Elizabeth Stewart-Smith
My Paternal grandmother was Mary Ann Rainbow whose father William George Rainbow was born in 1846 the son of Mary Ann Lawrence and William Rainbow, a woodman, of Hanslope.
William was the son of John Rainbow and Ann Rooker Rainbow. His brother John Rooker Rainbow a carpenter of North Street Castlethorpe was granted a licence to sell stamps in February 1840.
Family legend has it that young William George Rainbow left home and walked to Wolverhampton to become an apprentice boiler-maker.
On Christmas Day 1865 he married 19 year old Dinah Hillyer (daughter of William Hillyer) in Castlethorpe church. Emma and Mary Ann were born in Wolverhampton, subsequent children were christened in Castlethorpe. The family ended up in West Ham, East London where William George became a master boiler maker.
As a child Mary Ann recalled visiting Castlethorpe relatives and being told to sit on the stairs and "eat the bread and smell the cheese". My uncles and aunts remembered her often speaking about Thrupp, Fenny Startford and Stony Stratford.
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