In or around 1798 it appears that Joseph Steventon married a girl called Sarah. It makes some sense that both were born around 1775 but no record of the marriage has yet been found and so Sarah’s maiden name remains a mystery. And Steventon was a common name around the Black Country back then, around Cradley, Rowley and Oldbury. Subsequent baptismal records state that Joseph and Sarah were “of Willenhall” despite the records being those of the Old Dissenting Chapel (Presbyterian)in Oldbury (in the Parish of Halesowen). In those records we have found four children to the marriage – two boys and two girls. The eldest, Sarah, may have married Edward Cartwright in Halesowen in 1829. Son Thomas became a Whitesmith, and Job may have died in 1822, aged only 16.
The third child Hannah Steventon married a miner Edward Disturnal in 1823 in Halesowen and went to live in West Bromwich where they are found in the 1841 census.
Somewhere around 1730 Samuel Disturnal had been born, maybe in Birmingham to (currently) unknown parents. We assume he came from a long line of Disturnals who around 1700 fled from religious persecution in France to intially settle in London – see later. Subsequently one branch of the family came to the Black Country probably during the 1720s. The Disturnals worked with metal, mainly iron, so it is no surprise that after marrying Elizabeth Horton St Peter’s in Harborne (and there is an Elizabeth Horton whose christening is recorded at St Phillips in Birmingham in 1732) Samuel became the village blacksmith when he arrived in Yardley, some 5 miles out of Birmingham on the road towards Coventry. Samuel and Elizabeth had 3 daughters and two sons over the next 8 years, all christened at St Edburgha’s in the village. There he dealt with the requirements of local farmers and their horses, and with coach traffic as it entered and left Birmingham along the Coventry Road. Their first daughter Mary died within a year, and while Ann and John both disappear from the historical records, second daughter Sarah (b.1754) and their final son Samuel Disturnal (b.1760) were still alive at their father’s death in 1804 and were remaindermen in his will – but only after the education of Thomas, son of his late servant Susannah Harris had been attended to.
The younger Samuel Disturnal took over the Blacksmith’s role for the last few years of his father’s life. He married twice, first to Hannah Hart who died after the birth of their second daughter in 1799, and then to Sarah Deakin – a daughter of Nathaniel Deakin and Judith (nee Bradnock) who themselves had married in St Edburgha’s in 1771 . Sarah was herself a widow at this point. We think Samuel died in 1818 registered as being in Erdington while Sarah died in Yardley in 1829. Between them they had a daughter Sarah (b.1805 who married William Rogers, a coal miner from Wednesbury and who died in 1841) and a son Edward Disturnal (b.1802) who also became a miner.
Edward Disturnal died aged 46 in 1848, maybe from an illness or from one of the all-too-common accidents in pit-work. This left Hannah with 9 children of whom 6 were under 15 years old. Hannah lived as a Widow for another 24 years first supporting, and then supported by, her children. The only surviving son also became a miner, and the surviving daughters married forgeworkers and pitmen. The youngest child, Caroline Disturnal who was only two at her father’s death, in 1871 married George Lane, an iron worker from West Bromwich, the son of a Carter originally from Cheltenham but whose family had moved into the Black Country around 1850.
Caroline lived in West Bromwich her entire life, having ten children, eight daughters and two sons, between 1872 and 1894. It seems some three of her daughters, Caroline, Emily and Phoebe emigrated to the USA, Elizabeth married a Nail-caster, and Lydia a labourer in an iron foundry. Sons George and Thomas became bricklayers. Caroline Lane (nee Disturnal) died in West Bromwich in 1913, aged 66.
But Came They All to Birmingham 