Masters and Powell Family History

Local History - Stratford-upon-Avon

Some Masters (and the associated Baylis family) were known to have lived in Stratford-upon-Avon.

They had a butchers shop in Henley Street, near to Shakespeare's birth-place.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Stratfod-upon-Avon is famous as the birthplace of William Shakespeare and the home of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

William Shakespeare was caught poaching at nearby Charlecote Park in 1583, where one of the Masters was the gamekeeper, alas not until three hundred years after Shakespeare's time.

One of the suggested reasons for Shakespeare leaving Stratford in 1586 (for London where he largely wrote his plays) was that he had got into difficulties by putting mocking verses on Sir Thomas Lucy's gate at Charlecote Park after Sir Thomas had prosecuted him for deer-poaching in his park (the other reasons were the state of his marriage to Anne Hathaway and the his father's failure in business). Alternatively it is suggested that persecution of the Arden family was the reason.

He later returned to the town and bought one of the biggest houses in the Town, "New Place", in 1597. He divided his latter years between London (where he also had homes) and Stratford-upon-Avon.

	He died in Stratford and was buried in Holy Trinity church in Stratford. Several Baylis family menbers (related to the Masters) are buried in the same church.

English Accents (British Library)

Stratford-upon-Avon
William Shakespeare