Some family stories travel in remarkable circles. This one begins in the quiet Hertfordshire market town of Sawbridgeworth and, after two and a half centuries, returns to within a few miles of where it started — while passing through trade, industry, politics, brewing wealth, and European royalty along the way.
The Ward Family – Yeoman Roots in Sawbridgeworth
In 1715, Susanna Ward was born in Sawbridgeworth to Thomas Ward (born 1673) and his wife Elizabeth Liphin. Thomas and Elizabeth had an impressive 16 children. Sawbridgeworth was well positioned for agricultural success: it lay on the busy stagecoach route between London and Cambridge, and the River Stort navigation offered an efficient route to send grain and other produce to the London markets. Although very little information about the family appears in historic records, the Wards appear to have been solid, respectable yeoman farmers who benefited from these good transport links.
London Silk and a Bermondsey Wedding
In 1745, Susanna Ward married John Sharrer at St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, London.
John was the son of David and Sarah Sharrer of St Katharine by the Tower. In July 1733, at about age 18, he had been apprenticed for seven years to Robert Girton, a Citizen and Silk Thrower of London. He eventually set up his own business in Little Ayliffe Street, Goodman’s Fields, Whitechapel.
A likely bridge between the rural Ward family and the London craftsman was Susanna’s older sister Elizabeth Ward, who had married John Willmott, farmer of Ducketts Farm in the Hornsey/Tottenham area. Susanna probably spent time with her sister in the northern suburbs, bringing her into the orbit of the East End and City silk districts where John worked after completing his apprenticeship.
Pioneering Silk in Dorset
In 1753, John leased a water-powered grist mill in Westbury, Sherborne, from Lord Digby of Sherborne Castle and began converting it for silk throwing — one of the earliest attempts to establish the industry outside London.
He took a long-term view of the business. Around the time of the move (or shortly afterwards), he brought two young nephews with him:
- George Ward (aged about 18)
- William Willmott (aged about 12)
By 1761, George Ward was already established in Sherborne, appearing in court records as “George Ward, gentleman” and acting as a witness in a case involving silk stolen from his uncle.
In 1764, possibly sensing his health was failing, John formally took both nephews into partnership. He died in 1765. Shortly afterwards the partnership was dissolved: William Willmott took control of the Sherborne mill (reportedly paying John’s widow Susanna £1,500 to buy out her interest), while George Ward moved to Bruton to run a separate branch of the business. The Willmott family would continue and expand the Dorset silk industry for many years.
The Hillier Connection
John and Susanna’s daughter, Susanna Sharrer, married Nathaniel Hillier junior in Sherborne in 1780. Nathaniel (c.1740–1810) was a successful London merchant who rose to become Master of the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1796.
Nathaniel’s father, Nathaniel Hillier senior (1707–1783), had been a noted Georgian collector and dealer in prints and drawings, adding an artistic dimension to the family’s London connections.
In 1801 Nathaniel junior purchased the handsome Stoke Park estate near Guildford. In the same year, both he and his wife sat for large pastel portraits by the Guildford artist John Russell. Tragically, these portraits — long held at Clandon Park — were destroyed in the 2015 fire.
Nathaniel and Susanna raised two daughters. The eldest, Harriet Hillier, married Colonel James Bogle Delap. The Delaps were an Ulster-Scot family with significant West Indies plantation interests, primarily in Antigua and Jamaica, brought into the family through James’s mother, Mary Anne Bogle. Colonel Delap and Harriet lived at Stoke Park for about fifty years.
Onslow – Politics, Militia, and Peerage
Nathaniel and Susanna’s younger daughter, Susannah Elizabeth Hillier, married Colonel the Hon. Thomas Cranley Onslow in 1812. Thomas (1778–1861) was the second son of the 2nd Earl of Onslow. He served as a Whig MP for Guildford (1806–1818) and was an officer in the British Army, later becoming Colonel of the Surrey Militia from 1812 until 1852. The Onslow family had a long association with the Surrey Militia, dating back to the English Civil War when Oliver Cromwell gave command of a Surrey regiment to Sir Richard Onslow. Over two hundred Surrey militiamen fought with the Guards at the Battle of Waterloo.
Like many landowners of his era, Colonel Onslow voted against the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Through this marriage, Stoke Park and other Hillier properties entered the Onslow family alongside their ancestral seat at Clandon Park.
Their line led to William Hillier Onslow (1853–1911), who succeeded as the 4th Earl of Onslow. He had a distinguished career as a Conservative politician and served as Governor of New Zealand from 1889 to 1892.
The Guinness Connection
The 4th Earl’s daughter, Gwendolen Florence Mary Onslow (1881–1966), married Rupert Edward Cecil Lee Guinness (1874–1967) in 1903. Rupert succeeded his father as the 2nd Earl of Iveagh in 1927. A major philanthropist and businessman, he is best remembered for transforming the Elveden Estate in Suffolk into one of Britain’s most advanced agricultural enterprises through scientific farming methods and large-scale dairy production. He and Gwendolen also maintained homes at Pyrford Court in Surrey and Fitzwilliam Place in Dublin.
Gwendolen herself was politically active and served as Conservative MP for Southend from 1927 to 1935. She won the seat in a by-election when her husband succeeded to the earldom, and when she retired in 1935 she was succeeded by her son-in-law Henry Channon, husband of her eldest daughter Honor Guinness. In 1956, Gwendolen presented her childhood home, Clandon Park, to the National Trust.
The Final Links – Royalty and the Wellesley Line
Rupert and Gwendolen’s youngest daughter was Lady Brigid Guinness (1920–1995). In 1945 she married Prince Frederick of Prussia (1911–1966), grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, at St Cecilia’s Church in Little Hadham. They made their home at Patmore Hall in the neighbouring parish of Albury — barely three miles from Sawbridgeworth.
Frederick had moved to England in the 1930s to study at Cambridge. During WWII he was interned as an enemy alien in 1940, first in Britain and then in Canada, before being released and later naturalising as a British citizen in 1947. Brigid and Frederick had five children. After Frederick’s death in 1966, Brigid remarried Major Anthony Patrick Ness in 1967 and continued living at Patmore Hall until her death in 1995.
Frederick and Brigid’s youngest daughter, Princess Antonia of Prussia, married Arthur Charles Valerian Wellesley, who became the 9th Duke of Wellington.
Family History completes a Full Circle
From Thomas Ward’s yeoman farm in Sawbridgeworth in the early 1700s, through John Sharrer’s apprenticeship in London and his pioneering silk-throwing venture in Dorset, Nathaniel Hillier’s merchant success, the Onslow political and military line, the Guinness brewing and agricultural empire, and finally into Prussian royalty and the Wellesley dukedom — the journey is extraordinary.
What makes it even more moving is the geography. After 250 years of movement across England and beyond, a direct descendant returned to live at Patmore Hall in Albury/Little Hadham, just a few miles from the fields where Susanna Ward’s family had farmed in 1715.