The Daltons of Barwell/Leicester

Gentleman farmer George Dalton (b. 1795 at Barwell) gave the land for the building of the Barwell chapel.  It’s likely that his father, William, was converted by John Wesley himself, as his wife was a member of the King family, bakers in Hinckley, and it was at the home of one of this family that Wesley was reputed to have preached when visiting the area. George and his wife Susannah were key figures in the new church at Barwell.  According to his gravestone in Barwell parish church graveyard, George was ‘member, class-leader and steward for 50 years and Circuit Steward for 30 years’.

Their next to last son, Frederick, became a lay preacher in Leicester.  He seems to have been involved in Chapel Street Church, where he is shown as steward on a preaching plan in 1890.  Then he appears as chapel steward at Belgrave Hall in 1898.

Frederick’s son William, b. 1864 in Barwell, is recorded as a ‘poor steward’ at the Belgrave Chapel on the Humberstone Road Circuit plan in 1890.

William’s son, William Henry, was married to Mabel Preston in Wesley Hall, Mere Road, in 1921 and they continued to be involved in the local churches until William Henry died in 1956. 

William and Mabel’s daughter, Margaret Elizabeth, was married to Sam Collett in 1947 at Bishop Street Methodist Church in Leicester, where both their children, Pamela and Elizabeth, were baptized.