Relative of Wyatt Earp dies

A Black Country relative of Wild West hero Wyatt Earp has died in France, a reminder of our region's links with the Wild West – and the facts and fancy surrounding the connection.

In pubs all over the Black Country you will find locals who insist that Wyatt Earp came from Walsall (or Dudley, or Wednesbury) and that the furious Gunfight at the OK Corral may have been accompanied by some ripe Black Country language.

The truth is very different. There is a link between the Earps of Staffordshire and the six-gun heroes of Tombstone, Arizona, but it goes way back.

Barbara Nash, one of Wyatt's Earps distant relatives, was 87. She came from Walsall but had settled near Limoges, central France, with her daughter Jackie, a former press officer with Walsall Council. She died at the weekend.

Barbara was the daughter of Sarah Lucy Nash (nee Earp) who died aged 102 in 1982. Sarah's grandfather was the brother of Nicholas Porter Earp whose sons were Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan.

According to local legend, the Earps took their saddle-making skills from Walsall and prospered in the United States.

But none of the famous Earp brothers was born in England. Their family was well-established in America by the 1700s and their father was born in North Carolina in 1813.

It seems one branch of the family may have returned to England. Earp is still a common name in Tipton, Wednesbury and other parts of the Black Country.

Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan and their friend Doc Holliday literally shot to fame in 1881 in the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone.

Virgil was town marshal and his brothers were deputies.

With Holliday, they killed three cowboys in a shoot-out which came to symbolise the Wild West struggle between banditry and the forces of law. Although the English and American branches of the family had separated by 1800, a handful of Black Country folk can trace their links to the Earp brothers.

Mrs Nash, who is to be buried in France tomorrow, was the widow of Dr Paul Hammet Le Brun of Wolverhampton Road West, Bentley, who died in 1997.

The Maltese-born doctor was a popular figure in the Darlaston area, where he was a GP for more than 30 years. Dr Hammet, as he was known locally, was a leading light in the ban-the-bomb CND movement.

"Barbara was a real character and this is a very sad time," a friend of the family, Christine Harris, said today. "She was very proud of the Wyatt Earp connection and it was all fully documented."

In an interview some years ago Jackie Nash told the Express & Star of the family connection.

She said: "The unfortunate thing is that all the female members of the family seem to have the tempers of the Earp brothers. My mother, my grandmother and I all inherited dreadful tempers.

"We have several old letters from the American branch of the family and we're very proud of them because they are historical documents.

"But we know the Earps were not heroes. The brothers had Tombstone sewn up. In family legend, they are known as cold-blooded killers.'

One Earp family trait appears to be longevity. For all his gun-toting ways, Wyatt Earp lived until he was 80, dying peacefully in 1929.

By Peter Rhodes.