Lydbury North

Robert Clive was a colourful character; larger than life and full of energy and ambition from an early age. Clive was born in 1725 into a minor genteel family in Styche, northeast Shropshire. As a youth he caused endless problems for his family, leading gangs and setting up protection rackets amongst the local shopkeepers in Market Drayton.

Robert Clive was sent off to India as a junior clerk for the East India Company in 1755. He soon rose through the ranks to lead military campaigns against the old Moslem rulers of India. In 1764, Clive was effectively crowned Nawab and appointed Governor of Bengal.

Robert Clive returned to Shropshire in between periods of service in India and built up three distinct landed estates in the county. The first, the Styche estate, was the smallest of the three, based around his ancestral estate. Clive found that part of Shropshire rather damp and he chose not to live there.

Clive's second estate was the Montford estate, which was based around Shrawardine and Great Ness and was acquired in one go from the Bromleys.

The third estate Clive purchased was Walcot estate. This was the largest of the estates and stretched from the Welsh border, across as far as Ludlow, practically the whole of South-West Shropshire.

Walcot Estate gave Clive a base for his political ambition to be elected MP for the rotten borough of Bishop's Castle. Later members of the Powis family kept detailed tenancy records for Bishop's Castle and were quite prepared to turn out tenants who did not vote for them.

Clive was disliked among the older landowning families of Shropshire for buying up their land with his 'new money', particularly when they were short of money themselves.

Nevertheless, Clive chose to settle back in Shropshire and establish his family there. He was careful to arrange the marriage of his son into 'old money' to secure his family's future social standing.

In 1784, his son Edward married Henrietta Herbert, heiress to the Powis family of Powis Castle. He then became Earl of Powis in 1804. The family continued in an unbroken line until 1916.