Birmingham
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HE Middlemores of Birmingham are cadets of the Hawkesley branch of the family through Robert Middlemore, the fourth son of George Middlemore of Hawkesley (56) and Anne Culcheth. He, being a younger son, settled at Birmingham, where he engaged in the leather trade, and dying in 1766 was buried at Edgbaston.
Robert Middlemore's eldest grandson, John Middlemore, married his second cousin Mary, daughter of Richard Middlemore of Hawkesley, and settled at Stratford-on-Avon, but according to family tradition did not prosper. With his son, however, Richard Middlemore, of Birmingham, the fortunes of the family revived. He, in 1801, laid the foundation of the great leather business at Holloway Head, which his sons and grandson still further extended.
It is interesting to note that for at least six generations some members of this family have been engaged in one branch or other of this industry, an association which lasted over a hundred and seventy years, while the first connection of the Middlemores with Birmingham seems to have commenced with Thomas Middlemore, a London merchant, who lived in the latter part of the fourteenth century. Associated with the district ever since, their connection with the great Midland city in the last years of the nineteenth century has been further emphasized by the election unopposed on both occasions, of Mr. J. T. Middlemore to represent one of the divisions of Birmingham in the Imperial Parliament. It is probable that there is no other family in Birmingham which can trace its history through nearly twenty generations, and can still claim, at an interval of five centuries, in a marked degree to be honourably identified with that great city. We accordingly commence the history of the Birmingham line with;