I am looking for information about an Elizabeth GRANT, who had a child that she named Robert SMITH, on 6th November 1866, in Cheshire Street, Market Drayton, Shropshire. No father is named. Robert was my great grandfather. By age 4 he was living as a lodger with a family called COLEMAN in Great Glen, in Leicestershire, and has apparently changed his name to GRANT. The family cannot have been wealthy; the Head of the family was an agricultural labourer. By 14, he was working as a groom, still lodging at the same address. But by 24 he had apparently learned French and Shorthand, secured a post as a clerk in a Tile Import business in Leicester (Broadbents), married Sarah Anne TALLIS, and later started a family (slightly prematurely, in fact). He went on to become President of the Leicester French Circle, and a successful business man. Not bad for a 'fatherless' child who seemed to be living alone for so long.
But I want to know more about Elizabeth. Who was she? Where was she born, and where did she live before this? Was she a Shropshire lass, or (as family history has it) was she working as a servant in a big house in Shropshire somewhere (Church Stretton has been mentioned as a possibility by descendents, though this could be wrong), but born somewhere else. And was there somewhere in Cheshire Street that could have been a place for an unmarried woman to go to have a child in 1866?
Any information welcome!
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