CHAPTER I
1843-1862
GATACRE
According to a venerable Shropshire antiquarian, that county "has ever been inhabited by a race of men characteristic for uniformity of principle and energy of action."[[1]] Mr. Eyton goes on to tell of various places mentioned in the Domesday Book, and among these of the Manor of Claverley, which included a very large tract of country, and is described as an "ancient demesne of the Crown." The Manor of Claverley was broken up into various townships, to three of which he accords special notice, "in regard that the King's Tenants thereof were of a rank superior to that of the average class of Freeholders in Royal Manors. These Townships were Broughton, Beobridge, and Gatacre."[[2]]
[[1]] Antiquities of Shropshire, by R. W. Eyton, 1854, preface.
[[2]] Ibid., vol. iii. p. 77.
Ancestors
There is a well-authenticated tradition that the family established at Gatacre at the time of the Conquest held their lands by tenure of military service, under a grant from Edward the Confessor. Eyton speaks of them as "a family of knightly rank, which, having early feoffment in Gatacre, took its name from the place. The period of such feoffment it is vain to conjecture, as being beyond all record of such matters."[[3]]
[[3]] Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. iii. p. 86.