User:Bostock1759/sandbox

The Bostock family of Lotus Ltd

The Bostock family are originally from Bostock in Cheshire. Thomas Bostock (1777-1868) came to Stafford in the second decade of the 19th century. He was the son of a cordwainer called William Bostock (1745-1809) and his wife Ann Eyre of Heage, Derbyshire. His father had been apprenticed as a cordwainer in 1759. Thomas became a major shoe manufacturer in Stafford. He married Sarah Dudley. Their eldest son William became a shoe manufacturer in Wellingborough. Their son Edwin (1807-1883) married Joanna Dorman, sister of the Plymouth Brethren minister the Rev William Henry Dorman (1802-1878). He became a major shoe manufacturer in Stafford and a magistrate. He lived at the Green Hall and built The Hough. His factory was at Foregate Street. His son Henry (1842-1923) married Alice Susannah Marson, daugher of Mayor John Marson of the Ancient High House, Stafford. They built a house called The Oaklands in Rowley Park. In Henry's lifetime Lotus Ltd was formed out of the other family businesses in Stone and Northampton. A large new factory was built on the Sandon Road in 1901, which employed thousands of people. The business had over one hundred shops, including its flagship store at 43/44 New Bond Street. Henry's eldest son Henry John Bostock CBE (1870-1956) became Chairman of Lotus. He married Eleanora Handley, daugher of James Handley of Garston, JP for Lancashire and Cheshire. One of Eleanora's first cousins was cellist Dame Muriel Eleanor Barrett Handley, the wife of Sir Howard Handley Spicer. Henry John Bostock successfully led the family business. He was appointed Alderman and Mayor of Stafford. He was appointed High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1948 and awarded his CBE in the 1953 Coronation Honours. He was one of the early British skiers along with his brother Frederick Marson Bostock, who had Upmeads in Stafford built by Edgar Wood in 1908. Henry John Bostock's eldest son James Forrester Bostock took over the Chairmanship of Lotus. He married Isabel Frances Munro, a daughter of Scottish novelist Neil Munro. James Forrester Bostock was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1953 and attended the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II with his wife at Westminster Abbey. James's younger brother Godfrey Stafford Bostock was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1958, and Godfrey's son Nicholas Stephen Godfrey Bostock was in 1987, and his other son Air Commodore Simon Neville Bostock was High Sheriff of North Yorkshire in 2003. Descendants of the Bostock family include Christopher Ingram Bostock, Master of the Haberdashers Company (1923-2014), Deborah Knight (nee Bostock), first female Master of the Haberdashers' Company and the first female Master of any of the Great Twelve Livery Companies, Sir Maurice Henry Dorman (1912-1993), Richard Bostock Dorman CBE (1925-2022) and artist Arabella Dorman (born 1975).