John Marston
John Marston was a successful Victorian bicycle, motorcycle and car manufacturer and founder of the Sunbeam company of Wolverhampton. He company was also one of the country's largest manufacturers of japanware and he was responsible for building 'Seagull' outboard engines for marine use and also... for starting the Villiers engineering company. He was Mayor of Wolverhampton for two consecutive years and died in 1918 aged 82. Born in Ludlow on May 6, 1836, in a landowning family. His father Richard Marston had been a Justice of the Peace and Mayor of Ludlow. John was educated at Ludlow Grammar School, and afterwards at Christ's Hospital, London. In 1851 at age 15, however, John was sent to Wolverhampton to be apprenticed to Richard Perry, Son & Co., tinsmiths and japanners, at the Jeddo Works of Wolverhampton as a japanner . In 1859, at the age of 23, John Marston's apprenticeship was competed and he bought Daniel Smith Lester's japanning business at Bilston which had amalgamated with Fred Walton & Company and Thurston and Company and established his own company John Marston Ltd, producing tin goods.
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