The grave in question is the one in the left hand foreground of this very atmospheric photo (thanks Andy!) from early spring 2023. We were very fortunate to have a relative in the group, Alec Mamwell, who has provided photos of some of the things we’re not usually able to provide in a story – receipts, photos, and other items that remind us that these aren’t “just dead people” but actual people with actual lives that they led. We just didn’t meet them is all.
John Lupton was born in Bacup in 1857, the same year as his future wife Susan, aka Susy. We think she may have been born Susannah Ogden, in Walsden, but we can’t be sure as the marriage can’t be found anywhere online. Who knows – it was a different time but things weren’t always so different. Anyway, John’s parents Lawrence and Ellen worked in the cotton mills and John followed the same path. In 1871 he was still in Bacup, living with his brother James and wife Isabella, and then in 1877 or so we’re told he and and Susy married and he made the move to Todmorden, Walsden specifically.
They had six children, two of whom were Ellen (born 1882) and Annie (born 1896). Ellen became a cardroom hand in a cotton mill and married George Willie Ford in 1904. They had two children, Amy and Ivy. Amy died young, only just 9 months old. She was buried with her grandfather; John had died in 1896.
The next Lupton to pass away wasn’t Susy, but Annie. She had been a ring spinner in a cotton mill, just the same as everyone else in her family. We don’t know why she died but she was buried just six years after her niece Amy.
Susy, who had been working as a housemaid after John died, carried on and died in 1934. Although we cannot trace her daughter Emily after her marriage to Walter Thomas in 1912 it seems as though Susy did not outlive any more of her children. We’ll end here with a fantastic photo of Susy late in life.
