SECTION 3

WILLIAM MARTIN (1) (1794 - 1873) and HANNAH BLACKWELL.

""William Martin, (referred to for clarity as William 1) was the only son of James Martin and was born in Water Stratford, Buckinghamshire but was brought up under the care of his step-father, Hughes, after his father disappeared whilst he was at an early age. This was in the small borough town of Brackley. His biography is necessarily brief, owing to the absence of documentary evidence, and to his reticence of his life, after boyhood.

It is thought, however, that he had "been to sea", as he was wont to use naval expletives in conversation, and was, in popular parlance a "handyman". By the time he married - about 35 years of age - he had become an expert husbandman. His wife was about his own age, named Hannah Blackwell, living at a tiny hamlet called Falcut (now no more) in the vicinity of Brackley, where they lived and ended their days at a good old age. They had an only child, a son, born in 1830, and gave him the baptismal names of John Blackwell." He died in Helmdon.

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