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BEESLEY:- Not a name which comes to mind readily nowadays but from about 1640 to 1749 was a part of the fabric of the town of Alcester. It was a family of chandlers, which by the 1740s had shaded off into ironmongery. Thomas Beesley in 1692 lived at 7, High Street and so, probably, did others of the name. The last quarter of the 17th century saw the persecution of dissenters: the Beesleys, as Quakers, were among these and in a town of dissenting sympathies they were doubtlessly highly 'regarded.
BOVEY:-The family peeps through Alcester records from l543 to 1730. It would be one of the first half dozen families to dominate Alcester during the 17th century. The substantial branch was the King's Coughton one - yeoman farmers of modest means, living at King's Coughton House (now King's Court Hotel). Relations in the town were dyers. There were may of them and it took a long time for their name to disappear from the Alcester records.
BRANDIS(H):- The two families of this name extend from 1620 to l870. The people of Alcester were grateful for both lots, who may have been related but we have no proof: grateful to the ironmongery branch for everyday help with domestic issues: grateful to the medical branch for a long run in Alcester as apothecaries and surgeons. 'Doctor' and 'Brandis' became synonymous in the district. Samuel Brandis practised here from. l749 to 1795, his son Joseph, was one of George IV's doctors and became famous for treating scrofula. By 1821, when the doctoring Brandises cease, Alcester had called on their services for over 140 years
© Alcester & District Local History Society 1991