(this must have been a first outing for the "Crape Hatt Band" Thomas bought in the previous post).
Then there is a note in the margin
Saturday 5 May my wife Returned from SumerHill and the 8 May my wife went to Grantham
Mr Edward Newton Left my wife a 50 pound in the Grantham Turnpike and 20 pounds to be paid her in one year after his Desease.
So Edward Newton is definitely a close relative but I know he is not her father. An Uncle perhaps?
The Grantham Turnpike could refer to several Turnpike Trusts. These maintained roads before government did. Of course, this was not out of charity and Toll gates were placed across the roads to collect the fees (just like the M6 Toll).
I can't find where this Trust's roads ran but here is a toll house from quite another place
P.S. A quick Google tells me that Edward Newton's will was the business of the Lincoln Consistory Court and a copy of it is stored in the Lincolnshire Archives. The index, which I can access online, tells me that he was a gunmaker.
P.P.S. Edward Newton appears to have been an Irishman - one of his apprentices was John Fox Twigg . That link is particularly worthwhile as it shows guns made by Mr Twigg. Another was Robert Wogdon.
P.P.S. From The Field 3rd April 2012
"Founding father, Joseph Manton, was born in April 1766, the son of a farmer and corn miller in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Manton was brought up in rural isolation, his family unsophisticated, his life unpromising and his future uncertain. Manton's one advantage was that he grew up in what firearms scholar Keith R Dill has labelled the Grantham Genesis.
Four great British gunmakers of the Georgian era, John Twigg, Robert Wogdon, Joseph Manton and his equally talented brother John Manton, all appear to have learnt something in Grantham. All were influenced in varying degrees by communing with the shadowy figure of Edward Newton, a provincial gunmaker whose only legacy appears to have been the workmen he trained who subsequently took his high standards with them to London."
