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Drury


Surname Origin: The Drury name in England dates back to the time of William the Conqueror in 1066 A.D. The first mention of the name comes from the Norman Conquest when John de Drury (de Roueray), a knight in William's army, accompanied him from France to England.

19th Century distribution of the Drury surname

Our Drury family can be traced back to William Drury, born in 1744 in Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire. He was, we think, the youngest son of Robert and Mary Drury. Unfortunately, we know little of Robert and Mary Drury. However we know that their son William was a shoemaker, who had six children by his second wife Anne, before he died in Eagle, Lincolnshire in 1801.

William's second son became a farm servant for William Blow, farmer at Housham Grange in the hamlet of Housham, close to South Hykeham Lincolnshire. Its unclear when John Drury joined Blow, who had taken over the tenancy of Housham Grange in about 1808. The farm was in its heyday under Blow who farmed 100 acres by 1851. The cottage was actually home to nine people, including the Drury family. Three of the occupants were female house servants aged 15.

Housham Grange

William Blow was unmarried and in his will dated June 1854 he made specific provision for "his friend and old servant John Drury" to succeed him. John had been described as a Wellingore man at the time of his marriage to Mary Tindal in 1827. By the time he took over Housham Grange he already possessed a considerable amount of copyhold land at Eagle. John himself died in 1857 passing on the farm to his second son John. His first son William had already married Ann Wood in 1854 and was farming in his own right at Eagle. Ann Wood was literally the 'girl next door' and lived on the neighbouring Housham Wood Farm.

William and Ann had a family of nine, there youngest son was Tom Drury. The eldest sons carried on the farming tradition but Tom turned to the trade of printing and after completing his apprenticeship he settled in Loughborough and married Lucy Warren. Tom and Lucy had two children Eva and William Drury.

Current Research : Concentrating on the birth of William Drury (d.1801, Eagle) and a number of other Drury's born in Eagle during the 1780's and 1790's.

Click here for full details of our Drury ancestry


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Email us at k.noble@coventry.ac.uk
July 7, 2009