MARPLES FAMILY HISTORY
Here is where you will eventually find the definitive history of the founder of the William Marples firm going back as far as his father. I could go back further, but the information gets less reliable .
The information that I will present will be as accurate as I can find on a dedicated Family History site. But I have to sift through many family history informations that purport to give a Family History, but which are copied from other inaccurate Family History pages…the blind leading the blind!!. This is supremely intensive work to discern the truth from fiction [or at least the reporting of similar names linked to a reported site]. I have found numerous sites that draw information from another (erroneous) site. The problem here is that there were so many children all named exactly the same around 1600-1700+ and within one family!!. {It is almost as if the people of those times had no other childrens’ names in mind than other than their forebears’ names, but then it was a male dominated society!}.
Every first son was named after his father and the daughters were named after their Mothers or Grandparents. This leads to a total confusion for researchers, as concrete information as to birth, christening date and Father and Mother named therein is therefore not 100% trustworthy.
I have therefore spent countless hours on a Family Heritage site to gather information on the William Marples family history. But this information may fly in the face of other renowned Historians. But in truth, to get things 100% correct is very, very difficult. It is a vast subject when you have to go back 5+ generations, so I will try to compress the information herein reported back as far as William Marples Snr., the Father of the founder of the William Marples tool company. Other sites may indicate that Snr. was the founder…this is not true, his son William Jnr. started this empire .
So here it is my first attempt to get history right for William….there may be many revisions…
John Marple [1732-1819] married Mary [1739-1818] in 1770 and had 2 sons William[Snr] [born in Baslow, Derbyshire in 1773 & died Ecclesall Sheffield 29th Nov 1844] and Robert [Snr.] [born 3 May 1772 and died 28 Aug 1839]
Willam Marples Snr. married Mary Clarke [b.1781 Sheffield d. 6/1849 Sheffield.] on 14 June 1802 at Parish Church of SS Peter & Paul Sheffield and they had a son William (Jnr.)
[Robert Marples Snr. married Ann White [1776-2/1800] [after the death of his first wife] on 3rd June 1775 in Sheffield and they had a son called Benjamin in 1798.
His wife Ann died shortly thereafter and he married another lady Charlotte Foster [1776-15/1/1864] on Oct 20 1800 in Sheffield. This union produced a son named Robert Marples [Jnr] [b. 1807] and it is this person who started the Robt. Marples tool making firm.]
One son of William Marples Snr. was named William (Jnr.),and he was born in 21 March 1809...this was William Marples Jnr. who started the Tool making firm of William Marples .
William Jnr. had many siblings as outlined below:
Amelia b.1803
William b.1805 d.1805
John b.26/10/1806
Samuel b. 23/2/1808
George b.2Feb 1811
Isaac b.1813
Mary b.1816
Eliza b.14March 1819
Ann b.17Jan 1822
Emma b.1 June 1827
William Marples Jnr. and Robert Marples Jnr. were therefore COUSINS, not brothers as other sites may state. { I think they are getting confused about the fathers of the 2 sites William Snr. and Robert Snr…who were brothers.}
Robert Marples Jnr [1807] married Caroline Greaves [1806-1869] and they had a son ‘Henry Dixon Marples’ [3/1840-3/5/1920] born and died in Sheffield. [ Another son ‘Robert’ born in 1844 died in 1845] .
William Marples Jnr. and his son are both buried side by side at the church of Christ Church, Fulwood, Sheffield. Both are with their wives and both are there in the most unassuming of graves.
First is William Jnr Born 21/3/1809, died 2 /10/1877 and his wife Jane Kent born April 1808, died 15 /2/1893
In the background here is his son Edwin Henry Marples b 17/7/1835 d 17/11/1918 and his wife, Mary jane [Smith] b 17 /1o/1839 d. 16/08/1917.
to be continued soon June 2023
