The earliest Bolstridge yet found in Nottinghamshire was one James Bolstridge who married Ann Hickling in Sneinton in October 1841. Ann, the daughter of a confectioner trading at St Mary's Gate, already had 5 month old son Edwin who could be James' child. James died as a result of injuries he received in the Nottingham Train Crash on 21 Nov 1844 and Ann remarried.  Shortly before he died Ann gave birth to a son James John Bolestridge and at that time James was described as, James Bolestridge Victualler of St Mary's Gate. Ann along with her new husband, William Smith, emigrated to America in 1847  

In the 1840's  the ribbon trade of Bedworth was in serious decline  by 1846 we have the first Bolstridge recorded as a coal miner. The mines at Bedworth were now providing alternative work and in successive decades we find more Bolstridges employed as colliers.  About 1862 William Bolstridge, a collier from Bedworth, and his wife Sarah Pickard, moved  Basford near Nottingham to work in the fast expanding Nottingham coalfield. His descendants,( he had seventeen children by two wives),  still live in the Nottingham area to this day.