I don’t know a lot about my 4x great-grandparents, George and Elizabeth Steed. What I do know has been built upon small bits of information, working backwards from their grandson, my 2x great-grandfather, who it’s likely was named after his father and grandfather.

Originally from Long Melford in Suffolk, my 3x great-grandfather George Steed worked most of his life in Newport, Shropshire.

How George came to move from one side of the country to the other is unknown, although perhaps it was as simple as an opportunity for work. In 1818, when he was 23, he married Elizabeth Fieldhouse in Forton. Being able to marry may have been a sign he’d completed his apprenticeship. Elizabeth was seventeen when they married, and a native of Forton, which was just over the border in Staffordshire and only a couple of miles from Newport’s city centre.

George and Elizabeth had six children, born between 1819 and 1836. The eldest and youngest children (Louisa born 1819 and James born 1836) appear to have both died young. The other four children survived to adulthood: Charles born 1822, Selina born 1823, Edward born 1827 and Henry born 1829.

Having a trade

An 1825 newspaper reported George as working near the Red Lion Inn in Newport, paying £10 a year in rent. His trade was boot and shoemaker. He was sometimes referred to as a clicker, and other times as a cordwainer.

Clicker was the name given to those who were foremen and cut out the leather. The name comes from the click sound the knife made as it was being removed from the leather.

Cordwainer is a name derived from the Spanish word cordovan which was used to describe people from Cordoba who worked with fine leather. It went on to be used for describing those who made fine footwear.

It seems likely George was quite skilled. I’ve found him reported as much more than a maker of boots and shoes, though. He appears to have expanded to also become a “licensed victualler and brewer, and retailer of wine and spirituous liquors and tobacco”. Perhaps this was a sign of hard times, or trying to make ends meet.

Debt and partnerships

In 1844, George is reported as an insolvent debtor, and he appears to have spent four months in debtor’s prison.

After this he went into business with his son Charles in a firm called Steed and Son, but in April 1847 the business was dissolved. That was just six months after Charles had married, and he soon went into business on his own.

Final years

George and Elizabeth spent time living in both Newport and Forton and at the time of the 1851 census, they were living on High Street, Newport, where they’d also been in 1841.

The census and the History, Gazetteer & Directory of Shropshire list George as a boot and shoemaker employing 9 men and 4 women. One of them was his younger son, my 2x great-grandfather Henry. Eldest son Charles was living and working on the same street with his own boot and shoemaker business and toy warehouse.

Elizabeth died of cancer the following year, and it seems to be around this time that George returned to his childhood home of Long Melford. He was getting older, and his three sons Charles, Edward and Henry had emigrated to Australia. Daughter Selina followed them a few years later.

It was probably not the emigration of his sons that prompted the move, though. Just two years after his wife’s death, in July 1854 George died of tuberculosis. He’d been sick for at least 15 months.

Selected resources

‘Doe dem. Watkin v. Steed’, Shrewsbury Chronicle, 5 August 1825, p. 4.

Census record for George Steed aged 40, High Street, Newport, Shropshire, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/906/7, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com,
 accessed 1 August 2026.

Census record for George Steed aged 52, High Street, Newport, Shropshire, 1851 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/1998/238, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com,
 accessed 1 August 2026.

‘Notice to Creditors and Debtors’, Shrewsbury Chronicle, 9 February 1844, p. 1.

‘Insolvent Debtors’, Eddowes’s Shrewsbury Journal, 20 March 1844, p. 1.

‘Insolvent Debtors’, Staffordshire Advertiser, 13 April 1844, p. 2.

‘Legal Notices’, Staffordshire Advertiser, 1 May 1847, p. 2.

Death of Elizabeth Steed, died 25 July 1852, registered September Quarter 1854, Newport Salop and Staffordshire registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 06A, p. 485, no. 138.

Death of George Steed, died 20 July 1854, registered September Quarter 1854, Sudbury registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 04A, p. 303, no. 167.

England Manufacturing Occupations A to H – International Institute, FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Manufacturing_Occupations_A_to_H_-_International_Institute, accessed 1 August 2026.