William Weston Swinnerton and his wife Elizabeth Perkins Swinnerton nee Hands.
Also their son
William Edward and his wife
Agnes nee Hodges, and their daughter
Catherine Ann and her husband
Reginald Richard Hollick.
William Weston Swinnerton's parents,
Joseph and Anne Swinnerton nee Weston, and his brother
Edward and sister
Anne Catherine, are commemorated at
D 7.13. His maternal grandparents, the Westons, had come to farm at Stivichall Grange many years previously; they are buried at
D6.7. His youngest sister
Mary Elizabeth is buried at
B 1.12; his daughter
Helen Elizabeth at
B 5.2. The family is also connected with other farming families buried at Stoneleigh: the Farmers (see
D 16.4), the Hands, the Clarkes, the Murcotts, the Ledbrooks, the Howletts,the Grimes, the Sammons, the Metters and the Hollicks.
Farming dynasties indeed!
William Weston Swinnerton was the youngest of the four children of Joseph and Anne Swinnerton nee Weston, who farmed at Cryfield. His older brother Edward later took over the farm there. William was born in 1845 and baptised at Westwood on Christmas Day 1845. He continued to live at his parents' farm at Cryfield until his father's death in 1867. He had taken over Stivichall Grange by 1871 and married Elizabeth Perkins Hands on 5 December 1872 at Baginton church. They went on to have four children - two sons and two daughters. The farm comprised more than 500 acres. William lived there for the rest of his life, dying on 8 December 1919 at the age of 74.
His wife
Elizabeth Perkins Swinnerton nee Hands was born in 1839 and baptised at Holy Trinity Coventry on 9 April. She was the daughter of Richard Hands and his wife Catharine Weston Perkins. Her father's family, the Hands, farmed at Baginton and through her mother's family, the Westons, came the tenancy of Stivichall Grange which was to persist until 1964. [Her grandmother Sarah was the sister of James Weston who is commemorated with his family at
D 6.7.] Elizabeth was staying with her uncle, John Weston Perkins, at the time of the 1851 census; he was a landed proprietor in Whitley. She was still living with him ten years later, by which time they were at Hertford Place in Coventry. After her father's death in 1868 she lived with her mother and brother Lawrence who had taken over the Baginton farm, and then, on 5 December 1872, at the age of 33, she married William Weston Swinnerton. Although she began her family relatively late in life, she went on to have four children before she died, aged 51, on 15 November 1890, at Stivichall Grange. She was buried at Stoneleigh on 19 November.
William Edward Swinnerton, usually known as Bill, was the youngest child of William Weston Swinnerton and his wife Elizabeth. He was born in 1881 and baptised at Stoneleigh on 30 April. Sadly, he was only nine when his mother died. Perhaps this is why in 1891 he was boarding at Priory Hill School in Wolston. Thereafter he lived at Stivichall Grange and farmed there with his father, although in the 1911 census he states that he also has another farm elsewhere. On 4 September 1912 he married, in Kenilworth, Agnes Mary Hodges, whose father Edward Paine Hodges was from Ladbroke. In a 1916 directory his address is given as Cryfield, where his grandfather Joseph Swinnerton had farmed.
More than 20 years later, in 1939, he was living at Crickley Barrow Farm, Northleach in Gloucestershire, and he died there on 10 April 1941. It is probable that he was buried there and is commemorated here in Stoneleigh with the rest of his family.
Agnes Hodges was the daughter of Edward Paine Hodges and his wife Lucy Burdett nee Church. She was born on 4 May 1890 and baptised at Kenilworth on 15 May; her father was then farming at Camp Farm. She attended boarding school at St Winifred's in Bristol but by 1911 was home in Kenilworth again. She was a Sunday school teacher for several years before her marriage to William on 4 September 1912.
After her marriage to William Edward Swinnerton she had no children, and lived a long life, dying on 6 December 1976. She had been widowed for 35 years. She was cremated at Cheltenham before burial of her ashes at Northleach, and so her name is simply a commemoration here in Stoneleigh.
Catherine Ann Swinnerton was the elder of the two daughters of William Weston Swinnerton and Elizabeth Perkins Swinnerton nee Hands. She was born on 14 April 1875 and baptised at Stoneleigh on 9 June. She lived at home until her marriage at Stivichall on 30 August 1908 to
Reginald Richard Hollick. They had one daughter, Catherine Elizabeth, usually known as Betty. Reginald, born on 1 September 1873, was one of the nine children of John and Kathleen Hollick who farmed over 600 acres in Lythalls Lane, Coventry, before moving by 1891 to Stivichall Manor Farm (later known as Bremond College). Reginald and Catherine had taken over Stivichall Grange by 1939, and Catherine died there on 14 August 1950, leaving a considerable sum of money in her will. Reginald was still farming there when he died aged 91 on 18 December 1964. [His place of death was his niece's house, Abbey Farm, Ashow.] The local newspaper recorded him as the oldest surviving ex-pupil of King Henry VIII School at that time.
NB
* Reginald's brother Frederick Hollick married Mary Murcott Grimes, and they are buried at
B5.3
* the eldest son of William Weston Swinnerton, Joseph, farmed at Over Whitacre where the Westons had farmed in the mid-eighteenth century. He had adopted the extra surname Weston in order to inherit. He died unmarried at Over Whitacre House in 1958. Obituaries describe him as "Squire Weston Swinnerton," who left most of his considerable estate to charity.