The Jobbing Historian

  Five Historic things you never thought you needed to know. #11 The Art of Screwing Corks The first cork screw seems to have been developed out of the worm, used for cleaning muskets in the 1630s. The first patent for such a thing was granted in 1795 by the Reverend Samuel Henshall.  There is a museum devoted to them.  https://www.museodeicavatappi.it/   One of Rev Henshall's corkscrews The Free, United and Sober Society of Bilston was active in Staffordshire in the 1790s.  The Sobriety in their name didn’t refer to the demon drink but built cottages to serve the needs of the aged and infirmed. In 1794 they gave 20 guineas to set up the Staffordshire Yeomanry Cavalry. Death and Football Cromer Town Football Team play at Cabbell Park. The team was given a lease in 1922 by Evelyn Bond-Cabbell.  In 2009 panic gripped North Norfolk when it was revealed a clause in the lease said it ended 21 years after the death of Queen Victoria’s last surviving grandchild....

  T he fragmented life of Sarah Biddulph It is sad, but true, that most people avoid the attentions of Historians by being too poor, too female or too long ago. In the hunt for the origins of people donating hard cash to set up the Staffordshire Yeomanry Cavalry I came across Sarah Biddulph.  Apart from being rare, only 7% of donors were card carrying women in the 1794 list, [1] Sarah appeared not just in the lists of births, marriages and deaths, but during the initial search, appeared in the newspapers several times over 23 years.  What will follow are fragments of History. I can not, as yet, go much beyond these spots of light in the darkness - but what fragments and what darkness. Derby Mercury 26th April 1776 Sarah was married to William Biddulph, who was involved with land in the possession of Widow Moore in 1761.  [2]  He was  renting 27 acres of pasture [at least] in Uttoxeter in 1761. [3]  William is again mentioned as being involved with the ...