Sunbeam was founded by John Marston, who was born in Ludlow, Shropshire, England in 1836 of a minor landowning family. In 1851 at age 15, he was sent to Wolverhampton to be apprenticed to Edward Perry as a japanware manufacturer. At the age of 23 he left and set up his own japanning business, John Marston Ltd, making any and every sort of domestic article. He did so well that when Perry died in 1871, Marston took over his company and incorporated it in his own.