ABSTRACT
The Mays belonged to that subclass, usually forgotten by social historians, a family in decline, financially and socially on the way down. May’s grandfather, Charles Hughes May, was a substantial landowner at Whittington Common near Chesterfield in Derbyshire. Although he was not quite as important as the Mays maintained (his name is not listed in gazeteers or among the gentry), he was probably a considerable farmer, had his own pack of beagles and a large house. He was reputed to be a good amateur artist and caricaturist as well as a dedicated horseman. One of his sons, John A. May, owned a pottery works in Staffordshire, perhaps Toft & May at Hanley, although this appears to have been run by a Robert May. C.H. May was a friend of George Stephenson, the railway engineer, who lived at Tapton, Chesterfield, and they hunted together. The second son, Philip May was therefore apprenticed as an engineer to Stephenson in 1840. It was the apogee of railway expansion and almost anyone could make a successful career out of it. Somehow Philip May failed to do this and became a rather sad ne’er-do-well figure. The best thing that came out of his blighted life was a wedding. Working at Newcastle, Philip had met and married a young Irish girl, Sarah Jane Macarthy, whose father was manager of the Theatre Royal Newcastle.
