Derwent Ratliff and Dorothy Murray Ratliff nee Pearson
Dorothy Murray Ratliff nee Pearson was the daughter of an iron master/manufacturer from Wolverhampton, and was the grand-daughter of James Murray, the prominent Victorian architect, who designed the Coventry School of Art (and Stoneleigh's new almshouses!). Her parents were Joseph Frederick Pearson and Margaret Maria nee Murray.
Dorothy was the fourth child, and was born on 7 April 1887 in Handsworth, Birmingham, and baptised at St James Church there on 29 May. Hers was a privileged background, the household not only comprising her parents and their six children but also a number of servants. In October 1910 she married Derwent William Ratliff in Bromsgrove, and by the next year they were living at Raleigh House, Claygate in Surrey, where Derwent was chief engineer and manager for a motor car company. By April 1922 they had moved to Stoneleigh where their third daughter Angela was born and baptised. They lived at Stareton House and it was here that Dorothy died on 28 January 1943.
Derwent William Ratliff's family were Coventry ribbon manufacturers in the nineteenth century who also owned the Coventry Brewery Company until late in the century. Derwent was born on 1 December 1882 and baptised on 28 December at Holy Trinity Church in Coventry, his father's occupation being given as brewer. Derwent was the third child and only son of Arthur William Ratliff and his wife Ethel Mavourneen nee Murray. The family travelled to Canada in 1885 but certainly by 1910 Derwent was back in England as he was married to Dorothy Pearson in the autumn of that year. He served in the Great War with the Royal Field Artillery, initially as a second lieutenant but rising to the rank of captain.
Although Derwent worked as an engineer, by 1939 he was describing himself as a brewery manager; at the time of the register that year he was staying at the Kings Head Hotel in Hertford Street, Coventry, presumably connected with business. He died on 1 July 1963, by which time he had been living for some time at Crackley Crescent, Kenilworth.