Hi Elaine,
What a lovely message to receive from you when I awoke this morning! Thankyou so very much for writing to me about the Lea Butcher's Shop in Sandbach, and for offering to take a photograph for me. Unfortunately I do not believe that the present Lea butchers are part of my family, which is really rather sad considering how many generations of my direct ancestors were in the butchers business in the past!
Although I have personally never been to Sandbach, a friend of mine once visited and spoke to the present owner of the shop, whose name, I think, was Michael Lea, but he did not believe we are of the same family.
My gr. grandfather left Sandbach as a young man and became an ironstone miner in Staffordshire, where my grandfather and father were both born. Of my gr. grandfather's brothers, Peter the eldest, never married, and was a labourer for all of his life, according to the census records. Another brother - Henry - became a shoemaker and moved to Worcester where he lived for the rest of his life, and of the two other brothers born, one died in infancy and the other totally disappeared somewhere between his 11th year and his 21st year - possibly migrated somewhere, but certainly did not stay in Sandbach, nor have I ever been able to find any trace of him anywhere in England.
I do not have any proof of my theory, but I suspect that my gr. gr. grandfather......father of these boys......was probably not a very nice person....maybe a heavy drinker who gave his family a hard time, which is why the boys all disappeared from Sandbach and never returned. Peter, the eldest went to live with his married sister Jane in Monks Coppenhall, and with the disappearance of Charles, and the departure to Staffordshire and Worcester of the other boys, there was no one left to take over the butchers, if indeed it was even still in existance in my gr. gr. grandfathers life by then.
When my gr. gr. grandparents died in the 1870's, their eldest daughter Sarah was placed in the workhouse at Arclid, where she remained for the rest of her life, which is another reason why I believe there was a complete family split, otherwise, surely one of them would have been kind enough to take her in and look after her!
Again many thanks for writing to me, and for being so kind as to offer to take photographs for me. I think that it is just this sort of thing that makes our hobby such a wonderful one!
Happy hunting and good luck, Diana in Tropical Far North Queensland, Australia
