Robert was born in London in 1772 to father illegitimate Robert who was Comptroller General of the post office and his wife Mary Cock who he had married a year earlier in Camberwell.
He has a sister Elizabeth who was born in 1773 in Oakley a village close to Bromham.
His father had inherited Astwood and North Crawley estates from the 4th Baron when he died in 1783, although he was illegitimate he was clearly his fathers favourite because he was made the sole executor in his fathers will.
When the latest Robert’s father died in 1785 he was left the Astwood Manor and Filliols Manor Farm in North Crawley , after he made a further settlement in 1793 and in 1807 he sold these to Thomas David Boswell.
In 1731 the Astwood Manor & Estate had been bought by the executors of 1st Lord Trevor of Bromham for £10,170 and entailed in trust, eventually ending up in illegitimate Roberts’ hands.
Note
Filliols Manor in North Crawley had originally been settled by old William Lowndes on his granddaughter Elizabeth, daughter of his eldest son Robert Lowndes of Winslow Hall. Elizabeth and her husband John Price sold the farm (now Manor Farm) to her uncle William Lowndes of Astwoodbury in 1729.
In 1732 William Lowndes sold the farm to Anne Dowager Lady Trevor who was the owner of Rokele Manor in Astwood.
It was inherited with the Astwood Estate by Robert Trevor whose trustees sold it in 1807 to Thomas Boswell. By 1900 the moated manor house was in a ruinous state and in 1950 Ian Boswell pulled it down.