John Mantle and the Stewponey Hotel (Favourite Photo)
This week’s prompt for 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks is Favourite Photo. I thought long and hard about which was a favourite. In the end, the image I chose wasn’t even a photo, but rather a postcard.
I had been doing research about John Mantle, a Maltster, and came across his burial record naming him “of the Stewponey Inn”1 in Staffordshire. I tried searching for this place and a wealth of information flooded to the surface, mainly in old newspapers. There were many family announcements that included the wonderful words “John Mantle of the Stewponey Inn” or some similar derivative. Some of these announcements lead me to new relations I had not yet discovered, and they also showed that he ran the Hotel from at least 18482 to his death in 1857.3
The location of the Inn was very well situated near the junction of two canals along which coal was shipped, travelling either to Birmingham or Wolverhampton, and the hotel was a frequent gathering place for public meetings. Sabine-Gould also wrote a story that was set in this inn, Bladys of Stewponey, published in 1897. It later became a silent movie in 1919. The movie, unfortunately, uses a different inn as its visual setting.5
In researching a bit further, I came across an eBay listing for a postcard which quickly became a treasured part of my genealogy collection. It wasn’t period to when my ancestor would have run the hotel as the postcard dated from the early 1900s,6 but it was likely as close as I was going to get. The Stewponey and Foley Arms Hotel was demolished and rebuilt in 1936,7 then torn down again in 2004.8 A block of flats now sits on the site where the Stewponey Inn once stood.9
John Mantle is my 4th great-grandfather. Our ancestral line:
- 7. John Mantle (abt 1789-1857)
- 6. Joshua Parkes Mantle (1818-1899)
- 5. Harry Evan Mantle (1859-1910)
- 4. Eliza Mantle (1901-1998)
- 3. Elizabeth Adelaide Skelcher (1924-1990)
- 2. My father (living)
- 1. Me (living)
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is a blogging prompt started by Amy Johnson Crow. My stories will include both sides of our family, including collateral lines.
“Shropshire Burials 1813-1868”, digital image and index, Find My Past, (www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 9 Nov 2014); entry for John Mantle, 4 Feb 1857, register1232, Claverley, Shropshire, England; citing Shropshire Archives, “Shropshire Burials”, ref P68/A/4/1. ↩
“Stourbridge, Prestwood October Meeting”, Worcestershire Chronicle, 11 Oct 1848, page 5, column 2; digital image, Find My Past (www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 8 Nov 2014). ↩
“Shropshire Burials 1813-1868”, entry for John Mantle, 4 Feb 1857. ↩
Stewponey & Foley Arms Hotel postcard, ca 1905-1910; Digital copy created 14 Feb 2015, by Chriss Coleman, York, Ontario, Canada; original is a 3.5 by 5.5” unused postcard, entitled “, Stewponey, Near Kinver”, labelled E.S. London, No 853 on the reverse side privately held by Chriss Coleman, 2018. ↩
Chris Upton, “Landmark inn was the inspiration for writer’s dark tale”, Birmingham Post, 17 May 2013, online archives (http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/lifestyle/landmark-inn-inspiration-writers-dark-3906322 : accessed 12 Jan 2018), citing online text. ↩
“View of the Stewponey and Foley Arms”, Staffordshire Past Track, (https://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/details.aspx?ResourceID=13807&ExhibitionID=13791&PageIndex=3&SearchType=2&ThemeID=286 : accessed 12 Jan 2018). ↩
“Stewponey and Foley Arms, Kinver”, Staffordshire Past Track, (https://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/details.aspx?ResourceID=13807&ExhibitionID=13807&PageIndex=3&SearchType=2&ThemeID=286 : accessed 12 Jan 2018). ↩
“View of the Stewponey and Foley Arms”, Staffordshire Past Track, (https://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/details.aspx?ResourceID=13807&ExhibitionID=14112&PageIndex=3&SearchType=2&ThemeID=286 : accessed 12 Jan 2018). ↩
Chris Upton, “Landmark inn was the inspiration for writer’s dark tale”, Birmingham Post ↩
Copyright ©2018, Chriss Coleman