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John Jervis, Viscount St.Vincent , Lord Nelson's Admiral
and General Wolfe's friend. Distinguished himself in battle
against the Spanish off Cape St.Vincent (1797) and in reinforcing
General Wolfe in the Wars against the French in Canada. Jervis
joined the navy aged thirteen in 1748; his father gave him £20
on joining the navy, the last act of support towards his son.
He was made Knight of the Bath for the taking of the French
ship "Foudroyant" in 1782. Jervis served as a member of Parliament
from 1783 to 1793. Promoted to Vice Admiral he sailed to the
West Indies with Sir Charles Grey and took Martinique, Santa
Lucia and Guadaloupe, on his return to England he was made a
Freeman of the City of London. It was off Cape Vincent in 1797
that Jervis distinguished himself aided by Nelson. They took
on the Spanish fleet that was heading towards Ireland to mount
and invasion of England with the French. Admiral Sir John Jervis
commanded the British fleet at St. Vincent from aboard his flagship,
Victory Outnumbered, Jervis captured two Spanish ships, wrecked
many more and blocked the rest in Cadiz.. |
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Following the victory at St. Vincent he was created Baron Jervis of Meaford in the County of Staffordshire and Earl St. Vincent. For his actions Jervis was awarded a pension of £3,000; the King himself choose the title St Vincent. Earl St. Vincent eventually retired from the Fleet in 1806. He returned to England from France and in 1821 was promoted Admiral of the Fleet. Earl St Vincent was the first officer to hold such a rank (with the exception of the Duke of Clarence). He died in 1823.
Richard Smith , creator of Hovis bread, was born at the Old Mill, Mill Street in 1836. He sold his patent for making Hovis to Fitton and Sons, Macclesfield.
Peter de Wint , artist, one of ten children born to a doctor Henry de Wint, an American of Dutch descent was born at 36 High Street in 1784. He was an English landscape and architectural painter who was one of the chief English watercolourists of the early 19th century. From 1802 to 1806 De Wint studied under the engraver John Smith. Thereafter he made his living chiefly as a teacher. He first exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1807 with paintings of local landscapes. In 1811 he became a member of the Society of Water-colour Painters. He preferred the English countryside to foreign landscapes and only took one trip abroad. One of the most renowned English watercolourists, De Wint exercised a freedom in colour range and brushstroke that was rare among his contemporaries. He died in London in 1849.
Thomas Bakewell, born in Cheadle in 1761, he studied insanity under his two uncles. In 1808 he set up as asylum at Spring Vale near Tittensor, which was very successful. His son, Dr Samuel Bakewell, continued his work and ran the "Oulton Retreat" (now Oulton Abbey); he was praised by the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy for his successful treatment of insanity. He was also a poet, among his works were "The Moorland Bard, or Poetical Recollections of a Weaver in the Mooorlands of Staffordshire". Thomas Bakewell was married three times, had twenty-four children, eleven of them by his third wife. He died at the fine age of 79.
Richard Barnfield, born in 1574 at Norbury Manor, his entire output consists of three small books of poetry written before he was 25: The Affectionate Shepherd (1594), Cynthia (1595), and The Encomion of Lady Pecunia (1598). The lyric “As it fell upon a day” is perhaps his most notable workTwo of his works were attributed to Shakespeare and for many years were included in the Bard's complete works.
"If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs (the sister and the brother),
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other."
He moved to Darlaston Hall in 1599 and was buried at the Church of St Mary and St Wulfstad in 1627.
George Cooper , gypsy pugilist, born circa 1791, probably built up his strength for fighting whilst working on canal boats at Stone, which earned him the title the "Bargeman" in the ring, was considered to be one of the best fighters of his day.
Henry Fourdrinier , son of a family of French paper-makers, established a papermaking mill north of Stone known as Coppice Mill. It was Henry and Sealy who invented a machine for making continuous paper of any size in 1807. Henry patented a papermaking machine, a process that is still in use today. Henry's son George went on to set up a paper making factory in Haley in 1827 providing the pottery industry with tissue paper for the manufacturing process.
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