Mary Willmott (1745-1815): Sherborne silk manufacturer 1787-1815

Mary Hudson was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1745. Her mother Susannah Hudson (c.1720-1778) remarried in 1765 at St Andrew, Holborn, to Thomas Kirby, who died in January 1773 in Sherborne. Mary was married on 14 February 1767/8 at the church of St Bartholomew the Less in London, to William Willmott (1741-1787), a silk … Read more

Hannah Bettinson: proprietor of the Sherborne Mercury newspaper 1746-1749

On 26 April 1736, Hannah Baugh of the parish of St James Westminster was married by licence at St Luke’s Chelsea to printer and widower William Bettinson. In 1737, William Bettinson and George Price (whose name disappears from the record after June 1737) moved to Sherborne and established a printing house (now Bute House) in … Read more