King Tree

died at capton (Free Press 10/2/1881)
John Gliddon started the business at Williton first in Bank street as a maker of implements. He moved when he got married from Barnstable to Williton - a long trip in 1833.

He was clearly a comparatively young man, and this was confirmed in the will of his father, John Gliddon, in the following year, 1881. Here there are references to Henry, Benjamin and Phebe again, to grandson Horrace John again and to another grandson, Arthur Henry G. John's will also identifies "C" beyond doubt as his widow, Christiana, and the address in the letter as Capton House, at Stogumber.

John Wesley fought in the Crimean War

From Encylopedia Britanica
Gliddon, George Robbins (1809-1857), British Egyptologist,was born in Devonshire 1809. His father, a merchant, was United States consul at Alexandria, and there Gliddon was taken at an early age. He became United States vice-consul, and took a great interest in Egyptian antiquities. Subsequently he lectured in the United States and succeeded in rousing considerable attention to the subject of Egyptology generally. He died at Panama in 1857. His chief work was Ancient Egypt (1850, ed. 1853). He wrote also Memoir on the Cotton of Egypt (1841); Appeal to the Antiquaries of Europe on the Destruction of the Monuments of Egypt (1841); Discourses on Egyptian Archeology 1841); Types of Mankind (1854), in conjunction with J.C.Nott and others; Indigenous Races of the Earth (1857), also in conjunction with Nott and others.

Look over at the glearming rows of red Massey-Fergusson tractors, with their four wheel drives, their hydraulicks, and niseless cabs, and they sum up the industry of a firm that has taken agricultural revloution in its stride.

For a century and a half the name Gliddon has been synonomous with agriculture and engineering, having built up a trade that now stretches across Somerset to Cornwal from the base at Williton.

But the family's business story started on the other side if Exmoor in what in 1833 was referred to as "the distant neighbourhood" of Barbstable. There John Gliddon was in business as an ironmonger at 75 High Street. After meeting his future wife Chrsiana Baltus and Marying her he decided to seel up and move to Williton.

No  for sure why he made the move but he established himself quicly enough an, in a loaned gig, returned to Barnsatble to collect his wife. Today the distance is an hour's drive but at that time the journey was rough, long and tiresome.

John Gliddon must have propered steadily at the Bank Streeet premises which, with much modernising, still house he company today. By the time his three sons were old enough he was able to send them off to academy at Axminster and John Wesley Gliddon went on to attend public school (later to become Blundell's) at Tiverton.

Perhaps this financial success was due to John Gliddon's wide scope as a tradesman and engineer. He carried out his intention of branching out from the chores of the run-of-the-mill village blacksmith.

He started selling ploughs and washing machines and by 1859 he was manufacturing his own kitchen ranges which were sold nationally.