Robert Keartland and Martha Keartland, his niece.
Robert Keartland was the eldest son of farmer William Keartland and his wife Elizabeth nee Payne. He was born in 1818 in Duns Tew in Oxfordshire. He had two brothers, William and John, who both became butchers in Leamington. Initially Robert's profession was as master of the Free School in Lower Boddington, Northamptonshire - he was there in 1851 with his wife
Martha (see
E.1.11) whom he had married in Stoneleigh on 13 August 1839. By 1861 however the couple were living in Stoneleigh, having taken on the Beer House which had previously been run by Martha's mother Sarah Hall. There he was not only a brewer but also a grocer, and he was described as such in the 1868 Kelly's Directory.
Robert and Martha had no children of their own, and their nieces Martha Keartland and Jane Hall Tipson could be found living with them in some of the censuses. Robert himself was the Stoneleigh census enumerator in 1871.
He died on 18 February 1875 and was buried on 21 February.
Buried in the same grave is
Martha Keartland, Robert's niece, born in 1854. Her parents were Robert's brother John and his wife Eliza nee Nash. Quite why Martha should have lived with her uncle Robert and his wife Martha is a mystery - she was with them in Stoneleigh in 1861at the age of six and still there at the time of her death aged 20 on New Year's Eve 1874; she was buried on 5 January 1875, just a few weeks before her uncle Robert.
