Edward Sherman (coach proprietor)

[4] Reportedly, an uncle he was living with boxed his ears[5] and as a result in 1793 he made his way from Wantage to London where he gained a poor livelihood in Oxford Market.

[7][8] He became the second largest operator of stagecoaches in England after William Chaplin, retaining about 17,000 horses [at coaching inns along routes from London] and carrying on a business with an estimated turnover of over £500,000.

On 6 August 1803[20] witnessed by five people including Isabella Hunt, Joseph and Mary Hunt, and sisters Ann and Sobieskia Clementina Freanch, neighbours from Oxford Arms Passage, Sherman aged 27, married into the second generation of innholders at the Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane, Dowgate, City of London; marrying by Licence at St Martin, Ludgate, the widowed Ann Palmer nee Hunt, aged 49, innholder of the Oxford Arms, and daughter of its previous innholder.

[22] Benjamin Palmer died in 1803 and was buried 18 May 1803 at Spa Fields, Islington[23] The Sardinian Chapel was also the location for the baptism of her niece Isabella who subsequently married Sherman.

[25] Back in 1800 Isabella had also received a substantial legacy from her grandmother Ann Hunt Snr, the Oxford Arms innholder since 1769 when her husband took it over.

[27] Isabella survived Sherman by less than a year, dying 13 June 1867, at the Lindens, Effra Road, Brixton, Surrey, England[28] the subsequent home of a son of Edward Henry Sanderson.