In his “Sheriffs of Shropshire,” Mr. Blakeway in speaking of the Forester family, says: “They were originally Foresters, an office much coveted by our ancestors, which latter seems probable, from the fact, that on the Pipe Rolls of 1214, Hugh Forester accounts for a hundred merks that he may hold the bailiwick of the forest of Salopscire, as his father held it before him.” King John, however, remits thirty merks of the payment in consequence of Hugh having taken to wife the niece of John l’Estrange, at _His Majesty’s request_. It does not seem clear, however, that Hugh, the son of Robert, can be traced to have been in the direct line of the Willey family, he having been ancestor to Roger, son of John, the first of the king’s six foresters. The other, Robert de Wellington, the late Mr. George Morris, in his “Genealogies of the Principal Landed Proprietors,” now in the possession of T. C. Eyton, Esq., to whose kindness we are indebted for this extract, says was the earliest person that can certainly be called ancestor of the present family of Forester. His sergeantry is described as the custody of the King’s Hay of Eyton, of which, and several adjoining manors, Peter de Eyton, lineal ancestor of the present Thomas Campbell Eyton, of Eyton, and grandson of Robert de Eyton, who gave the whole of the Buttery estate to Shrewsbury Abbey, was the lord. Thomas, a son of Robert Forester of Wellington, in the Hundred Rolls, in 1254, is said by the king’s justices itinerant to hold half a virgate of the king to keep the Hay of Wellington. Roger le Forester of Wellington, who succeeded Robert, appears to have died 1277–8, and to have left two sons, Robert and Roger. Robert had property in Wellington and the Bailiwick of the forest of the Wrekin, and is supposed to have succeeded his father, whom he did not long survive, having died the year following, 1278–9. Roger his brother succeeded to his possession, and held also the Hay of Wellington, of which he died seized in 1284–5. Robert, the Forester of Wellington, Mr. Blakeway says, occurs in the Hundred Roll of Bradford in 1287, and is shown to have held the Hay of Wellington till 1292–3, when Roger, son of Roger, proving himself of age, paid the king one merk as a relief for his lands in Wellington, held by sergeantry, to keep Wellington Hay, in the forest of the Wrekin, &c. This is the Roger de Wellington before-mentioned, as one of King Edward’s foresters by fee, recorded in his Great Charter of the forests of Salopssier, in the perambulation of 1300. He died 1331. John le Forester, as John, son and heir of Roger le Forester de Welynton, succeeded to the property, and proved himself of age in the reign of Edward III., 1335. With John de Eyton he attested a grant in Wellington, and died 24th of Edward III., 1350. William le Forester succeeded his father, John, in 1377, and died 19th of Richard II., 1395.