The Biddulphians.

I came across the following article in a book published around the turn of the century and helps support the theory that people of Biddulph Moor were descended from Saracens, the article is as follows:- The Biddulph Moor men, who are said to be descended from Paynims, brought over by a crusader, for many generations were proverbially the rudest and most outlandish people in the country. It is declared that one of them told the late Bishop of Lichfield that he was a “foin mon to show folk the road to Heaven if he did not know his way across Biddle Moor”. Happily, however, the district is now improved. A School and Church were planted here by the Bateman family about fifteen years ago, and we have received a very cheering account of the last Annual Distribution of prizes to about a hundred well deserving Sunday Scholars by the Hon. Mrs. and Mr. John Bateman. The benefits of good church work done, we are told, “are manifestly evident in the altered character of this outlying and long forgotten people.”