| Administrative History | The Wolferstans, originally of Wolverstone Hall, Suffolk, seem to have become established in Staffordshire in the mid-16th century, when a younger son married Katherine Stanley, heiress to Statfold Manor. Over the next three centuries they added considerably to their property in the Tamworth area and in the neighbouring parts of Derbyshire, Warwickshire and Leicester.
During the eighteenth century there was a particularly large accession of property to the family when Joyce Wolferstan married Edward Littleton, who inherited the estates of his uncle, Devereux Littleton of Tamworth. This accounts for the presence in the collection of a number of Littleton family papers.
The name "Pipe-Wolferstan" was adopted in 1776 by Samuel Pipe, who inherited the Wolferstan estates from his grandfather, Stanford Wolferstan (d.1772). Samuel Pipe-Wolferstan (d.1820) was a distinguished antiquary who gave considerable assistance to the Reverend Stebbing Shaw for the latter's History and Antiquities of Staffordshire, 1798, (see preface, page X) and was also a friend of William Hamper, the Birmingham antiquary. His diaries, 1776-1820, are deposited at Staffordshire Record Office under reference D1527, with transcripts available upon request.
The presence in these collections of a number of medieval deeds and other documents apparently unconnected with the Pipe-Wolferstans is presumably to be explained by his activities as a collector. |