The eroded nature of this gravestone sent us down one or two false leads before we were able to figure out what this grave was about.
“Semicircular stone, very badly eroded”, according to the TAS; then “Also of Sarah Ann, daughter of the above Richard Sutcliffe, who died Novr 24th 1878 in her 34th year” according to us. Both incorrect! This is actually the grave of Richard and his wife Sarah, no Ann, and she died in her 81st year.
Whoops.
Anyway, onto their story, which is one of two widowed people finding love (or at least companionship) again. Richard Sutcliffe was born in 1798 on the Lancashire side of the border, a year after his future wife Sarah Howarth. Richard became a power loom weaver who specialised in carpet weaving, although he also farmed on the side as was common for weavers prior to the introduction of power looms. He was married three times; first to Mary Mitchell, who gave him a son, Amos, in 1838 before her death. Next was Hannah Last-name-unknown, who gave him a daughter named Mary who died in 1842, a year after Hannah. Both of them are buried in Halifax at the cathedral as by this point Richard had moved the family to Halifax. They were living at Mount Pleasant, part of a row of terraces to the southwest of Dean Clough and just northeast of Stannary Hall – near where Beech Hill School is now. Surprisingly Richard didn’t remarry for some time after Hannah’s death, until he rekindled his acquaintance with a certain Sarah Dewhirst…
Sarah Howarth was born on the Stansfield side of Todmorden in 1797 and would marry her first husband, stonemason William Dewhirst, in 1818 in Heptonstall. The couple quickly got down to business and would have six children over the next 17 years, although only three made it to adulthood. William, the last, was possibly named for his late father in 1835 – William Sr. died the same year, while the family were living at Meadowbottom. This left Sarah with four children, Mariah, Ann, John and little William. This wasn’t the end of her childbearing though, as two years later she gave birth to one last child, a son named Thomas. But after that, she was done, and no surprise given she was 40 at that point. Like Richard, she continued on her way as a widow, raising her children and doing whatever was needed to get by. The 1841 Census unfortunately gives us no clues as to what that was…it only shows poor Mariah and Ann working in a cotton factory.
Whether Sarah and Richard crossed paths during the brief time they were living nearby – with nearby being loose, since Richard and family were at Lane End near Heptonstall in 1841 – is unclear, but they did later, somehow. They were married at Halifax in 1850 and at first moved in to the not-that-big house at Mount Pleasant; however soon the couple and their respective children still at home would find themselves be living at Dirk Carr Farm, just a little to the northeast of Bankfield in Akroyd. Richard for some reason decided to leave carpet weaving behind and went back to farming at an age when one would normally be thinking of taking a step back from hard work…why, we wonder? It was only 5 acres but none of the three boys still at home were involved in it. They were all working at the carpet factory still.
Richard died on November 30th 1868 at the age of 70, and he was buried here at Christ Church – why? Good question! We don’t know why he wouldn’t have joined his daughter and second wife at Halifax, unless he was joining his first wife Mary instead. The problem is that we can’t find a Mary Sutcliffe who is described as the wife of a Richard Sutcliffe buried here, and at time she would have died that would have been explicitly spelled out in the burial register. William Dewhirst was buried at Christ Church though, as well as her daugher Mariah, so it looks as though Sarah might have made an executive decision and placed Richard here with her first husband and child. It’s a good way to not have to choose who to be buried with later on! Sadly this stone is so badly eroded that we can’t know for sure who else is buried here.
Sarah came back to Todmorden with her son John and his wife Mary, and lived with them and two of Mary’s brothers (including Howorth Stansfield) in their little house on Queen Street. Her son William stayed behind in Halifax, as did Thomas. Her daughter Ann meanwhile was now on her second marriage, to weaver James Johnson, and had moved to Oldham with him. When John died suddenly in 1873 Sarah made the decision to go live with Ann rather than with one of her other sons. That’s why she was living there in November 1878 when she died at the age of 81.
