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Rollitt
of Nottingham
Family tree: Benjamin Rowlatt descendants
The Rollitt family has been easier to trace as there is a family bible helpfully inscribed with
names and dates of births, marriages and deaths. Our branch of the Rollitt family hails from
Nottinghamshire where they made a living as wheelwrights and stonemasons.
John Rollitt was
born in Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, then the family moved south. It was when they moved to
Croxley that John met Paulina at the paper mill.
In 1881, John's father Edward Rollitt was living
with his family on Battlerswells farm in Harefield,
Hertfordshire. Great Uncle Les used to muse that we should have been in the money with a farm in
the family – he had an heirloom grandfather clock which records the pig’s litters on the inside
of the door. However, by 1891, Edward had died and his widow was living in Croxley.
Edward’s parents were
John Rollitt, born in 1796 in Elkesley, Nottinghamshire and Ann Mary
née Trickett of Newark. John was a master
wheelwright. They had nine children, but in the graveyard of All Saint's church in Kirton there are
headstones for John (died 1.4 years) and Edward (died 4 months). The text on their headstones bears
witness to the sadness felt by the family at their untimely deaths. A few years later, another son
was also called Edward and he, along with his older brother William, followed in their father’s
footsteps as wheelwrights.
John Rollitt’s parents
were Thomas Rollitt and Elizabeth
née Bailey who married in 1793 in Gamston by East
Retford in Nottinghamshire. Thomas’ parents were William Rollitt (b 1740), churchwarden of
Elkesley, who married Mary
née Wood in 1762. Thomas’ older brother
Benjamin Rollitt married Mary Freeborough who had a daughter Christiana, whose
descendants settled in Sheffield.
It is most likely that
William Rollitt was descended from a line of Rollitts from Great Oakley in Northamptonshire.
William’s parents were Benjamin Rollitt of Great Oakley and Mary Killingar from
Normanton-on-Trent east of Ollerton in Nottinghamshire. The line can be traced
back through a further six generations to Thomas Rowlat who was born in 1545 in Great Oakley, or
Oakley Magna as it was known then.
Family tree: Thomas Rowlat descendants
Credit goes to Simon Rollitt for his assistance with research into the Rollitts of
Nottinghamshire.
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