newport Pagnell in 1904, but sold it again in 1905, and bought the Manor of Caldecote in Newport Pagnell in 1908. He married Mary Elizabeth Thomason, eldest daughter of Bennett Thomason (1824-1878), of Beckerings Park Farm, Ridgmont, Bedfordshire, and Hannah Elizabeth Checkley (1817-1904), in Hanslope in May 1875, and they were the parents of seven sons and four daughters.
3, John George Whiting (born 1854), born in Stoke Goldington, may have died in childhood.
4, Benjamin Edwin Whiting (born 1854), born in Stoke Goldington, may have died in childhood.
5, Charles Evans Whiting (1855-1914), of Castlethorpe, of whom next.
6, George Benjamin Whiting (1858-1920), born Eakley Lanes, Stoke Goldington, 16 April 1858, baptised in Stoke Goldingham, 5 September 1858. He was married twice: (1) Catherine Francis Tipler (1867-1954), in Brixworth, Northamptonshire, in July 1891; and (2) Elizabeth Varney (1860-1889). George and Catherine were the parents of two sons.
7, Katherine Caroline (1861-1947).
8, Ellen (1864-1947).

Joseph Whiting died in Newport Pagnell on 18 April 1888; his widow Caroline (Higgins) died at Lathbury Manor, Buckinghamshire, in April 1913. When Joseph Evans died in 1888, three of his surviving sons – Joseph, George and Charles Whiting – went into partnership, while another son, Henry William Whiting, went out on his own.

Saint Simon and Saint Jude Church, Castlethorpe, where many members of the Whiting family were baptised, married or buried from (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Whiting brothers farmed 3,600 acres and their farms included: the Green Farm, Newport Pagnell, 263 acres; Caldecote Farm (now Manor Farm), 90 acres; Lathbury, 550 acres; Mill Farm, Gayhurst, 320 acres; Home Farm, Gayhurst, 415 acres; Bunstay Farm, 150 acres; Stoke Goldington, 520 acres; Castlethorpe, 485 acres; Pindon End Farm, 240 acres; Home Farm, Moulsoe, 330 acres; Top Farm, Moulsoe, 220 acres.

Joseph Evans Whiting’s fifth but third surviving son was:

Charles Evans Whiting (1855-1914), farmer. He was born at Eakley Lanes in 24 June 1855. He had farms at Castlethorpe and Hanslope, for many years he was a Conservative member of Castlethorpe Parish Council, and he was the vicar’s churchwarden at Castlethorpe Church for a number of years.

In the late 19th century, the gallery at the west end of Saint Simon and Saint Jude Church in Castlethorpe was known with humour as the ‘Fishes Gallery’ because the leading families who sat there had the names Pike, Whiting and Eel.

Some of the Whiting family graves in the churchyard at Saint Simon and Saint Jude Church, Castlethorpe (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Charles Whiting married Louisa Thomason (born 1858), daughter of Bennett Thomason (1824-1878), of Beckerings Park Farm, Ridgmont, Bedfordshire, and Hannah Elizabeth Checkley (1817-1904). She was born in Hanslope in 1858, and her sister Mary Elizabeth had married Henry William Whiting in Hanslope in 1875. Louisa and Charles were married in Woburn Sands, Bedfordshire, on 2 August 1883 and they were the parents of four sons and two daughters:

1, Dorothy Louisa (1885-1965), born Hanslope, 12 August 1885, married Alexander Edward Johnston (1889-1971) from Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, in Saint Mary’s Church, Church End, Finchley, London, 28 September 1935, died Highgate, 27 December 1965.
2, Charles Reginald Whiting (1886-1954), of whom next.
3, Kathleen Mary Whiting (1888-1958).
4, Joseph Evans Whiting MC (1890-1923), of Castlethorpe Lodge, Castlethorpe. During World War I, he was a lieutenant with the Royal Field Artillery in France. He was a county councillor, and represented Weston Underwood on Newport Pagnell Rural Council. He married Julia Elizabeth Nickson (1893-1984), and they were the parents of two daughters: Anne Elizabeth Whiting (1920-1940), who died at the age of 19; and Patricia (born 1921) married (Squadron-Leader) John Ramsey St John (1917-1959), DSO, DFC and Bar, RAF, of Wellington, New Zealand, in Castlethorpe Parish Church in July 1941. She later lived at Castle House, Castlethorpe, and bought it from Lord Carrington in 1961.
5, Benjamin Sydney Whiting (1893-1975), married Elsie Louise Adams (1902-1980) of Muswell Hill, at Broughton Manor Farm, Newport Pagnell, 17 September 1924, and they were the parents of two children.
6, Herbert George Whiting (1896-1969), born Castlethorpe, 18 April 1896, moved to the Cape, South Africa. He married Judith Vaughan Ingle (1898-1962) in Saint Barnabas Church, Cogh, Cape Town, 3 June 1931, and they were the parents of three children. He died in Cape Town, 8 February 1969.

Louisa died in Newport Pagnell on 30 January 1914, Charles was 58 when he died at Castlethorpe on 20 October 1914, and they are both buried in the churchyard in Castlethorpe. His funeral in Castlethorpe was conducted by the Revd WJ Harkness, Vicar of Hanslope, assisted by the Revd T Evans, curate.

Autumn colours in Castlethorpe in north Buckinghamshire in morning sunshine this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The eldest son of Charles and Louisa Whiting was:

Charles Reginald Whiting (1886-1954) of Castlethorpe, Cosgrove and the Manor Farm, Old Wolverton. He was born in Castlethorpe on 3 December 1886, and later took on Manor Farm, Wolverton, in the mid-20th century.

Charles Reginald Whiting farmed the Lodge Farm, Cosgrove, and owned gravel pits bordering the River Ouse and Broad Waters. He began working gravel from his land to supply the Canal Company, and ran a successful gravel business until he sold the farmhouse, 110 acres of farmland and the gravel pits to the Cosgrove Sand and Gravel Company. He then moved to the Manor House, Old Wolverton, where he and his son Philip farmed over 300 acres at Old Wolverton Manor. Together, they managed the land for the final 41 years of its active life as a working farm until the land was acquired by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation.

He married Gladys Mary Montgomery (1893-1974) in Potterspury, Northamptonshire, in April 1915. She was born at Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, on 24 March 1893. They were the parents of three sons and a daughter:

1, Maurice Charles Whiting (1916-2010), dentist, born in Hanslope 19 May 1916; he married Rosemary Noel Harris (1919-2000) from Loxley, Warwickshire, in Evenlode, Gloucestershire, 15 March 1946; he died 12 March 2010.
2, Phyllis Mary (1918-1963), married Edgar Peter Brockes (1916-1977) in Towcester in January 1944.
She died in Kettering, 18 May 1963.
3, Reginald Philip Theodore Whiting (1921-1990). He was born in Potterspury 19 December 1921 and died in Wolverton 28 August 1990.
4, Barbara Ruth (1929-2016), born in Pottersbury 29 March 1929. She married Herbert George Comerford (1928-2021) of Aylesbury, in Old Wolverton, July 1952, and they were the parents of three children.

Charles Reginald Whiting died at the Manor Farm, Old Wolverton, on 23 May 1954; his widow Gladys died at Old Wolverton, Buckinghamshire, 3 February 1974. They are buried in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton.

The second daughter and youngest of four children of Gladys and Charles Reginald Whiting was:

Barbara Ruth Whiting (1929-2016), who married Herbert George Comerford. Barbara Comerford was born Barbara Ruth Whiting in Potterspury on 29 March 1929. Her husband Herbert George Comerford (1928-2021), was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, 2 January 1928, and at the age of 21 in 1949, he was living in Bierton, near Aylesbury. They were married in North Buckinghamshire, in July 1952.

Barbara and Herbert Comerford were the parents of a large family, including four sons and a daughter. They later lived in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, where Barbara Comerford died on 21 August 2016, and Herbert Comerford died on 27 February 2021. I understand they have many descendants living today.

Today, the site at Manor Farm Court supports a modern working environment with the farm buildings preserved and converted into an office complex known as Manor Farm Court, while the surrounding agricultural land has been transformed by the Milton Keynes Parks Trust into the Floodplain Forest Nature Reserve.

As for Herbert George Comerford and his branch of the Comerford family, I hope to share my research on their family tree in the days to come. I have also found a Comerford grave in the London Road cemetery in Stony Stratford, but I need time to find out where those connections may lead to.

The grave in Holy Trinity Churchyard, Old Wolverton, of Gladys and Charles Whiting, parents of Barbara Whiting who married Herbert Comerford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The stories of two aristocrats, Lord Stanley and Lord Headley, show how Muslims have been part of British society for centuries

Henry Edward John Stanley (1827-1903), 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley, became the first Muslim member of the House of Lords in 1869 (Spy / Sir Leslie Ward)

Patrick Comerford

ITV’s exposure of Reform UK last night shows how deep-seated racism, prejudice, misogyny and Islamophobia are inside the far-right in Britain, despite all the pretences, protestations and bluster from Nigel Farage.

The language is vile and reprehensible. It seems to be acceptable among Reform’s elected representatives, candidates and the rank and file party members to claim Muslims have no place in British society and that they should be deported, whether or not they were born in Britain.

Alan Feeney, the deputy mayor of Solihull, said in last night’s exposure that the area was ‘infested" with Asian families, called them ‘absolute parasites’, and said no more than 1% of the UK population should be non-white. Other party members made comments that included extreme violence and shared deeply misogynistic and racist views, including a Bromley councillor calling King Charles a Muslim and calling for him to be killed. Feeney was filmed with other candidates talking about a planned local mosque and burying pig meat in its grounds.

There are references to Islamic scholars in the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1386), and there have been Muslims in Britain since the 16th century, when John Nelson became the first Englishman to convert to Islam in 1583. When I was visiting Holy Cross Church in King’s Cross recently, the story of the earliest vicar in the parish, Bishop Algernon Stanley, reminded me of two members of the aristocracy whose stories illustrate how Muslims have been part and parcel of British society for longer than most people are aware, and that the earliest Muslims here were very much a part of British culture and life.

Bishop Algernon Stanley was a younger brother of Henry Edward John Stanley (1827-1903), 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley and 2nd Baron Eddisbury, and they were both deeply connected with the elite layers of society of the day, closely related to people like Bertrand Russell, Sir Winston Churchill, the Mitford sisters, and deans and bishops in the Church of England.

Henry Stanley, who preferred to be known as Abdul Rahman Stanley, was a senior diplomat when he converted to Islam in his 30s in 1859, and as Lord Stanley he became the first Muslim member of the House of Lords. He was also an historian who translated the works of 16th century Portugues explorers of the Age of Discovery, including Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Francisco Alvarez, Antonio de Morga and Duarte Barbosa.

Stanley was born on 11 July 1827 and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. After a year at Cambridge, he entered the Diplomatic Service at the age of 20 in 1847, as an assistant précis writer to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, and he went on to become the British attaché in Constantinople in 1851. In January 1854 he was appointed secretary to the British legation in Athens, at a time when the British minister plenipotentiary or ambassador in Athens in 1854 was the Irish politician and diplomat Sir Thomas Wyse (1791-1862) from Waterford.

Stanley converted to Islam around 1859, abandoned his career as a British diplomat, and adopted the name Abdul Rahman. Using his new Muslim identity, he travelled as Shaikh Morad to British colonies in Asia, shocked colonial society in Ceylon and Singapore, and completed the hajj to Mecca. When his father, Edward Stanley, 2nd Lord Stanley of Alderley, read reports about him, he asked his wife rhetorically ‘that wretched fool Henry … Is he mad or what is he?’

Stanley returned to England in April 1860, and is the first recorded Briton to convert to Islam abroad and return to Britain as a practising Muslim. He inherited the family titles when his father died on 16 June 1869 and so became the first Muslim member of the House of Lords.

Stanley and his wife Fabia, a Spanish Catholic and the daughter of Santiago Federico San Roman of Seville, went through four separate marriage ceremonies. Their first wedding took place in Algeria in 1862 under Islamic law, and they remarried according to Islamic law in Constantinople in 1862 or 1863.

They kept their relationship secret until his father died. Then, within five months, they registered their third wedding on 6 November 1869 at a registry office in Saint George’s Parish, Hanover Square, and Fabia was received in polite society as his wife in Britain.

However, Fabia turned out to be the same person as Serafina Fernandez y Funes from Alcaudete in Jaén, who had married Ramon Peres y Abril on 30 September 1851, and she had two sons living in Spain, although it is not clear whether Stanley was aware of this background. This first Spanish husband did not die until 16 May 1870, so the first three marriage ceremonies were bigamous.

Finally, the couple were married for a fourth time and probably legally in a Roman Catholic wedding ceremony in Saint Alban’s Church, Macclesfield, on 15 May 1874, four years before his brother Algernon became a Roman Catholic. This wedding too must have raised eyebrows in many circles as Stanley was a Muslim and Fabia had remained a practising Catholic.

Lord Stanley remained a sincere and devout Muslim throughout his life

Because of the prohibition of alcohol in Islam, Stanley closed all the pubs on his estate in Nether Alderley in Cheshire. As a Muslim, he respected Christianity as a ‘sister faith’ of Islam and argued for the continuing establishment of the Church of England in Wales. He contributed significantly to new churches in Anglesey, including Saint Michael’s at Valley, near Holyhead (1887-1888), and paid for refurbishing and restoring four churches: Saint Patrick’s, Llanbadrig, Saint Mary’s, Bodewryd, Saint Dona’s, Llanddona, and Saint Peirio’s, Rhosbeirio.

He remained a sincere and devout Muslim throughout his life, reciting the five daily prayers and the midnight prayers, and it is said he was well versed in the principles of Muslim theology.

Stanley died during the month of Ramadan on 11 December 1903 and he was buried on 15 December 1903 according to Muslim rites in the garden of the Dower House on his family estate, Alderley Park, at Nether Alderley, Cheshire. The chief mourner at his burial was the first secretary to the Ottoman Embassy in London, and Islamic prayers were recited over his grave by the embassy’s imam. Abdullah Quilliam, another early convert to Islam, conducted a Janaza service in his memory at the Liverpool Mosque.

According to Nancy Mitford, at the funeral, his brother Bishop Algernon Stanley turned to the new Lord Stanley, Edward Lyulph Stanley (1839-1925), who had removed his hat out of respect, and snapped, ‘Not your hat, you fool, your boots.’

Fabia Lady Stanley died on 15 May 1905, and was buried in Saint Mary’s Churchyard in Nether Alderley.

Stanley was hardly a marginal figure in British society; instead was the very epitome of an English aristocrat, albeit an eccentric one. His father’s uncle was Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich and the father of Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster. His mother, the Hon Henrietta Dillon-Lee, was descended from a long line of Irish and English aristocrats who held the titles of Viscount Dillon and Earl of Lichfield. One of his sisters, Katherine (Viscountess Amberley), was the mother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), while another sister, Henrietta, was the grandmother of Clementine Hozier, who married Sir Winston Churchill, and great-grandmother of the five Mitford sisters, Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah.

Being so closely related to so many aristocratic families and to Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell and prominent bishops and deans certainly makes Stanley part of the establishment.

It is an irony that must be lost on many on the far-right today that one of the most prominent early English Muslims was also closely related to the Mitford sisters, with their connections to Oswald Moseley and even Hitler.

The Shah Jahan Mosque on Oriental Road, Woking … built in 1889, it is the first purpose-built mosque on these islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Stanley subscribed to the building of Britain’s first purpose-built mosque, the Shah Jahan Mosque on Oriental Road in Woking, which was built in 1889 and is now one of Woking’s great architectural treasures..

The mosque was built in the grounds of the Oriental College, founded by the orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (1840-1899), and which gave its name to Oriental Road. It was funded mainly by Shahjehan, Begum of Bhopal (1868-1901), and was designed by the architect William Isaac Chambers (1847-1924). It has been described by the Pevsner Architectural Guides as ‘extraordinarily dignified.’

A prominent early member of the mosque in Woking was another Muslim member of the Houe of Lords, the Irish peer Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn (1855-1935), 5th Baron Headley, who was an early convert to Islam.

The title of Lord Headley, Baron Allanson and Winn, of Aghadoe in Co Kerry, dates back to 1797, when it was given to Sir George Allanson-Winn, a former Baron of the Court of the Exchequer and MP for Ripon, who married into the Blennerhassett family in Co Kerry. The third Lord Headley sat in the House of Lords as an Irish Representative Peer in 1868-1877, as did his son, the fourth Lord Headley (1883-1913). He was succeeded by his cousin, Rowland Allanson-Winn, as 5th Baron Headley.

Lord Headley was an Irish peer, took his title from Aghadoe, near Killarney, Co Kerry, and was once a Justice of the Peace for Co Kerry. He was born in London, and was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College Cambridge. He studied for the Bar at the Middle Temple, then switched to engineering and became a civil engineer.

For many years after qualifying as an engineer, he was engaged in foreshore protection work in Ireland. He superintended coastal defence works in Youghal, Co Cork, and Glenbeigh, Co Kerry, and carried out similar work on the coast to the north of Bray Harbour, Co Wicklow. He stood as the Conservative and Unionist candidate in South Kerry in 1892, but received only 86 votes. Later, from 1896, he worked on building roads in India, and in 1902 and 1903 he won the Silver Medals of the Institute of Civil Engineers of Ireland.

In 1906, the Arklow Harbour Commissioners in Co Wicklow appointed him the chief engineer for extending the south breakwater of the harbour, but his plans were abandoned the following year in favour of a different scheme proposed by John Purser Griffith.

He inherited his Irish peerage when his cousin Charles died in 1913, and with the title he inherited the family estates in Co Kerry. His homes in Ireland were at Inseidin, Coliemore Road, Dalkey, and Glenbeigh, Killarney. In the year he inherited his family titles and estates in Ireland, he also converted to Islam on 16 November 1913, and adopted the Muslim name Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq. He set up the British Muslim Society in 1914, was the author of several books on Islam, and twice made the Hajj to Mecca.

Headley was declared bankrupt in 1922. A year later, he was offered the throne of Albania in 1923, along with $500,000 and $50,000 a year, but turned down the offer. He claimed to have been offered the throne of Albania on three occasions, but turned down each invitation, saying ‘the only thing that goes with it is trouble and the almost certainty of assassination.’

Lord Headley died on 22 June 1935, and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking. His cousin, Canon WN Manning, Rector of Bideford, ‘was unavoidably prevented from being present.’ The Headley title became extinct when his younger son, Charles Allanson-Winn (1902-1994), died in 1994.

The first Muslim MP was not elected until 1997, when Mohammed Sarwar became the Labour for Govan. Stanley and Headley came long before Lord Nazir of Rotherham and Lady Uddin entered the House of Lords in 1998 as the next Muslim peers.

Inside the Shah Jahan Mosque on Oriental Road, Woking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Mary Woolnoth: a return visit to a London church linked to John Newton and celebrated by TS Eliot

The Church of Saint Mary Woolnoth has links with TS Eliot, John Newton and a branch of the Comerford family in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The Stony Stratford Playreaders have been reading TS Eliot’s play The Cocktail Party this week. I suggested this play for many reasons, including its associations with Mary Trevelyan from Stony Stratford, who inspired Julia, one of the play’s characters, its place in the poetry of TS Eliot and discussions of his Anglo-Catholic spirituality, and because of my own long-running interest in the poetry and writings of TS Eliot.

When I was in London recently, I visited Change Alley, which had associations with four generations of one branch of the Comerford, sought out the sites of the earliest coffee shops in London, and that same afternoon I also returned to visit Saint Mary Woolnoth Church, a landmark church near Bank underground station at the heart of the City of London, on the corner of Lombard Street and King William Street.

Members of the Comerford family who are associated with Saint Mary Woolnoth Church include: James Comerford (1764-1833), who was buried at Saint Mary Woolnoth in 1833; and his grandson James William Comerford (1829-1917), who was baptised in Saint Mary Woolnoth on 19 January 1830.

The church is interesting as one of the Queen Anne Churches designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, but also for its associations with many interesting people, including the founder of Lloyds Edward Lloyd, the abolitionist and hymnwriter John Newton and his friend William Wilberforce, and, of course, the poet TS Eliot.

Inside Saint Mary Woolnoth Church … the third church on the site and designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church stands on a site has been used for worship for perhaps 2,000 years. Traces of Roman and pagan religious buildings were found under the foundations of the church, along with the remains of an Anglo-Saxon wooden structure.

The full and unusual dedication of the church is to Saint Mary of the Nativity. The name ‘Woolnoth’ may refer to a benefactor, possibly Wulnoth de Walebrok, a Saxon noble who lived in the area earlier in the 12th century. Alternatively, the name may be connected with the wool trade – this was so with the nearby church of Saint Mary Woolchurch Haw.

The present church is at least the third church on the site. The Norman church survived until the mid-15th century, when it was rebuilt. The new building was consecrated in 1438, but additional work appears to have taken place towards the end of the century, and a spire was added in 1485.

The advowson was given by the founder or his heirs to the Priory of Saint Helen, Bishopsgate. After the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII gave it to Sir Martin Bowes of Lombard Street, a goldsmith and Lord Mayor of London in 1545-1546. The advowson passed from Bowes to the Goldsmiths’ Company, and the patronage subsequently passed through various hands.

The church was badly damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666, but was partially rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670-1675. Sir Robert Vyner, Lord Mayor of London in 1674, made a major contribution to the costs, and Vyner had his own entrance to the east end of the church, a privilege inherited by the Post Office which later stood on the site of his mansion in Lombard Street.

The style of the church was described as ‘modern Gothick’ in 1708. But Saint Mary Woolnoth was only partially-repaired by Wren. The building became unsafe and in 1711 it was decided to build a new church under the Fifty New Churches Act. By 1712, the church was so dilapidated that the parishioners were afraid to worship there, and repairs were carried out.

Despite its small size, the Church of Saint Mary Woolnoth is surprisingly spacious inside (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Edward Lloyd, the founder of Lloyd’s of London, was a member of the vestry at the time. He founded Lloyd’s coffee house, which later developed into Lloyd’s Corporation. TS Eliot would work for Lloyd’s two centuries later.

Work on rebuilding the church began in 1716, when excavations uncovered remains thought to be Roman, and there is evidence of major Roman buildings in the immediate vicinity. The new church opened for worship on Easter Day 1727. It was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, assisted by John James. It is one of Hawksmoor’s most distinctive and original designs and his only church in the City of London.

Hawksmoor designed an unusually imposing façade in the English baroque style. It is dominated by two flat-topped turrets supported by Corinthian columns. The west side of the façade, facing Lombard Street, has distinctive recesses bearing an inset forward-curving pediment resting on skewed columns.

Hawksmoor’s treatment of the north elevation has been described by as ‘a piece of sheer architectural eloquence hard to match’. The absence of windows on this wall insulates the interior from the noise of Lombard Street.

The wooden baldacchino, with twisted columns and a canopy ornamented with gilded cherubs, was made by John Meard and carved by Gabriel Appleby (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Despite its small size, the church is surprisingly spacious inside. The layout is typical of Hawksmoor, forming a ‘cube within a cube,’ or a square enclosed by three rows of four columns that is itself enclosed by a wider square.

In the shallow chancel, an ornate, baroque wooden baldacchino with twisted columns and a canopy ornamented with gilded cherubs, was made by John Meard and carved by Gabriel Appleby. It was modelled on Bernini’s baldacchino in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The pulpit, with its unusual bulging shape, was made by Thomas Darby and Gervaise Smith and is inlaid with sunbursts by Appleby. The tester echoes the shape of the ceiling. The galleries were made by Meard and carved by Darby and Smith.

A plaque recalling John Newton bears the epitaph he wrote for himself (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Revd John Newton (1725-1807), the former slave trader who became an abolitionist, and an evangelical hymn writer, was the Rector of Saint Mary’s Woolnoth from 1780 to 1807. His best-known hymn is Amazing Grace, and his parishioners included the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce (1759-1833).

John Newton died in December 1807, shortly after the Abolition Act was passed. He was buried beside his wife in the crypt of Saint Mary Woolnoth. A memorial tablet on the north wall bears an epitaph written by Newton himself.

The church was threatened with demolition on several occasions but was saved each time. Its galleries were removed in 1875-1876by William Butterfield, who thought they were unsafe, a number of significant changes were made to the interior, and the chancel was raised.

The pulpit, with its unusual bulging shape, was made by Thomas Darby and Gervaise Smith (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Between 1897 and 1900, the City & South London Railway (C&SLR) built Bank Underground station beneath the church. The company had permission to demolish the church, but public outcry forced the company to think again.

The crypt was sold to the railway and the bodies there were moved for reburial at Ilford, including Edward Lloyd and James Comerford. However, John Newton and his wife Mary (Catlett) were reburied in 1893 at Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney, near Milton Keynes, where he had been a curate and then vicar before moving to London.

The crypt and plinth of the church were used as a booking hall in 1897-1900. The walls and internal columns of the church were then supported on steel girders while the lift shafts and staircase shaft for Bank station were built directly beneath the church floor. At the same time, the bells were rehung with new fittings.

The lower part of the south elevation is now masked by the single-storey former Underground station entrance, with a new vestry, in a style that pays tribute to Hawksmoor.

A second organ, dated 1913, is placed at the east end of the north aisle.

The altar piece in Saint Mary Woolnoth, with the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

TS Eliot, who worked in the City nearby at Lloyd’s Bank, refers to this church in 1922 in a passage in his poem The Waste Land, Part 1, ‘The Burial of the Dead’:

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying, “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

In his notes to the poem, Eliot remarks that the ‘dead sound on the final stroke of nine’ was a ‘phenomenon which I have often noticed.’ Spurr interprets this as a symbolic allusion to the traditional hour of execution and Christ’s crucifixion at the ninth hour.

In The Waste Land, Eliot also refers to Saint Magnus Martyr, and celebrates the architecture and spiritual importance of the church, with its ‘inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.’

Inside Saint Mary Woolnoth Church, facing the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Mary Woolnoth was the parish church of the Lords Mayor of London. The Mansion House stands almost opposite, on the site of Saint Mary Woolchurch Haw. This association helped protect the church from repeated threats of demolition between 1863 and 1926.

Eliot supported the protests in 1926 to save City churches like Saint Mary Woolnoth from demolition. He wrote that the threatened churches gave ‘to the business quarter of London a beauty which its hideous banks and commercial houses have not quite defaced … the least precious redeems some vulgar street …

‘The loss of these towers, to meet the eye down a grimy lane, and of these empty naves, to receive the solitary visitor at noon from the dust and tumult of Lombard Street, will be irreparable and unforgotten.’

In Anglo-Catholic in Religion: TS Eliot and Christianity, Professor Barry Spurr examines how Eliots references to Saint Mary Woolnoth in The Waste Land foreshadow his later Anglo-Catholic faith. Eliot was baptised on 29 June 1927 at Holy Trinity Church in Finstock, Oxfordshire, by the Revd William Force Stead. He was confirmed the next day, 30 June 1927, in the private chapel of Bishop Thomas Banks Strong of Oxford.

Saint Mary Woolnoth was the only City church to survive World War II unscathed. The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950, and it became a guild church in 1952.

Until recently Saint Mary Woolnoth was used by the German-speaking Swiss community in London. It now hosts ‘IMPRINT Church London’, which includes Saint Mary Woolnoth, Saint Edmund the King and Saint Clement Eastcheap in the Diocese of London, and is part of the HTB Network of churches. The Revd Wole Agbaje is the priest in charge.

• Saint Mary Woolnoth is open Monday-Friday from 7 am to 3 pm and also has a café, Newton’s Coffee, on the front steps.

‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?’ … the east end of Saint Mary Woolnoth at Post Office Court (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A Comerford family that brought me from the heart of London’s East End to Northampton and Leicester

A search in Change Alley last week led to the story of a large branch of the Comerford family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in London last week, I visited the alleys off Cornhill, searching for the Jamaica and Jonathan’s, two of the oldest coffee houses in London, and looking in Change Alley for the site of the home of a branch of the Comerford family who lived and worked there in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Change Alley is a collection of at least five interconnected labyrinthine passages that have changed shape and direction down the centuries and with five access points: two off Cornhill, two off Lombard Street and one leading out of Birchin Lane.

Thomas Comerford, who came from Ireland, was a tobacconist in London from the mid-18th century. He was twice married and married his first wife Alice Davenport (1735-1769) on 26 October 1759 in Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel. They lived in Leman Street, Whitechapel (1759-1768), and they were the parents of three sons:

1, William Davenport Comerford (1763-1763), died in infancy.
2, James Comerford (1764-1833), ancestor of the Comerford family of Holborn and Belgravia.
3, Thomas Comerford (1769-1810), draper, of Bond Street, who married Charlotte Watson (1772-1851), and who has a large number of living descendants.

Alice died in childbirth in 1769, and Thomas Comerford married his second wife, Ann Underwood (1734-1807), in Saint Botolph’s Church, Aldgate, on 28 October 1770. Thomas and Anne Comerford were the parents of two more children, a daughter and a son:

4, Mary (1775-1839)
5, Charles Comerford (1784-1849), solicitor. He married Elizabeth Edings Morgan (1797-1867) in Saint Luke’s Church, Chelsea, on 1 May 1813. He lived at East Street, Lamb’s Conduit Street, off Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury (1807), 16 Clement’s Inn, off the Strand in Saint Clement Danes parish (1838-1840), 72 Old Broad Street (1848), and 21 Oxford Square, Paddington (1849).

I was aware of the story of Thomas Comerford’s second son James Comerford (1764-1833) and his descendants, who were tobacconists, notaries public and Victorian book collectors who had connections with Change Alley for at least four generations and another three or four generations of distinguished medical practitioners and surgeons in Belgravia.

But I had overlooked the Thomas Comerford’s third son, Thomas Comerford (1769-1810), a Bond Street draper and younger brother of James Comerford (1764-1833), and the story of his far-flung branch of the family.

My visit to Change Alley lead me to finding the stories of a branch of the Comerford family that are an introduction to portraits of family life that are both intriguing and fascinating, and at the same time often heart-rending. Over five or six generations or more, I found sad stories of infant mortality and death at childbirth, of children and whole families ending up in the workhouse, and stories too of resilience and fortitude, of trade union activism, and of death at the Gallipoli landings, of passages to India and of birth at sea off St Helena in the mid-Atlantic.

There are intermarriages in successive generations between the Comerford and Finch families that consolidate family networks. There are gun makers and shoemakers, soldiers and bus drivers, whose lives, I imagine, were worlds apart from the doctors’ consulting rooms in Belgravia of their distant cousins.

A family that at one time was at home in places in the East End like Stepney, Tower Hamlets, Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, son moved south of the river to Southwark and places such as Southwark, Lambeth, Newington, Camberwell, Bermondsey and Walworth, and north to Clerkenwell and Islington. In time, they moved on to Aston in Birmingham and other places in the Midlands, including four generations or more in both Northampton and Leicester, with four generations of bootmakers and shoemakers. I even found six or seven members of this branch of the family with the name Charlotte Comerford, and I found that many of the family baptisms and marriages took place in churches that I already know well and have blogged about in recent years.

Thomas Comerford (1769-1810) married Charlotte Watson in Saint Martin in the Fields, facing onto Trafalgar Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The story of this branch of the Comerford family begins with Thomas Comerford from Ireland who became a tobacconist in London. He was twice married and he died on 29 June 1812 in the Parish of Saint Botolph, London. His third son was:

Thomas Comerford (1769-1810), born in 1769 and baptised in Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel, 15 February 1769. He was a draper in Bond Street, London, in 1784. He married on 23 February 1792 in Saint Martin in the Fields Church Charlotte Watson (1772-1851), daughter of Joseph Watson and his second wife Elizabeth (née Wiltshire) of Whitechapel.

Thomas Comerford died in Mill Yard on 12 July 1810, and was buried in Goodman’s Fields, the burial ground of Somerset Street Presbyterian Church; Charlotte Comerford died in January 1851. Their children included three daughters and three sons:

1, Elizabeth (1795-post 1812), born 27 December 1795 in Everard’s Place, a small alley or courtyard off Church Lane, near Cable Street and Wellclose Square, in the parish of Saint Mary, Whitechapel, in the East End. She was baptised on 21 January 1796 in the Presbyterian Church, Somerset Street (now Mansell Street), Stepney. She married David Smith in Saint Mary’s Church, Stratford Bow, on 10 November 1812.
2, Anne (1798-1800), born 7 February 1798 in Everard’s Place and baptised 23 July 1799 in Somerset Street Presbyterian Church. She died in November 1800 and was also buried in Goodman’s Fields.
3, Charlotte (1800-1800), born 20 January 1800, and died in Everard’s Place in December 1800.
4, Joseph Comerford (1801-1848), of whom next (see below).
5, George Comerford (1803-1806), born 4 November 1803 Swallow’s Gardens, Whitechapel, died in 1806 Rosemary Lane.
6, Francis Thomas Comerford (1811-1864), of whom after his brother Joseph (see below), born after his father’s death, 6 April 1811.

The widowed Charlotte Comerford later married the widowed Samuel Hormack Dann (born 1789) in Saint George in the East Church, Tower Hamlets, on 6 July 1818. They had no further children, and Charlotte died in January 1851.

At least three members of the Comerford family were baptised in Saint Botolph Without Aldgate, Bishopsgate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The elder of the two surviving sons of Thomas and Charlotte Comerford:

Joseph Comerford (1801-1848), born 10 October 1801 in Sparrow Corner, which was between 83 and 84 Minories in Saint Botolph Parish, Aldgate. He was baptised on 25 August 1809 in Saint Botolph’s Church, Aldgate. He married Mary Davies (1805-1862) in Saint George in the East Church, Tower Hamlets, on 15 July 1827.

Joseph Comerford died 14 November 1848 in Phoenix Court, and was buried in Goodman’s Yard burial ground; his wife Mary (née Davies) died in East London in 1862. They were the parents of ten children, five sons and five daughters:

1, Charlotte (1829- ), born 19 April 1829 in Aldgate.
2, Francis Thomas Comerford (1831-1918), of whom next (see below).
3, Joseph Comerford (1833-1899), born in Whitechapel in 1833, of whom after his brother Francis Thomas Comerford (see below).
4, Mary Ann (1834-1896), born at Sugar Loaf Court, Angel Alley, 4 December 1834. She married James Keegan (born 1838). They lived in Regent Street, Lambeth, and Kennington, and were the parents of four children, a son and three daughters.
5, Elizabeth (1836-1905) born in Aldgate in 1836. She married Benjamin George Broome (born 1840) in Saint Thomas Church, Stepney, on 5 April 1863. They were the parents of four children, three daughters and a son. Elizabeth Broome was living in Dean Street, Soho, when she died in 1905.
6, George (I) Comerford (1838-1839), born in Aldgate in May 1838, died in October 1839.
7, Martha (1840-1915), born in Aldgate 1 February 1840. She married William Finch (born 1824), a widowed fishmonger and later a postman, in Saint Thomas Church, Stepney, on 9 February 1868. They lived in Lambeth and later in Battle and then Bexhill in Sussex. Martha (Comerford) Finch died in Brighton in October 1915, and they were the parents of six children, four sons and two daughters who all continued the Comerford name:

•1a, Jessie Comerford Finch (born 1869), who married Walter West Gwynne (1866-1958);
•2a, Herbert Comerford Finch (1871-1937), who married his cousin Florence Eva Comerford (1876-1957) in Christ Church, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, on 7 May 1900 (see below);
•3a, Charles Comerford Finch (1874-1949) of Harrow and Willesden, who married Jessie Emily Farrall (1870-1961);
•4a, Frank Comerford Finch (1876-1952), of Swansea, Wales, who married Elizabeth Harriett Rees (1885-1963);
•5a, Ephraim Comerford Finch (born 1880), married in Croydon in 1903;
•6a, Emma Comerford Finch (1885-1949), who married Frederick J Walker in 1913.

8, George (II) Comerford (born 1842), born 1842 in Crown Court, Aldgate.
9, Emma (1845-) born 8 February 1845 in Aldgate.
10, Benjamin Comerford (1848-1852), born July 1848 Aldgate, died 1852 in East London.

The eldest of these ten children:

Francis Thomas Comerford (1831-1918), gunmaker, was born 17 January 1831 at Sugar Loaf Court, Angel Alley, Aldgate – the site is now occupied by railway lines – and was baptised 6 February 1831 in Saint Botolph Without Aldgate, Bishopsgate. He married Hannah Matilda Govett (1832-1905) in Saint Thomas Church, Stepney, on 15 April 1850. They lived for a time in Grove Street, Tower Hamlets, moved to India in the late 1850s, and later lived in Aston, Birmingham from the 1870s. Hannah died in Aston in 1905, and Francis died there in 1918.

They were the parents of 11 children, eights sons and three daughters:

1, George Comerford (1850-1852), born in Stepney, 4 October 1850, died at 27 Grove Street, Tower Hamlets, in 1852.
2, Francis Thomas Comerford (1852-1927), of whom next.
3, Frederick Henry Comerford (1855-1936), born in Stepney, 20 August 1855.
4, Charlotte Elizabeth Comerford (1857-1858), born 4 May 1857, died in infancy on 28 October 1858.
5, Charles William Comerford (1859-1937), born in Madras, 13 March 1859. He married Polly Robinson (1863-1932), from Wednesbury, Staffordshire, in Saint Paul’s Church, in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, on Christmas Day 25 December 1882. They lived in Aston and do not seem to have had any children; Polly died in December 1932, Charles died in Birmingham in June 1937.
6, Henry Hardwick Comerford (1860-1861), born at sea off St Helena in 1860, died in Stepney in 1861.
7, Kate Margaret Comerford (1864-1912), born in Bow in 1864, married James Arthur Garlick (1860-1935), a travelling salesman, in Saint Paul’s Church, Birmingham, in January 1885, and they were the parents of three daughters and a son. Kate died in King’s Norton, Birmingham, in April 1912; James Garlick died in Birmingham in June 1935.
8, Alfred Edward Comerford (1866-1894), born in Lambeth in June 1866. He married Rosina Clarissa Buck (1862-1936) in Holy Trinity Church, Bordesley, on Christmas Eve 24 December 1892. Alfred died at Anderton Road, Sparkbrook, on 26 January 1894; Rosina died in September 1936. They were the parents of an only son:
•1a John Augustus Comerford (1894-1958) of Birmingham, who died unmarried.
9, Walter Comerford (1870-1873), born in Birmingham in January 1870, died in January 1873.
10, Thomas Henry Comerford (born 1874), born in Aston at the end of 1874.
11, Florence Eva (1876-1957), born in Birmingham 19 February 1876, she married her first cousin Herbert Comerford Finch (1871-1937), see above, in Christ Church, Sparkbrook, on 7 May 1900, and they were the parents of two daughters.

Saint George in the East, where some members of the Comerford family were baptised and married (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The eldest surviving son of Francis Thomas Comerford (1831-1918) and Hannah Matilda (Govett) Comerford was:

Francis Thomas Comerford (1852-1927), born in Stepney 9 March 1852 and baptised in Saint George in the East on 20 January 1856. He moved to Birmingham with his parents and family when he was in his teens and became an apprentice in the gun trade. He married Charlotte Finch (1851-1933) in Mile End, London, in July 1874 – she appears to be related to William Finch who married Martha Comerford (1840-1915). Francis and Charlotte Comerford lived in India on at least two occasions in the 1870s and 1880s. Francis Comerford died at 92 Milward Road, Hastings, on 9 September 1927; his widow, Charlotte Comerford, died there on 5 March 1933.

Francis and Charlotte Comerford were the parents of five children, three sons and two daughters:

1, Florence Charlotte (born 1875), born in Birmingham October 1875.
2, Lilian Rose (1878-1940), born in Ferozepore, Punjab, in 1878. She returned to England with her parents and lived in Dorset before moving to Hastings, where she died on 30 September 1940, aged 62.
3, Violet Isabel (1879-1951), born in Bexhill in 1879, she later lived in Twickenham and died in Hastings in December 1951.
4, Percy J Comerford (1881-1898), he was born in India, returned to England with his parents, and died in Aston in January 1898.
5, William Ewart Comerford (1887-1974), born in Poona on 9 December 1887. He returned to England with his parents, and later lived in Guildford. He died in June 1974.

We now return to Joseph Comerford (1833-1899), second son of Joseph Comerford (1801-1848), and next brother to Francis Thomas Comerford (see above):

Joseph Comerford (1833-1899) was born in Whitechapel in 1833 and was baptised in Saint Botolph Without Aldgate on 3 April 1833. He was an armourer or gunmaker. I have found no record for his first marriage, but he described himself as a widower when he married Elizabeth Jenkins (1837-1918) on 7 July 1867 in Christchurch, Cannon Street Road (the church was demolished after bomb damage during World War II). They lived on Mile End Road in the East End and briefly in Edinburgh. Joseph Comerford died in London in October 1899; Elizabeth died in Islington in December 1918. They were the parents of one daughter and one son:

1, Eva Cannon (1880-1944), married Henry Percival Welbelove (1879-1933) in Saint Mary the Virgin, Somers Town, London, on 3 August 1908. They later lived in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, and Rotherham and Pontefract, East Yorkshire.
2, Joseph Jackson G Comerford (1884-1969), he married Theresa Ellen Wilson (1888-1945) in London in 1909, and they later lived in Monsell Road, Islington. They were the parents of three sons and a daughter:
•1a, Joseph William Comerford (1909-1982), married Clara Gladys Moore (1915-2001), lived in Brighton and died in Hove.
•2a, Harry James Comerford (1911-1972), married, and died in Hillingdon.
•3a, George Albert Comerford (1916-2004), died in Hastings.
•4a Patricia Joan Renshaw (1929-1994), lived in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

The tower and some walls remain at Christ Church Greyfriars, near Saint Paul’s Cathedral … some members of the Comerford family were baptised there (Photograph: four Comerford)

We now return to Francis Thomas Comerford (1811-1864), the second surviving son of Thomas Comerford (1769-1810) above and the younger surviving brother of Joseph Comerford (1801-1848) above:

Francis Thomas Comerford (1811-1864) was born 6 April 1811 in the Parish of Saint Giles Without Cripplegate, Aldgate. He was a porter and hatter and lived at Christopher Court, off Fenchurch Street, and at Providence Street, Southwark. He married Edith Parsley (1813-1889) in Saint James’s Church, Paddington, on 1 May 1842. Francis Comerford died in 1864 at 72 Hosier Lane, Smithfield, London; Edith died in Camberwell in December 1889. They were the parents of six children, three sons and three daughters:

1, Thomas Comerford (1841-1906), of whom next.
2, Edward Comerford (1845-1918), of whom after his brother Thomas (see below).
3, Emma (1847-1920), she was born in Aldersgate 8 July 1847 and baptised in Christ Church Greyfriars, Newgate, 26 September 1847. She died in Bromley in December 1920.
4, Mary Ann Matilda (1849-1852), born 15 July 1849, baptised in Christ Church, Greyfriars, 5 August 1849, and died in July 1852.
5, Joseph Comerford (1853-1897), of whom after his brother Edward (see below).
6, Eliza (1854-1929), born September 1854. She married Gillespie George Callam (1855-1930) in Saint James the Less Church, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, on 28 November 1875, and they were the parents of seven children, three sons and four daughters.

The first of three sons of Francis and Edith Comerford:

Thomas Comerford (1841-1906), wire weaver, was born in Saint Martin’s Le Grand, a former liberty north of Newgate Street and Cheapside and south of Aldersgate Street, on 18 July 1841, and was baptised in Christ Church, Greyfriars, Newgate, on 29 June 1845.

He married Mary Ann Powell (1843-1935) in Saint Mary-at-Lambeth Church, Lambeth, on 14 November 1864. They later lived in Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, Camberwell and Bermondsey. He died in West Ham on 8 June 1906; she died in Leicester in September 1935. They were the parents of one daughter and five sons:

1, Jane (1863-1932), married James Seamer Lock (1860-1950) in Enon Baptist Chapel, Woolwich, on 17 May 1881 and they were the parents of 16 children, eight daughters and eight sons. They later lived in Leicester, where she died on 29 April 1932.
2, Thomas Comerford (1865-1949), of whom next.
3, Benjamin James Comerford (born 1868), born in Cripplegate, 7 February 1868, baptised in Saint Matthias, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, on 1 March 1868.
4, John Comerford (1870-1871), died in infancy.
5, Robert Comerford (born 1872)
6, Henry Comerford (1875-1946), of whom after his brother Thomas and his descendants.

The eldest son of Thomas Comerford and Mary Ann (Powell) Comerford was:

Thomas Comerford (1865-1949), shoemaker, born Southwark 27 July 1865, baptised in Saint Matthias Church, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, 1 March 1868. He married Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie) Patey (1872-1936) in All Saints’ Church, Walworth, on 16 September 1889. They lived in Camberwell, Newington, Walworth and Southwark, and had moved to Leicester by 1897, living at Knighton Fields Road.

Lizzie died in Leicester on 24 December 1936, and Thomas died there in March 1949. They were the parents of two sons and four daughters:

1, Thomas Comerford (1890-1962), of whom next.
2, Amy Ellen (1892-1952), married Henry Davey Radford (1890-1971) in Leicester in June 1915 and died in Leicester in 1952.
3, Elizabeth (1893-1961), baptised in Saint Christopher’s, Walworth, 6 December 1893, married James Lakin (1893-1972) in Leicester in July 1915.
4, Mary Ann (1895-1981), born Preston Buildings, Southwark, 8 December 1895. She married Frederick William Jackson (1894-1973) in Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Knighton, Leicester, on 11 May 1918, and they were the parents of a son and a daughter.
5, Henry Comerford (1897-1997), born in Leicester 27 October 1897.
6, Helen (Ellen) Winifred (1902-1988) in Leicester, 7 April 1902. She married Jack Kyle (1900-1989) from Kettering, Northamptonshire, in Leicester in 1929, and they were the parents of a daughter. She died in Leicester on 20 June 1988.

The eldest son of Thomas and Lizzie (Patey) Comerford was:

Thomas Comerford (1890-1962) was born in Camberwell 15 March 1890, and was baptised in All Saints’ Church, Newington, 2 April 1890. He moved to Leicester with his parents, and he married Charlotte Barton (1887-1955) in Leicester in December 1907. Charlotte died in Leicester June 1955, and Thomas died at 3 Northdene Road, Leicester, on 5 March 1962.

Thomas and Charlotte Comerford were the parents of seven children, including two sons and four daughters:

1, Thomas William Comerford (1908-1978).
2, Florence Winifred (1909-1966) of Leicester, married Cyril James Gilbert (1908-1996) in 1928.
3, John Henry Comerford (1913-1997) of Leicester, married Edna Austick (1914-2003) in Leicester in September 1937.
4, Barbara Elizabeth (1920-2002), married in Acle, Norfolk, in December 1946.
5, Elsie May (1920-1975), married in Leicester in September 1940.
6, Mary (1924-2001), married Alan A Bassett in Leicester in June 1946.

The sixth child and youngest son of Thomas Comerford and Mary Ann (Powell) Comerford (see above) was:

Henry Comerford (1875-1946), bus conductor, born Newcastle on Tyne in March 1875, and grew up in London. He married Rebecca Louisa Hudson (born 1879) in Saint James’s Church, Bermondsey, 25 December 1899. Henry died in Finsbury in March 1946. They were the parents of five children, three sons and two daughters:

1, Henry Thomas Comerford (1900-2001), born Walworth 30 October 1900, baptised Saint Matthew’s, Newington, 18 November 1900. He married Florence M Waller in Edmonton in 1940. He lived to 101 and died in Enfield in December 2001.
2, (Male) Comerford (1902-1902), who died at birth in Southwark in September 1902.
3, Jessie Rebecca (1903-1974), born in Walworth, 22 May 1903, baptised in Saint Matthew’s Church, Newington, 7 June 1903, and died in Newton Abbot, Devon, in December 1974.
4, Charles William Comerford (1905-1961), born in Walworth, 19 March 1905, died in Southend on Sea, 28 May 1961.
5, Isabella Mary (1908-1920), born in Walworth, December 1908.

Saint Mary-at-Lambeth Church, where some members of the Comerford family where baptised and married (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

We now return to the second of three sons of Francis and Edith Comerford:

Edward Comerford (1845-1906), coachman and bus driver, was born 2 June 1845 and baptised in Christ Church, Greyfriars, Newgate, 29 June 1845. Edward was twice married; he married his first wife Louisa Trimmer (1846-1888) in Saint Mary-at-Lambeth Church on 29 September 1867. They lived in Saint John’s Square, and later in Newington, and Louisa died in March 1888. Edward and Louisa Comerford were the parents of three sons and three daughters:

1, Louisa Elizabeth (1869-1903), born in Cheap 1869, baptised in Saint John the Baptist Church, Clerkenwell, 24 April 1870. She married William Griffin Walker (born 1867) in Saint Peter’s Church, Walworth, in June 1888, and they were the parents of two daughters. She lived in Newington and died in July 1903.
2, Edward Thomas Comerford (1870-1917), born in Clerkenwell 1870, baptised in Saint John the Baptist Church, Clerkenwell, 24 April 1870. He was a private in the East Surrey Regiment by 1901. He died in Southwark in 1917.
3, Arthur Comeford (1876-1946), born in Southwark 30 September 1876 and baptised in Saint Mary, Newington, on 15 December 1876. He was a plumber and gas fitter, and lived in Bermondsey. He married Alice Elizabeth Howard (born 1879, Bromley Bow, Poplar) in Saint Dunstan and All Saints’ Church, Stepney, on 21 May 1899. He died in 1946 and was buried in Greenwich.
4, Harriet Eleanor (1878-post 1955), born in Newington, 1878, baptised in Saint Mary’s, Newington, 25 July 1879. She married William Henry Pearson (1877-1967) in Saint Mark’s Church, Walworth, on 31 July 1898. The lived at Ethelred Street, Lambeth, and Blandford House, Richborne Terrace, Lambeth, and were the parents of one son and three daughters.
5, Rose Matilda (1881-1933), born Newington, 13 July 1881, baptised in Saint Mary’s Church, Newington, 24 August 1881. She married William Henry Chaproniere (1878-1916) in Saint Paul’s Church, Bermondsey, on14 May 1899. They lived in Bermondsey, and were the parents of three sons and a daughter. He was a corporal and died in the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916; she died in December 1933.
6, Albert Edgar Comerford (1887-1915), born in Kennington on 25 June 1887, and baptised in Saint James’s Church, Kennington, on 28 July 1887. A printer, he was a private in the Royal Fusiliers City of London Regiment 2nd Battalion by 1911, in Jubbulpore, India. He was killed in Gallipoli on 5 June 1915 and is named on the Helles Memorial Gallipoli.

Louisa died in March 1888 and Edward Comerford married his second wife, Jane Julie Osborne (1866-1943) in Saint Mary-at-Lambeth Church on 27 July 1890. Thomas and Jane Comerford later lived in Camberwell, but by 1913 they were described as ‘destitute and homeless’ and living with their children in Saint Olave’s Workhouse, Bermondsey. Edward died at the end of 1918; Jane died in Staines in 1943. They were the parents of two daughters and a son:

1, Jane Agnes (born 1901), born in Camberwell 11 March 1901, baptised in Emmanuel Church, Camberwell, on 28 April 1901. She married Frank Gill.
2, Frederick Charles (aka Charles Frederick) Comerford (1907-1985), born in Old Lambeth 23 April 1907. He married Phoebe Carpenter (born 1908) in Brighton in December 1929, and died in Hove in December 1985.
3, Ellen Elizabeth (born 1911), born in Camberwell 10 February 1911.

Saint James’s Church, Northampton … Edward William Comerford and Harriet Longworth were married there in 1902 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

We now return to the third of three sons of Francis and Edith Comerford:

Joseph Comerford (1853-1897), a boot maker, was born in St Georges Borough in 1853. He married Catherine (Kate) Miller (1854-1915), from Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire, in Saint James the Great Church, Bethnal Green, on 7 August 1874. Joseph Comerford moved to Northampton, and moved between Northampton and Newington as Joseph Comerford continued to find work in the shoe industry. They eventually lived at 32 Wellington Street, Northampton. Joseph died in Northampton in October 1897, when he was only 45 and his children were still young. His widow Kate later kept a boarding house at 84 Dunster Street, and died in Northampton in October 1915. They were the parents of eleven children, six daughters and five sons:

1, Catherine (born 1874), born in Bethnal Green, Hackney, July 1874. She married William Thomas Tyler (1863-1908) in Saint Michael’s Church, Northampton, 6 August 1893, and they were the parents of seven children, three daughters and four sons.
2, Clara (born 1876), born in Hackney, married William Muddiman (1878-1942) in Saint Giles Church, Northampton, in January 1897. They lived in Dallington and Marlboro’ Road, Northampton, and were the parents of one son and four daughters.
3, Joseph Comerford (1879-1958), shoe finisher, born Northampton. He married Esther Mary Clarke (1871-1957) in Northampton 16 September 1906; he died in Daventry 16 November 1958; she died at11 Baker Street, Northampton, 29 November 1957. They were the parents of one son:
•1a, Joseph Cyril Comerford (1906-1985), born Northampton, 19 March 1906. He married Florence Isabella Liggins (1910-1975) in Northampton, March 1932. They lived at 59 Northfield Gardens, Watford, Hertfordshire. She died June 1975; she died 8 December 1985.
4, Edward William Comerford (1880-1949), born Newington, 25 May 1880, baptised Saint Christopher’s Church, Walworth, 12 October 1887, and moved to Northampton with his parents. He worked in the boot trade and married Harriet Longworth (1881-1961) in Saint James’s Church, Northampton, 8 May 1902. They lived in Duston, Northampton, and Abbott Road, Manfield, and were the parents of six children, five daughters and a son. Edward Comerford died in Mansfield 1 May 1949; Harriet died 10 August 1961.
5, Thomas James Comerford (1884-1975), born Northampton 10 June 1884, married in Northampton September 1921, and died there December 1975.
6, Herbert Comerford (1886-1970), of whom next.
7, Eliza Edith (1888-1933), born Southwark 28 April 1888, baptised in Saint Giles, Northampton, 13 September 1893, along with two of her sisters. She married William Henry Beal (1885-1933). She died at 187 Hampstead Road, St Pancras, London, 10 May 1933, and he died in June 1933.
8, Elizabeth Miller Comerford (1890-1967), born Northampton 13 August 1890, baptised in Saint Giles, Northampton, 13 September 1893, along with two of her sisters. She married Frederick Stevens (born 1890) in Northampton in April 1915. She died in Poplar, London, in December 1967.
9, Sarah Victoria (1893-1983), born Northampton 28 January 1893, baptised in Saint Giles, Northampton, 13 September 1893, along with two of her sisters. She married William Thomas Hollowell (1890-1963) in Northampton in January 1910, and they were the parents of a son, Ernest William Hollowell (1910-1990), who lived in Bolton Lancashire.
10, George Albert Comerford (1895-1897), born London, 27 May 1895, baptised in Saint Giles, Northampton, 21 January 1897, died later that month in Northampton.
11, Lily (1898-1899), born in Northampton in April 1898, died there an infant in October 1899.

The sixth child and fifth son of Joseph and Catherine (Miller) Comerford of Northampton was:

Herbert Comerford (1886-1970), of Northampton. He was born in Southwark 25 June 1886 and moved to Northampton as a child with his parents and siblings, and grew up in Alcombe Terrace and Dunster Street, Northampton. He married Mabel Louisa Lamburn (1891-1982) in Northampton in April 1915. Herbert died in Northampton in June 1970; His widow Mabel died in Northampton on 2 August 1982. They were the parents of:

1, Herbert Comerford (1915-2005), of whom next.
2, Reginald Comerford, born in Northampton 10 February 1921

The elder son of Herbert and Mabel Comerford of Northampton was:

Herbert (Bert) Comerford OBE (1915-2005), born in Northampton in November 1915. Bert, Comerford attended Kettering Road Intermediate School, and at the age of 15 followed his father and grandfather into the shoemaking trade. He first became a clicker in the shoemaking industry, working for G Webb & Sons at their factory in Brockton Street, Northampton. The clickers became known as the elite or the ‘gentlemen’ of shoemakers. They cut out the shoe uppers from the precious fine leathers using knives with curved and sharply pointed blades.

Bert married Ella Mary Everitt (1917-2011), daughter of George Everitt and Maud EE Bennett of Northampton, in Northampton in January 1940. Bert was in the British Army during World War II, but returned to shoemaking in Northampton in 1946. He was a long-term member of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives (NUBSO) when he began working full-time for the union in 1959. In the 1960s, he was living at 10 Lea Road, Northampton. He became the union’s assistant general officer in 1969. The union merged with other unions in 1970 to form the National Union of the Footwear, Leather and Allied Trades (NUFLAT), and Bert Comerford was elected as its first General President. The union sponsored Labour Party candidates in several parliamentary elections.

The 1970s were a difficult period for the footwear industry in Britain, and when Bert retired in 1980, he described how he regretted leaving while the decline continued. Today, Northampton and the county’s shoemaking industry are thriving once again, and the town is still recognised across the world for making high-quality footwear.

Bert Comerford was made an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1981 New Year Honours list. In retirement, he was an honorary member of the Clothing and Footwear Institute. He died in July 2005; his widow Ella died on 28 January 2011.

The former G Webb & Sons factory in Brockton Street, Northampton … three generations of the Comerford family worked in the shoe industry in Northampton