Robert Alfred Potts and his wife
Sarah (nee Cranmer) both died young, as did one of their children. Robert was born in Stoneleigh in 1841, his father James being a gamekeeper at Stoneleigh Abbey. He was baptised at Stoneleigh on 28 March 1841. His father died in August 1858 (and was buried at Stoneleigh) and the family moved to Stratford where his mother became a schoolmistress, his sister a governess and Robert himself became an architect's clerk.
Robert married Sarah Cranmer at Holy Trinity Stratford on 17 April 1865 and the couple moved to Middlesex, where they had two children, Gertrude and Charles. Sadly Charles died at the age of four in 1871, and the family returned to Warwickshire where by 1874 Robert is listed in White's Directory as clerk of the works at Stoneleigh Abbey. Obviously the family was known to the Leighs.
In 1876, when Robert was only 36 and practising as an architect and civil engineer, his wife Sarah died, aged just 30. She was buried at Stoneleigh on 10 June, leaving Robert with a five-year-old daughter. Eighteen months later, on 22 December 1877, Robert himself died, and in his Will named his mother as executrix to look after his small daughter.
Daughter Gertrude thankfully lived a long and comfortable life, marrying a professor of music in Warwick and having four children before she died in 1921.
