Post 37: Sometimes on a long-distance walk one comes across unexpected gems of information.
Walking on the Wilberforce Way today I came across a memorial in St Mary’s Church in the tiny village of Etton. Turns out that the memorial was to John Lothropp. He was baptised in the church in 1584. He was ordained in the Church of England but grew increasingly unhappy with the established church. So he left the Church of England to to become minister of the First Independent Church of London. He was a strong proponent of the idea of of the separation of the Church and State, keeping government out of the church and the church out of government. This idea was heretical in England during the time but eventually became the main the mainstream view of people in the USA. Due to imprisonment by the establishment authorities he was forced to move to New England arriving in Boston on the Griffin on 18 September 1634. After a difficult five years his group moved to Barnstaple, Cape Cod. From his 12 children there descended many famous people, including 6 Presidents of the United States:
George H . W Bush
George W. Bush
Millard Fillmore
James A. Garfield
Ulysses S. Grant
Franklin D. Roosevelt
In Etton I also came across a plaque to Thomas Carling.
Turns out the history of Carling Brewery dates back to 1818, when Thomas Carling a farmer from Etton settled in eastern Canada, at what is known as the city of London, Ontario. In 1840 Carling began a small brewing operation in London and as they say the rest is history. I once visited my much missed good friend Penny Bolton-Galbraith who lived at Poplar Hill, Ontario near London. My daughter Sophie Walker is employed by Molsen-Coors who own Carling!
Hard to believe this all started in a tiny little village in Yorkshire! What a small world we now live in and it never fails to surprise me as to what I come across on walks.
