Bartholomew Bretherton

Joseph ( 1781–1810) lived at Sharples, near Bolton, Lancashire, where he had a small coaching business, but he was never part of the Liverpool traffic and died aged 29.

Bartholomew operated from the Saracen's Head, Dale St and his coaches included Alexander, Bang Up.

Lord Exmouth, North Britain, Defiance, Regulator, Royal Mail, Telegraph and Umpire.

[1][2] The first stage where horses were changed on journeys from Liverpool to Manchester or London was Rainhill and Bartholomew's first purchase of land there was in 1804.

The only entrant to complete this trial successfully was the Rocket entered by George Stephenson and his son Robert.

According to Prince Blucher (who married Evelyn Stapleton-Bretherton,[4] Bartholomew is said to have raced one of the first trains from Liverpool to Manchester, and beaten it by twenty minutes.

Mary married William Gerard (1806–1844) (of the same family who had once owned a moiety of Rainhill) and later Gilbert Stapleton (1808–1856) but had no children.

His father, Bartholomew Bretherton, Peter's son, had lived in the Birmingham area until the mid 1840s but after the coaching business failed, he moved to Heyes House in Rainhill.

Her memoirs, Princess Blucher, English Wife in Berlin (Constable, 1920) were translated into French and German and reprinted many times, becoming a minor classic.