An embarrassingly short story, made up of just the facts. Not every story CAN be told!
Joseph Sutcliffe was born in 1788, and his future wife Mary was born in 1792. The first child of theirs that we know of, Samuel, was born around 1818, probably in Rochdale, although no baptism record exists for him. Later siblings would be connected to Knowlwood Chapel so they were likely Methodists of some description, and their christenings aren’t online.
Now, we say “the first child of theirs”…at this time in history Joseph and Mary would have had to have banns in an Anglican church due to the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753, regardless of their actual religion. So there’s a chance that Mary was once Mary Law (married a Joseph Sutcliffe in 1812) or even Mary Clegg (who married a Joseph Sutcliffe in 1819 – maybe Samuel was actually born in early 1819?), but we don’t know for sure. If they were married in 1812 then Samuel may not have been their first.
In fact, if you don’t have this gravestone, you don’t even know about Samuel! That’s because he died in early 1837, before the GRO came into effect, so we don’t have a death registration to get any more clues about his life. He was 19 years old though. Too young. You’d only have the 1841 Census to know anything more about this family unit and that’s where we find more children – Thomas, William, Sarah, Joseph Jr. and James. The Sutcliffes by then are living at Stones Grange and Joseph Sr. is a farmer. Joseph Jr. would join him in this by 1851, while Thomas and Sarah worked as cotton weavers and James worked as a bookkeeper. William by this point had disappeared.
Mary died in 1854 and Joseph followed her in 1860. All three of these deaths went unmarked in any newspaper. We at least can learn their causes of death: hydrothorax (fluid in the chest cavity) for Mary, and phthsis for Joseph. Mary died at their family home at Stones Grange and Joseph at William’s home on London Road up on the tops by Mankinholes.
And…that’s it. Maybe we’ll know more at some later date, but for now, we have to rest there.