Sturley, Thomas

Submitted by edpope on

3.5.1808 call on Sturley, Swaffham: Bradenham, with do.: meet P(hilip) H(ull) G(odwin): Sturley dines

Thomas Sturley married 9.11.1804 Mary Raven, who was baptised 4.10.1780 at Foulsham, dau. of Aldridge & Sarah Raven, so the sister of Philip Hull Godwin's wife. See my entries for Raven and for P H Godwin, brother of Godwin. Sturley may have been the main reason for Godwin's trip to Norfolk. He went bankrupt in 1810 as upholder & cabinetmaker of Swaffham. On this visit Godwin also went to his own home patch at Dalling but only recorded seeing his brother Hull, and Hull's mother-in-law Mrs Raven, not his own mother, whom he had not seen, if the diary tells true, since 1794, though he attended her funeral the next year.

Thomas Aldridge Sturley, a son of Thomas Sturley, kept the Bell Inn at Bawdeswell in 1834, was insolvent in 1843, and in 1847 shot a relative by marriage, Mr Page in the face (he survived) for refusing to lend him money. His death sentence was commuted to transportation for life but he was living in Norfolk in later censuses.