38.5 – Young and Ann Ashworth and their children

“Also of five infants” always hurts a little to read, and while four of these infants have their names back, one looks to have never managed to have a name at all…

Some of Young Ashworth’s story you will know from that of his parents and sisters at 40.9. He was the second youngest, the youngest son, and the first of the family to fly the nest. Remember him losing his father during the cotton famine? The family had to cling together to keep going and Young even sacrificed his own domestic bliss to help his brother William keep their mother and sisters from ending up out in the streets. The anarchist Samuel Fielden recounted stories in his autobiography about cotton weaver girls wandering the streets from town to town selling handkerchiefs (and themselves) and he didn’t want that happening to his sisters. But this does mean that he and his future wife, Ann Sunderland, ended up living apart while trying to raise their first child.

Ann was in the same boat. She was the eldest daughter and third child of her parents, James and Mary Sunderland of Wadsworth who together had a grand total of ten children we know about – ten! – and who moved around the Calderdale area because of James’s work as an agricultural labourer. The children were all born across Wadsworth and Ovenden and after Mary’s death in 1858 the Sunderlands came down to Walsden and Top O’Th’ Hill to live. The cotton famine meant all hands on deck for them too. Mary’s occupation on the 1861 Census is “manager of domestic affairs” so clearly she was a capable young woman (or possibly she had the honour of informing the census taker of everyone’s roles and decided she deserved to big herself up a little).

In 1864 she and Young had their first child, Fred Sunderland. They married in March 1866; their daughter Mary Alice was born in the autumn; and Fred died in the winter. What a year. The pattern then repeated itself, with Mary Alice dying in 1869, the same year their daughter Harriet was born. Esther Ellen was born in, and died in, 1872. Annie was born in, and died in, 1873. Their final child, James, was born in 1875. Only he and Harriet lived to adulthood. That’s four of the five infants mentioned on this stone and since no other births were recorded for Young and Ann we can only assume the fifth child wasn’t born alive.

James and Harriet would remain close for the rest of their lives, and even rest together at 11.4.

The Ashworths had moved to Sunnybank but were soon back at Stoneswood and Dulesgate and living next door to Ann’s father and siblings. Young was a bird fancier and in his spare time raised pigeons and canaries. He not only showed his birds at shows but judged shows, starting in 1890, and by 1900 had acquired such a good name for himself that he was able to open up his very own shop on the indoor market selling all sorts of birds, bird accessories, and goldfish (always good to have a diverse portfolio).

Young went from only appearing in the papers connected to shows to being in the papers often due to various thefts or larcenies involving birds where he ended up as a witness. He didn’t just buy birds, you see, he also bought and traded them – and so a surprising number of birds were traded to him which turned out to not belong to the person trading them. It’s all rather exciting, far moreso than you’d imagine running a bird shop would naturally be!

Ann, meanwhile, had stayed at home raising their children, and at one point taking in her youngest sister Mary after their father’s death and the family splitting up. Mary was also a cotton weaver and helped bring a little extra money into the household. By 1901 though she and Harriet had moved on, and it was just Young, Ann, and James left in their house at 154 Bacup Road. Ann’s health declined, and in April 1906 she died at home at the age of 66.

Young’s sister Susan came to stay, James got married, and Young by 1911 was finally able to call himself a “bird dealer” on the Census. A fire inside the Market Hall in late 1905 had killed a good amount of his bird stock and he was only just starting to advertise himself in the papers again when Ann died, which would have also been a strain on him for obvious reasons. Time was moving on for Young though and by April 1915 Young was advertising his business for sale in the newspapers due to his own decline in health. The business was sold, Young retired, and in March 1916 at the age of 73 he joined Ann and their five lost children here.