Update – Sunday 6th March 2011

Thomas Cowley (1830-1890)

Thomas Cowley was the eldest son of Francis Cowley (1806-1881), the baker who took over the business in Pool Valley, Brighton from the Streeter family.  Thomas also became a baker with his own business in Western Road, Brighton.  This was obviously a very successful venture as, when Thomas died, his estate at 2011 value was over £500,000.  Click here to see the new web page for Thomas.

‘Ye Olde Bunn Shoppe’ – New Information

I am indebted to Vernon Cowley (another Cowley baker from Newhaven) and Gill Cowley for sending me some wonderful newspaper cuttings about the Cowley bakery in Pool Valley.  I have also found an entry in a trade directory dated 1858 which seems to suggest that Francis Cowley (1806-1881) may also have had a Royal warrant for the business.  Click here to see the updated page.

Marshall’s Temperance Hotel

Many of you will already know that I had ‘lost’ (actually put away for safe keeping) a photograph dating back to around 1900 of the hotel that was established and run by my great grandmother, Caroline Ellen Gulley (nee Williams, then Marshall).  Renewed efforts to find the errant picture actually uncovered a photograph that I didn’t even know about!  Click here to see the page that at last I have been able to write about Marshall’s Temperance Hotel.

The Cowley Dairymen and Farmers

I have now been able to link in to the family tree the Cowley ancestors who farmed in the Rottingdean and Ovingdean areas of Sussex.  Follow the link from ‘Stephen Coley’ on the web page ‘From Francis Cooly’.  The pages are a little sparse at present but I have loads more people to add and a lot of photographs that I have been sent by several people.  Watch this space!

The Forum

Sadly I have had to remove the forum from the web site.  Recently the forum was subjected to a ‘wave’ of spam registration attempts, mainly from eastern Europe.  Sorting out genuine registration requests from the ‘rogues’ was time consuming and I could not take the risk of letting one of the spammers on to the site.  I may resurrect the forum in the future but it is not currently high on the priority list.

Preserving the Web Site

Since I started this web site over two years ago I have been concerned about how it could be preserved for future generations once I am no longer around to maintain it.  So I am therefore very pleased to announce that the Cowley Family web site has been accepted in to the British Library’s UK Web Archive.  The way this works is that the British Library’s systems periodically download a full copy of the web site and store it on their own servers for all time.  If you want to see how this works click on the link above and enter Cowley in the search box.