SINGLETON OF STAINING HALL.
There is every reason to suppose that the Singletons who resided at Staining Hall during the greater part of two centuries were a branch of the family founded in the Fylde by Alan de Singleton, of Singleton. George, the son of Robert Singleton by his wife Helen, the daughter of John Westby, of Mowbreck, purchased the hamlet and manor of Staining from Sir Thomas Holt, of Grislehurst, and was the first of the name to occupy the Hall. He married Mary Osbaldeston, and left issue at his death, in 1552, William, the eldest; Hugh, who espoused Mary, sister of William Carleton, of Carleton, and left a son, William, who died without issue; Richard; Lawrence; and Margaret, the wife of Lawrence Carleton, heir and subsequently successor to his brother William. William Singleton, of Staining, became allied to Alice, the daughter and heiress of Thomas ffarington, by whom he had Thomas, John, George, Richard, Helen, and Margaret. On the demise of his father in 1556, Thomas, the heir, came into possession of the estate; he married Alice, the daughter of James Massey, and had one child, a daughter, Ellen, who espoused John Massey, of Layton. Thomas Singleton died in 1563, and was succeeded by his brother John, who had married Thomasine, the daughter of Robert Anderton, and had issue two daughters, the elder of whom, Alice, became the wife of Henry Huxley, of Birkenhead, and the younger, Elizabeth, of James Massey, of Strangeways. John Singleton died in 1590, and was in his turn succeeded by the next male representative, his brother George, who had issue by his wife Mary, the daughter of John Houghton, of Penwortham or Pendleton, two sons and a daughter—Thomas, George, and Anne, the wife of Robert Parkinson, of Fairsnape. Thomas Singleton, the heir, became lord of Staining in 1597, previously to which he had espoused Cicely, the daughter of William Gerard, of Ince, and had issue Thomas, John, Mary, Grace, Alice, the last of whom married John Leckonby, of Great Eccleston, and Anne, the wife of Richard Bamber, of the Moor, near Poulton. Thomas Singleton, the eldest son, succeeded to the lordship in the natural course of events, and formed an alliance with Dorothy, the daughter of James Anderton, of Clayton, who was left a widow in 1643, when her husband was slain at Newbury Fight in command of a company of royalists. The offspring of Thomas and Dorothy Singleton were John, born in 1635 and died in 1668, who espoused Jane, the daughter of Edmund Fleetwood, of Rossall; Thomas, who died childless; George; James; Anne, of Bardsea, a spinster, living in 1690; Mary, the wife of John Mayfield; and Dorothy, the wife of Alexander Butler, of Todderstaff Hall. John Singleton, of Staining, whose widow married Thomas Cole, of Beaumont, near Lancaster, justice of the peace, and deputy-lieutenant, had no progeny, and the manor passed, either at once, or after the death of the next brother, Thomas, to George Singleton, who had possession in 1679, but was dead in 1690, never having been married. He held Staining, Hardhorne, Todderstaff, and Carleton manors or estates. The whole of the property descended to John Mayfield, the son and heir of his sister Mary, whose husband, John Mayfield, was dead. John Mayfield, of Staining, etc., ultimately died without issue, and was succeeded by his nephew and heir-at-law, William Blackburn, of Great Eccleston, whose offspring were James, and Gabriel, under age in 1755.