Stapleton Manuscripts

Date range: 15th-19th centuries (bulk 17th and 18th centuries)

Medium: Archive

Correspondence, papers and deeds of the Stapleton family. They relate in particular to Sir William Stapleton, 1st Baronet (d. 1686), Deputy Governor of Montserrat and Governor of the Leeward Islands, and Sir William Stapleton, 4th Baronet (1698-1740).

There is important material relating to the West Indies in the 17th and early 18th centuries, including: commissions and appointments to offices, public accounts, militia lists, correspondence, grants and leases of land, plantation accounts, plantation inventories, lists of slaves, and sugar accounts.

There are also Stapleton marriage settlements, title deeds relating to property in Kent and Berkshire (15th-19th centuries), rentals and terriers (16th-18th centuries), manorial court rolls for the manor of Tildens and Tubbins in Marden parish, Kent, and the manors of Shottesbrooke and Clewer in Berkshire (16th-18th centuries), accounts and household records.

Further information:

Catalogue available via Special Collections reading rooms.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library