Edward Aldridge I
( Unknown - 1757 )
Parentage undiscovered. First mark as smallworker, 5 February 1724. Address: St. Lenrd (Leonards) Court, Foster Lane. Second mark as largeworker, then described as clothworker, 29 June 1739. Address: In Lilley Pot Lane. Moved to Foster Lane, 20 April 1743. Third mark as partner with John Stamper, 20 July 1753, no address. Married 19 October 1723 at Christchurch, Newgate, to Elizabeth Parker, both of St. Leonard, Foster Lane. Two daughters baptized at Christchurch, 1724 and 1725, a third at St. Vedast, 1733, and son John at same, 7 September 1737. In 1742 Aldridge was tried at the instigation of the Goldsmiths' Company for counterfeiting marks but acquitted by the jury, 'Contrary to the Opinion of the Court' (Minutes, 5 August 1742). Heal records him at the Golden Ewer, Lillypot Lane, 1739-43; and at the same sign Foster Lane, 1743 until after 1762; as London 1763-5; also as in partnership with Stamper, 1753-7. It seems probably that he was dead by 1766-7 if, from the lozenge punch, we accept mark 3530 as that of his widow. Although described as Clothworker in his second entry of 1739 there is no record of his name in the index of freemen of that Company, but William Plummer was apprenticed to him as a Clothworker 4 February 1746-7 when Aldridge is described as of Green Street, Leicester Fields, Goldsmith.