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The name Lilley is common in East Anglia and the UK. My own family can be traced to the villages of Langham and Boxted about 6 miles north of Colchester, near the Essex - Suffolk border and the river Stour valley. The registers for several of the relevant parishes are difficult to read and in places illegible so important connections may well have been missed
The earliest records are those of William Lilley whose children were baptised between 1717 and 1732 in Langham. The parish registers do not record his wife and his marriage has not been traced. Thereafter the family of Thomas Lilley is the start of a continuous line. It was once thought that Thomas had three wives (Hannah Simmons, m 1732, Hannah Edwards m. 1737 and Elizabeth Smith m. 1755). However, it now seems more likely that Thomas & Hannah Simmons were a separate family.
Thereafter the family can be traced in Langham, Boxted and surrounding villages into the 21st century.
My own line stems from Robert Lilley who was born in Langham about 1802. His daughter Susannah had a base-born son William Charles in Gt Holland, 1849. William Charles became a successful builder in Walton on Naze. Among the properties he built was a row of houses in Station Street, where he lived. His son-in -law Artemas Gooch , married to Sarah Annie Lilley, lived next door.
An extended Lilley family still live in the Walton-on-Naze district and the bakers shop founded by Artemas Gooch still trades under the Lilley name in the town.
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