a) The Daresbury and Norreys Families

Of course as one researches history from almost a millennium ago, details are scant and not always reliable. Spelling of names varies and surnames were not properly adopted until after 1200 A.D. further complicating research. But the family names that are regularly mentioned in old documents pertaining to the Sutton district in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are the Daresbury, Norreys and Holland families. By the twelfth century, the Daresbury family of Cheshire were recorded as overlords of Sutton township followed by the Sutton family who held three of the four local ploughlands. Around 1280 their estates were sold to the Holland family, although technically all land belonged to the King (see below for more on the Hollands). The Hollands served as lords of the manor for around 500 years although the overlordship of Sutton changed hands several times during these five centuries.

The heiress of William de Daresbury married Henry le Norreys and his descendant Robert le Norreys recovered the moorland of Sutton from Alan de Eccleston. The Norreys - or Norris, Norreis or Noreis - were very influential in the region and can be traced back to 1230 with Alane le Noreis of Sutton and the family's main residence was Speke Hall.

b) The Bold Family of Bold

c) The Holland Family of Upholland

Sutton Hall was the manor house and main residence of the lord of the manor of Sutton and was occupied by a junior branch of the ambitious Holland family for around 500 years. As well as being lords of the manor in Sutton they played an influential - if somewhat controversial role - in both Lancastrian and English life. Amazingly, two members of the family were executed, one for being a Protestant under a Roman Catholic monarch and the other for being a papist under a Protestant queen!

Sutton Hall was the manor house originally occuped by the Hollands and demolished in 1935

Roger Holland was burnt at the stake at Smithfields in 1558 after moving to London and abandoning Catholicism. He was unfortunate to have been charged and convicted of heresy during the last few months of Catholic Queen Mary's reign. Then during the reign of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Holland, who was born in Sutton Hall in 1600, was found guilty of high treason for administering to London Catholics for eight years. Father Holland was hung and quartered on December 12th, 1642.

The Hollands then had their estates sequestered at the end of the Civil War after fighting on the Royalist side. A similar fate also befell the remarkable Eltonhead family.

d) The Eltonhead Family

The youngest of them, Alice Eltonhead, is said to have waited until her sixteenth birthday to marry wealthy middle-aged tobacco planter Rowland Burnham, who owned a large tract of land in Middlesex County. Burnham died in 1656 after Alice had given him three sons and a daughter.

She quickly married Henry Corbin (pictured left) who was killed during an Indian uprising in 1676. Alice married her third husband the following year and became an ancestor of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. William was executed by firing squad after an encounter with the Puritans of Providence and Edward Eltonhead was granted 10,000 acres in Maryland as reward for providing fifty men for the province of New Albion.

Part of a deed granting the Eltonheads land in America

Back in England, Richard Eltonhead sold Elton Head Hall to Thomas Roughley of Sherdley for £2700 in 1676 and died in 1688, leaving an estate worth just £5. The remaining family moved to Liverpool and later emigrated themselves. However, the coat of arms of the Eltonheads lies in Sherdley Park - at the rear of the formal gardens by an old stone seat - which along with the street sign serves as a permanent reminder of the once powerful Sutton family who fell on hard times. Incidentally the Eltonheads were also the first to start mining in Sutton when a seam of was coal accidentally discovered while they were digging a clay pit in around 1540. (See Mineworking in Sutton)

Eltonhead family Coat of Arms by the formal gardens in Sherdley Park

e) William Roby Pilkington

The Pilkington family have, of course, been highly influential in St.Helens for the past two centuries with William Roby Pilkington {1827-1903} making quite a contribution to Sutton life, having purchased the Lordship of Sutton from Sir Henry Bold Houghton in 1860. He was a son of William Pilkington, one of the founders of the glassworks and was called William Roby to distinguish him from his cousin, William Windle Pilkington. He wasn't born in Sutton, however. William Roby Pilkington's place of birth on March 11th, 1827 was at a house in Church Street. In those days Church Street was mainly a residential area for the better off, rather than the retail hub that it is now. Pilkington entered the glassworks when aged 16 and was made a partner in 1853.

William Roby married Elizabeth Watson the daughter of Lee Watson the founder of St.Helens Foundry in 1854 and they chose to make Sutton their home, living at Sutton Grange before moving to Roby Hall in 1874. In a lengthy interview in the St.Helens Lantern newspaper on June 7th 1888 Pilkington said:

  I was always partial to Sutton and its people, and was very fond of the Church there. Mrs. Pilkington is a very fair musician, and, between us, we tried to form and maintain a decent choir. 

 The Schools were always an object of solicitude to us...and have since done such excellent work.  

f) William Blinkhorn I & II & family

I851 Census - William Blinkhorn (I) is listed as a Bolton-born glass manufacturer resident at Leach Hall

In the 1851 census William Blinkhorn (I) (abt.1801-1865) is listed as resident at Leach Hall in Sutton having only recently arrived in the township. He was born c.1801 in Bolton and became an alkali manufacturer and his wife Elizabeth gave him a daughter Maria (b. abt.1830) and son William (II) (abt.1837-1898). They relocated to Sutton so William Snr. could take over as manager of the London and Manchester Plate Glass Company's works which were then in their heyday and a large employer in Sutton. They built or acquired property including Waterdale House and played a considerable role in improving Sutton.

In Gerards Lane, where the former Whalley's Dam runs under the road into St Anne's reservoir, there is a bridge of sandstone. On the reverse side facing the old dam is an inscription which still exists to this day:

William Blinkhorn donated the land in Lancots Lane that the Methodists used as
a chapel followed by the Welsh community from 1893

Blinkhorn Snr. died in 1865 and his son took over managership of the extensive glassworks and was said to be very popular with the workers. He became a J.P. on the County Bench in 1876 and for many years was church warden at Sutton Parish Church (a.k.a. St.Nicholas). William Blinkhorn and his glass company were renowned as generous benefactors for the people of Sutton. He donated the land at the corner of Lancots Lane and Sutton Road that the first Sutton Methodist Church was built on from copper slag. (This became the home of the non-denominational Welsh in 1893 and is now managed by their preservation society).

Blinkhorn suffered a stroke in 1878 and never fully recovered from it, retiring around 1888 at little more than 50 years of age. He endured a second stroke in 1894 and died four year later at his home, Sutton Grange. A road in Sutton Oak was named after the family, Blinkhorn Street, although it no longer exists.