Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/184

 who married Alice, the daughter of Thomas Clifton, of Clifton, Westby, and Lytham, but left no surviving offspring. Sir Alexander Rigby is reputed to have been a gambler, and to have so impoverished his estates, already seriously injured by the attachment of his family to the fortunes of Charles I. and II., that he was compelled to dispose of his possessions in Poulton and Layton for the benefit of his creditors. He also appears to have been imprisoned for debt until released by an act of Parliament, passed in the first year of George I., and his property vested in trustees. His estates in Layton and Poulton were sold for £19,200. After his liberation he resided in Poulton at his house on the south side of the Market-place, where the family arms, bearing the date 1693, may still be seen fixed on the outer wall. The pew of the Rigbys is still in existence in the parish church of that town, and has carved on its door the initials A. R., and the date 1636, separated by a goat's head, the crest of the family.

SINGLETON OF STAINING HALL.

There is every reason to suppose that the Singletons who resided at Staining Hall during the greater part of two centuries were a branch of the family founded in the Fylde by Alan de Singleton, of Singleton. George, the son of Robert Singleton by his wife Helen, the daughter of John Westby, of Mowbreck, purchased the hamlet and manor of Staining from Sir Thomas Holt, of Grislehurst, and was the first of the name to occupy the Hall. He married Mary Osbaldeston, and left issue at his death, in 1552, William, the eldest; Hugh, who espoused Mary, sister of William Carleton, of Carleton, and left a son, William, who died without issue; Richard; Lawrence; and Margaret, the wife of Lawrence Carleton, heir and subsequently successor to his brother William. William Singleton, of Staining, became allied to Alice, the daughter and heiress of Thomas ffarington, by whom he had Thomas, John, George, Richard, Helen, and Margaret. On the demise of his father in 1556, Thomas, the heir, came into possession of the estate; he married Alice, the daughter of James Massey, and had one child, a daughter, Ellen, who espoused John Massey, of Layton. Thomas Singleton died in 1563, and was succeeded by his brother John, who had married Thomasine, the daughter of Robert Anderton, and had issue two daughters, the