Victorian pub family’s history

I have just read your item about the oldest pubs in Wolverhampton and thought you and your readers might like to know about the Hand public house in Victoria Street.

The pub was actually called Hand and Bottle of 61 Victoria Street, Wolverhampton.

A young couple called Peter York and his wife Esther (née Aston) both born in Wombourne, ran the public house in Wombourne called the Vine, on the 1861 census they lived there with Peter’s mother Ann York and a servant Catherine Baker.

The couple then went to the Hand and Bottle and on the 1871 census lived and worked there with their son Joseph York, who was a drapery assistant, and also had a servant called Ann Kellis.

Peter and Esther York were also there on the 1881 census along with servant Lisey Hayward and a visitor, gardener Thomas Cox from Bushley in Worcestershire.

The couple then left the Hand and Bottle and moved to the Roebuck Inn along the Penn Road in Penn and on the 1891 census was Sarah L. Edwards servant and Peter and Esther’s two Grandsons Harry P.P. York and Joseph York. Peter York died 1 May, 1891, aged 68, and is buried in St Bartholomew’s Church in Penn. His wife stayed at the Roebuck Inn until her death in April 1904.

Esther Aston’s family were a well know family of brewers and owned many public houses in fact most of the public houses in Wombourne and surrounding areas, Penn, Kingswinford, Seisdon/trysull and Wolverhampton. Some of the pubs also had on their grounds the brewery. The Astons also owned lots of local farmland so they grew the crops for the breweries and employed their families to run the farms, brewery and the pubs.