High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! William France Snr was born in the small agricultural village of Whittington, six miles north of Lancaster, where he was christened on January 7, 1727 the second son of Edward, a yeoman farmer, and Agnes France. His elder brother, John, was christened on 27 March 1725 and was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in Lancaster where he married Elizabeth Townson the daughter of John Townson, a joiner, in 1747.