the directors and “skilfully parry” questions from angry shareholders, who were prevented from reading out statements “for some insufficient reason.” Allen was never prosecuted: a report in The Shrewsbury Chronicle says Allen “told directors he would expose them and break up the company. It would seem from the fact of him having left the neighbourhood upon the hint being given to him by some of the directors, that they are afraid of his threat.” When shareholders demanded to know why Allen had been allowed to escape the directors said “it was on best advice” and refused to reveal more on “the ground of the impolicy of telling all they knew of the past”. To cover the losses the bank's directors lent it £120,000: £100,000 from Henry Dickenson, who took over as chairman, and £5,000 each from four others: they never asked for their loans to be repaid, and their cash injection was used as a foundation to raise more money from shareholders. The Shropshire Banking Company recovered quickly under Dickenson; six months later the directors were given a unanimous vote of thanks by shareholders and it grew steadily over the next few years, finally being bought by Lloyds Bank in 1874. The 20th century The Star Hotel was demolished after a fire in 1911. The Eight Bells or Ring of Bells was occupied in 1911 by the Pitchford family, descendants of the nobility who took their name from the area of Pitchford in Shropshire. Herbert James Pitchford ran the Eight Bells among other public houses. He served in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, and died in Flanders in the First World War. His name appears on the Menin Gate in Belgium and on the war memorial in St Andrew's Church, Shifnal, near the Eight Bells public house. Today the building is occupied by the Oddfellows Wine Bar. Hinckesman's Brewery Co was established at Hinnington spring, just south of the town, in 1897, and changed its name to the Shifnal Brewery Company in 1899. After closing in 1910 the name was revived in 1927 before being acquired by Broadway Brewery (Shifnal) in 1934. In turn this was acquired by Banks's in Wolverhampton in 1960. The railway bridge over Market Place was rebuilt in 1953: the open spandrels of the original arch were replaced with a plain lined flat panel construction. The town expanded further during the 1960s. In 2015 it was