The Eld family

This collection, deposited by Major R. Eld of Cooksland House, Seighford, contains a wide variety of documents giving a picture of the Eld family and its estates from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

Title deeds form a large proportion of the collection, the majority relating to property owned by the Eld family, most of it in the parishes of Haughton, Ranton and Seighford. These date only from the sixteenth century, but there is also a series of mediaeval deeds (from the twelfth to the fifteenth century) mainly of Hextall and Ranton and with no obvious connection with the main series of deeds.

The material on estate management, apart from a few early leases, is mainly of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although it includes a variety of documents leases, surveys, plans, rentals, accounts, court rolls etc. there are very few of each type, and few, if any, complete series.

The personal and miscellaneous material is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole collection. Every generation of the family from the sixteenth century onwards is represented in some way from a grant of arms in the sixteenth century to a passport in the nineteenth. The eighteenth century is particularly well-documented, as much of the correspondence dates from this period.

• <famname>Eld family of Haughton, Staffordshire</famname>
• <famname>Eld family of Ranton, Staffordshire</famname>
• <famname>Eld family of Seighford, Staffordshire</famname>