Craig

The family most associated with Milton House is that of William Younger Craig (1827-1924), a Scottish mining engineer and Liberal MP for North Staffordshire, and his wife Harriette (the house bears her middle name). Their son Ernest (1860-1933) was also experienced in mining. He became Conservative MP for Crewe after working overseas for many years, leading to a number of American family connections.

Ford/Mellor

Henry Ford (c.1824-1878) was the stepson of John Egerton Ward, an attorney, of Congleton. His second wife was Eliza Mellor, daughter of William Mellor, farmer at Smallwood and cheese factor, who was in business with his sons and son-in-law in Sheffield. Eliza’s brother Robert Mellor (c.1817-1894) retired from the business and stayed at Sunnyside with William Key (who had himself married another Mellor sister) before building The Hill and continuing existing development of the south side of Crewe Road. This was on land which had formerly belonged to John Ford, which was the name of Henry Ford’s father (d.1828); but a connection has not been established. The Hill descended to Eliza Ford’s children.

Fox

John Fox (d. 1876) farmed at the Lodge Farm and also ran an inn there. When the railway came, he appears to have concluded that his inn business would fare better further south, so he gave up the farm (where his farming successor was John Mayer, who ironically had been a publican in Burslem) and moved the pub business to the newly-built Lodge Inn on the Crewe Road, which he opened in mid-1854. A butcher’s business was conducted there as well, and may have led to a brief brush with bankruptcy. His second wife Mahala took over the pub when he died, but on occasion found herself on a charge for watering down drinks. They and some of John’s children have a flat memorial stone in Christ Church churchyard.

Mayer/Barker/Colclough

John Creed Mayer (1809-1876) ran an ale and porter business as well as a pub in Burslem, where he owned land and was part owner of a pottery works. His second wife, Martha Fanshaw, a publican’s widow, had two daughters, who were boarded out in Alsager with their governess and John and Martha’s son Francis (1849-1902), until the Mayers succeeded John Fox at the Lodge farm. John Mayer subsequently brokered the sale by Michael Ashmore of part of ‘the Fields’. Francis Mayer, Alsager UDC’s first clerk, subsequently lived in Church Road and built the Gables; the younger stepdaughter, Georgina Fanshaw, married William Barker, who farmed at Cresswellshawe, and they continued an ale and porter business. The Barkers’ daughter, another Georgina, married James Colclough, son of the publican at the Horse Shoe Inn, Betchton, and his wife Julia (later the second wife of Daniel Lingard). As well as continuing to farm, Georgina Colclough became a well-known breeder of shire horses.

Poole/Baddeley

Henry Poole (d. 1878) was an inspector of mines in Nova Scotia. His daughters Lucy Catherine and Mary Annie (both d. 1916), and Margaret Ellen (d. 1935) were born in Canada but spent time as children with the family of their father’s clergyman brother, Edward, in Derbyshire. They went to Alsager with their father in 1874, living after his death at various addresses, including Farfield on Crewe Road and Clover Bank on Sandbach Road North, before settling at 17 Church Road soon after it was built by the Rigbys of Westmere Lodge. Margaret, aged about 8, was photographed by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), when on a visit to mutual cousins in Derbyshire. This photograph by William Baddeley is probably of the three of them, and they may have wanted to encourage an artistic young man. The photographer’s parents had a shop in Crewe Road. He subsequently ran a shop and hairdresser’s business at Kidsgrove.

Rigby

Frank Rigby (b. 1852) was the son of William Rigby, lessee of Diglake mine at Bignall End, and lived with his wife Elizabeth Colclough at Westmere Lodge before moving to Groundslow, Tittensor, in 1906. He was managing partner at the mine when 77 lives were lost as water burst through a flooded former pit. Most of the miners’ bodies were never recovered. An inquiry exonerated managers and owners, though posterity has not. He was brought up at Green Bank House, Lawton (now known as Barleybat Hall); later some of the family moved to the Grove (since demolished) nearby. His brother Robert, also an engineer, advised the local authority on changes to their water supply.

Settle/Joseph

Joel Settle (d. 1926), a mining engineer, first rented then bought The Hill from Mellor’s heirs, and also farmed its land (Hole House Farm became Home Farm during the 20th century). He managed collieries, and in 1911 founded a company (later Settle Speakman Ltd) which masterminded the transport of coal and manufactured railway trucks for the purpose in works at Linley. His son-in-law, Sir Francis Joseph (1870-1951), was a Liverpudlian self-made man who rose through the company, for the last two decades of his life being its chairman in addition to being a well-known industrialist in several fields, and president of what became the CBI. With his wife Violet, Joseph moved, after her parents’ deaths, from the Gables in Church Road/Chancery Lane into The Hill. It was they who renamed it.