72 THE WEDGWOODS. 



imperishable. The Wedgwoods appear to have been seated 

 at the township bearing their name, from a very early date, 

 and in 1370 (13 Edward III.) Thomas de Weggewood was 

 frankpledge, or headborough, of the hamlet of Weggewood. 

 When they left their original jtitrimony is not known ; but 

 about the year 1470, John Wedgwood, of Blackwood, or 

 Dunwood, " descended from a family that took its name 

 from Wedgwood, in Wolstanton parish, whence they came," 

 married Mary, daughter and heiress of John Shawe, and had 

 with her Harecels (Harracles, in the parish of Horton, near 

 Leek), to which I shall have occasion again to refer 

 later on. 



Richard Wedgwood of Harracles married Jane Shirrot, and 

 had by her a son, John Wedgwood, who became High Collector 

 of Subsidy in 1563; and another son, Richard Wedgwood, 

 of the Mole in Biddulph, who married, on the 14th of 

 September, 1567, Margaret Boulton, and had by her three 

 sons Richard, Randle, and Gilbert, the latter of whom 

 (baptised at Biddulph, November 6th, 1588) married Mar- 

 garet, daughter and heiress of Thomas Burslem, of Burslem, 

 by his wife, Mary Ford, and had by her Burslem Wedgwood, 

 baptised at Burslem, December llth, 1614, and Thomas, 

 who became ancestor of Josiah Wedgwood. 



John Wedgwood, the High Collector of Subsidy, married 

 Anne, daughter of William Bowyer, of Knypersley (whose 

 sister married William Ford, of the Mosse, about the year 

 1565), and had by her John Wedgwood, of Harracles, who 

 married Mary, daughter of Thomas Egerton, of Walgrange 

 and Horton, " with whom he had part of the mannour." 

 This John Wedgwood, who died April 6th, 1589, had by his 

 marriage with this lady, who died September 5th, 1582, 

 eight children viz., John, of whom presently; Egerton, 

 who died without issue ; Ralph, married to Alice Leighe ; 

 Mary, married to Ambrose Arden ; Anne, married to James 

 Gibson ; Margaret, married to Thomas Smith, of London, 

 goldsmith, and afterwards to Richard Rand, of London; 

 Eliza, married to Richard Foxe, and afterwards to William St. 



