38.35 – John Thomas, Bertha, Alice and Arthur Cryer

A story that encompasses the church, the school, and the graveyard itself; what more could we want? This grave story is only a half-told one though, because the latter two inhabitants died lately enough that there will be memories out there of them beyond the public record – and we want to hear them! So this writeup will initially only cover John Thomas and Bertha, with the second half to be added later. You, the reader, might be a key contributor…

John Thomas Cryer was born in 1878, the third John (at least) in his line of succession. His parents, Jonathan and Elizabeth Jane (Nicholls) had wed in November 1877 so his arrival nine and a half months later isn’t a surprise. Elizabeth Jane was the daughter of economic migrants from Norfolk and was very devout, becoming a schoolmistress and sometimes caretaker at St. Mary’s despite the family being based in Shade. John and his younger siblings (two brothers and a sister) spent their early years attending. Jonathan and Elizabeth had interesting naming conventions; John Thomas was named for each’s fathers, but then the next son born in 1881 was named…Jonathan…because that’s a different name, obviously.

They probably expecting at least one of those sons to follow their father’s footsteps into Waterside Mill. Jonathan was an engine stoker so would have had to be very strong and fit to do the work. A worry, given his own father had died suddenly in his early 50s from no obvious cause. Unfortunately those two Johns shared not only a name but a fate, because 1889 delivered two crushing blows to the family. First Jonathan and Elizabeth’s only daughter, Eliza Ellen, died in September 1889 from unknown causes. Then in December Jonathan, while tending an engine at work, suddenly slumped to his knees, struggled to get any words out, and died minutes later.

Elizabeth managed to make it work without remarrying, but the 1891 Census shows her at home doing housework, and our John here working as a throstle doffer at age 12 – the only one of the children old enough to work. Her youngest son William Edward had only been born in 1889. As time went on though she was able to take on paid work, and her links to St. Mary’s paid off. She was hired as the female caretaker for National next to the graveyard here, and also (although we only know this from her retirement in 1846 at the age of 91 – 91!!!) worked as a mortuary assistant. That’s one of the reasons we’re devoting more than just a few lines to her…countless “residents” of the yard here were washed, dressed, and prepared for burial by her.

Anyway, back to our story. John became a cotton weaver, maybe to spare the stress on his blood vessels and his mother’s nerves, and was slow to marry compared to some at the time. He also became involved with the Young Men’s Association at Christ Church. While attending services our John would have noticed a young woman who was there probably more often than he was: Bertha Barker of Wellington Road. Bertha was the seventh daughter of John and Susanna Barker whose stories and losses have already been told here. Losing her mother at the age of ten can’t have been easy but as her father and brother John Albert became more involved at Christ Church she became a regular attendee too. The Barkers were comfortable enough but still of the working class, John being a letterpress printer, but by the time Bertha was in her 20s John Barker had cemented his place in civic life, whether on the Cooperative Society’s Educational Committee, the Town Board’s and later Council’s Library Committee, and the church’s Sick and Funeral Society. He would have had a good working relationship with Elizabeth, no doubt!

Bertha performed in various shows and had a good singing voice and between that and her family connections must have seemed like an excellent catch. And so she was – she and John were married in 1907 and their marriage seems to have been a happy one. They had two sons, John (are you surprised?) in 1910 and Arthur in 1914. In 1910 John took over caretaker duties at National for a few years but then went back to work at Crow Carr Ings as a loom sweeper. Bertha also went back to work at the same mill to bring in some money for the family. John’s own personal health issues are unknown to us but in 1925 the school’s caretaker died and John stepped in again, and held the post until 1944. Like we said before, perhaps this was in acknowledgement that men in his family had a habit of dying young. John didn’t though – he died in June 1955 at the age of 76. He must have had more of his mother’s genes.

Bertha left their home on Gledhill Street and moved in with Arthur and Alice at Lime Street, where she stayed until her death in 1966.

Now, as for Arthur and his future wife Alice Nichol…we want to hear from you. We know Arthur was a bus driver and the local Transport and General Workers’ Union branch secretary, he was a bellringer, he was devout Anglican; we know Alice was a fellow performer, she was a devout Methodist, she was patient with her husband’s political ambitions as any partner of someone with ambitions has to be; but what else would we have missed? If you’re a relative, or remember them some other way, what anecdotes do you think they’d like you to retell? Let us know in the comments and we’ll update this story at a later date to include their parts.