In the late 1700s this branch of the family was spread across the Black Country from Halesowen to Rowley Regis, to Oldbury, to Wolverhampton. In and around Whiteheath and Cakemore, between Langley, Brades and Blackheath, is the area that was home to the Granger and Hadley families for a number of generations. There are many of these names in the records of the Presbyterian Church in Oldbury, Halesowen.
John and Hannah Granger may have married in either Sedgley or Kingswinford in 1773, and their daughter, also Hannah Granger, is shown as being baptised in 1775 in the Bishops Transcripts of Dudley Parish. William Hadley and Mary Windsor both appear to be from Rowley Regis families when they married there also in 1773, with son Isaac, born 1778 being one of at least five children to this marriage, with all of the baptisms being recorded in the Dissenter’s Chapel (Presbyterian) in Oldbury. Hannah and Isaac married in Dudley in August 1799.
Isaac Hadley and Hannah (nee Granger) appear to have had at least ten children, all recorded at the Presbyterian chapel. A number of these died young but Elizabeth (1808-1888) and Fanny (1811-1885) lived close to each other for many years, both married in 1829 and raised their families there.
Fanny initially married James Peace, a Potato Farmer living in 1841 in Harborne Lane.
Peace is also a relatively common name to find around Birmingham and the Black Country across Walsall, Bloxwich, Oldbury and Smethwick in the 18th and 19th centuries and if one believes the internet, it may have Scottish roots. The 1841 census finds Joseph Peace, aged around 75 living on the Cape Road in Smethwick in the Parish of Harborne, Staffordshire, with his wife Mary, also aged around 75. Joseph is described as being of ‘Independent means’ and is living with what looks like Grandchildren James – aged 15 (a Glassblower), Joseph aged 14 (a Smith), and Ann aged 8. Although all were born in Staffordshire I have so far been unable to identify these latter three, or find any future for them or who their parents might have been. This may or may not be the correct couple but firstly we have DNA connections back to a Joseph Peace and Mary (nee Lilley) and secondly there may then be links back for two or three further generations of the Peace family in the Smethwick area since before 1700.
Joseph Peace and Mary (nee Lilley) were both born to local families around 1760 and they married in St Martin Birmingham in July 1784. They had 8 sons and 2 daughters over the next 22 years, all born likely in Smethwick but baptised in St peter’s Harborne. The first two, Joseph and John, were twins born in 1785. It appears that John died at the age of 7 and probably a good number of the others also died young, but Joseph is our direct ancestor. Of his brothers William went on to be a labourer and eventually a grocer and Edward a Spoon-Maker. Our Joseph meanwhile may have been a labourer on local farms but became a Potato-Farmer and Dealer in later life. He married Lucy Whitehouse, also of a Harborne/Smethwick based family, at St Phillips in Birmingham in 1804. In Harborne they had eight children – 4 boys and 4 girls – although again some appear to have died young. Of the boys Joseph became a labourer, and William a Higgler (Pedlar) while the eldest James Peace (our ancestor), born 1805, followed his father into farm labouring and Potato Dealing.
James Peace married Fanny Hadley in St Martin’s in 1829 but of 6 children conceived together before 1842, two died before 1850 and by the time of the 1851 census they were living apart. James was on his own in Harborne High Street, and Fanny was with her four remaining children showing as a Housekeeper to a Mr Harper, next door to her mother in Titford Lane, Cakemore. The 1861 census shows Fanny as ‘Mrs Harper’ although we have found no record of a divorce or a second marriage, and James is living on his own, still in Harborne in Bearwood Road. Of the Peace children to that marriage, Caroline married a Glass Flattener from Halesowen, and Angelina married John Birch a metal worker from Wolverhampton, but the eldest, Ann Selina Peace married William Hadley in 1852, a general iron dealer and part time farmer from Oldbury.
Selina had eight children in 16 years with William and they moved into a variety of occupations – William continued in Iron-dealing while Samuel a Draper with his Uncle Ezra in Oldbury. Charles went to London as a Mechanic, and John and Edwin were fitters in the cycle and motor trades. Her husband William died in 1880 aged only 48 and it is possible that in 1883 Selina married Thomas Shaw an Undertaker in Harborne, but if this is true she was no longer living with him in the 1891 or 1901 census returns which show her living in Winson Street Birmingham with her sons John and Edwin, on both occasions using the name ‘Hadley’.
With all her children moved out and settled many years before, Selina Hadley (nee Peace) died presumably in Winson Street probably in early 1911, thirty-one years after the father of her children.
But Came They All to Birmingham 