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If Only I had Asked
Three young couples met and married as the shadow of Hitler fell across Europe. In each of their families, forebears had faced great challenges. Fowell Buxton’s was passed to him by Wilberforce – the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. Visionary Quaker Edward Pease enabled George Stevenson to build the first railway in the world. Radical young blacksmith Joseph Cowen built up a business empire and became a pillar of Newcastle society, while his son fostered revolutions across Europe.
Guy Thomson laid the foundations for a small part of what was to become Barclays Bank, the fourth largest Bank in the world when Guy’s great-grandson John became its Chairman. Rowland Brotherhood earned himself a reputation as a tough contractor building infrastructure projects throughout Britain, and opening the way for the engineering genius of his son. Bryan Burletson, sea captain of the Mary Brack, sick and isolated from family and friends and surrounded by evil men, struggled in vain; it was left to his grandson and namesake to succeed where he had failed.
By the 1930s, six descendants came together from different worlds. Yet even in earlier centuries common threads are seen: coal, the railways, banking, Quakerism, fox-hunting, politics and a will to change the world.