This grave is one of the very, very small number of table tombs in the yard. Does that denote someone special? Not many people in this town have a street named after them, but then, if you’re the one who built it then you get to do as you please. Hammerton Terrace is named for a solicitor, Joshua Street you can probably make a good guess at, Fielden Terrace gets you zero points…but Mills Street might have escaped your surname radar.
Robert Mills was a perfect example of a grafter. He was born in 1804 in Todmorden and worked as a weaver, labourer, cotton loom sizer, and eventually began manufacturing naphtha – a highly flammable petroleum byproduct, although it can also be made from coal, which makes more sense in this part of Britain. He had married fellow Todmordian Alice Holden in February 1826, more or less in time for their first son Thomas to be born. They lived at Wetshaw with Robert’s parents for a time before coming down to the valley floor. Despite their haste to wed Robert and Alice were very religious and were part of the Congregationalists in Todmorden. As Robert kept working so did their savings, and also so did their family…Alice would give birth to ten little Millses over the course of their marriage.
Various personal and professional tragedies dogged the family, first and foremost the loss of two young children – William Holden Mills and Adam Mills. They were the babies of the family, born in 1839 and 1840 respectively. William died the same year he was born and Adam died in 1843. Robert already owned a number of houses on Brook and Back Brook Street, but after Adam’s death he threw himself into his work and in 1843 leveraged some interest he had in Buckley’s Mill (where Ridgefoot Mill would later stand) to fund the building of a row of cottages on the site of the mill when it was taken down. Mills Street was born. It was just before Peel Street and the two royalty streets, Prince and Queen, that would make up the area known as Cobden. Robert and family moved there from Brook Street once it was completed. Robert also had been busy inserting himself into anti-Radical groups such as the Anti-Corn Law League and was making sure that he was considered one of the…maybe not Big Boys, but Medium Boys. He would never be a Fielden or an Ormerod, but he could make sure he was on one of the higher ladder rungs.
He then used the money he made from renting cottages to build a small mill near Millwood where he could manufacture naphtha, probably thinking this would make him even wealthier. After all, it was a useful substance no one else in Todmorden was making it. There was probably a reason for this – as we said before, it’s a highly flammable substance. Also, Robert chose perhaps the worst place to manufacture a highly flammable material: next to the Todmorden Gas Works. Christ Church graveyard is full of poor life choices, and this definitely ranks in the top five.
That was the end of the naphtha hustle. Undaunted, Robert returned to his weaving and sizing days and built Hope Mill on Vale Street. Again, this opportunity came at the same time as a bereavement, this time Alice’s. She joined her two sons here at Christ Church, where they had been buried for reasons unknown, since by 1839 Patmos Chapel (where the Mills family now worshipped) was taking burials. Christ Church was aspirational, though, and maybe this was another example of canny businessman thinking on Robert’s part. Robert moved to Richmond Terrace, near Der Street, with daughters Betty and Martha, and thought about his next move.
Son James, meanwhile, had married Susannah Helliwell on February 9th 1850 and moved away from Todmorden altogether. Susannah’s mother Hannah was a Holden by birth – were they cousins? He was a blacksmith and clearly had the travel bug, since in 1851 he and Susannah were living in Bacup, and by 1861 were in Openshaw along with his brother Abraham. By this time he had three children of his own – John William, Robert, and Holden. That’s about all we can say though as he lived an even quieter life; no setting naphtha plants on fire for him. We don’t know which of Robert’s sons wasn’t paying attention that day in 1852 though…maybe it was him…
Anyway, back to Robert. Restless Robert was restless and decided to make another change, this time, a move to sunny Blackpool to take advantage of railway links and wealthy seaside visitors. He applied for permission to build two houses along Princess Street on the South Shore, and by 1865 was advertising his hotel in the Todmorden papers.
A few more houses were built, because why not? And Robert flourished in his new role as a hotelier. Amusingly his new houses were near what would soon become the Tramworks and – believe it or not – the Gas Works. What was it with Robert and proximity to gas? Robert managed to refrain from setting anything else on fire during the last years of his life but in 1869 poor health caught up with him. In the final surreal twist to his life’s story, he died on July 13th 1869 as a consequence of developing gangrene in his right big toe.
Rather than be laid to rest at Layton Cemetery, his body was brought back to Todmorden.
After this Robert’s remaining property portfolio in Todmorden was put up for sale – houses at Blind Lane as well as a large chunk of buildings at Mills Street – and life went on for his remaining children. James and Susannah had now moved to Bradford in Openshaw and James had developed his smithing into specifically carriage and wagon smithing. You still needed a horse and cart to move goods short distances from A to B and James and Holden made a living from ensuring it could happen. Robert had trained as a mechanic and may have also been helping out. Again, they were a quiet family, and there were no failed business ventures or drunken escapades or fiery buildings to land them in the papers. A happy life but not exciting reading for us in the here and now. When James died in 1878 there was no fanfare, not even a newspaper notice; just his body brought back to Todmorden to be laid to rest with his parents and brothers. And just like with his mother and brothers, an entry in the burial register to prove he really is here.
Susannah went to live with Robert and would stay with him until her death in 1890. Many of Robert and Alice’s children left Todmorden when they grew up. Mills Street persisted until the 1940s when it was slowly demolished, back-to-back housing having been deemed (understandably) problematic, and today there is nothing to show it was ever there.