William's brother, Richard
At some point William must have fallen under the spell of books for at the age of 25, newly married, he was running his own bookshop. We might pause and try to imagine what that shop might have been like. Books were expensive items. How well could a young man of modest means stock his shop? What titles might he carry? What customers may he have had? We can reach for our edition of Oliver Twist and the scene where the old gentleman is in the bookshop. Might William’s have been like that? Can we fast forward nearly two centuries to the book shop in Notting Hill run by another William in the film of that name?Yet his father had been a Wax and Tallow Chandler and his family dealers in hides. Where might the love have come from?