The Wilkinsons were a labouring family who had it tough at times, although that hardly makes them unique here. Life could be hard for an outdoor labourer. Thomas made it work though and in the end his family had more security than many.
Thomas Wilkinson was born in 1833, the first of nine children for Isaac and Violetta (Greenwood) Wilkinson of Laneside near Wood Hey Lane in Mytholmroyd. Thomas saw a lot of death during his childhood, with the two siblings who came after him dying within a year of their birth, and two sisters and his mother all dying within two weeks of each other in 1847 when he was 14 years old. All these Wilkinsons are buried at Heptonstall.
After losing his wife, Isaac remarried and moved to Todmorden. His new wife was Susan “Susey” Crabtree, who in 1841 was living in the workhouse at Mankinholes with two children, Sally and William. Sally had been born in 1834 and in 1841 she was six, with little William just five months old.
Sally would later name her father as butcher Thomas Sutcliffe – was he William’s father? He and Susan never married so who knows. Susan and Isaac met somehow, and in 1849 the two married. In 1851 Isaac, Susan, and their remaining children (Thomas, Sally, Betty, Rachel and Henry) were living at Cross Lee where Isaac was working as a stonecutter, Thomas as a power loom weaver, and Sally as a cotton spinner. On that census Sally is described as a “daughter in law” rather than stepdaughter. Who here likes foreshadowing?
It would take another nine years but Thomas and Sally got married in 1860. They’ll have had their reasons to wait, and at first we wondered if the wait was on Sally’s end – she was illegitimate after all, and in fact her mother Susan was too, so maybe she wanted to break the cycle? Wanted to be sure of Thomas and have him be sure of her? If that was the aim, she sort-of succeeded…they were married on March 3rd, and their first child Crossley was born on June 20th. He was able to take his father’s name and Sally had a husband for life who seems to have been a decent sort. No newspaper mentions of trouble, just steady as he goes…
You may have noticed earlier that Thomas had a sister named Rachel, and that her name is in the title of this post. Rachel became a weaver, never married, and in May 1865 died and was buried here. We wish we had more to say about her, but her time here wasn’t one of which any mentions were made. Was the grave at Heptonstall full? Quite possibly, or maybe Isaac was saving a space for himself. Either way, Thomas seems to have been the one who paid for this grave space, so all credit to him. Meanwhile all we have here is a blurry mention of her in the Todmorden Advertiser and Hebden Bridge Newsletter
Thomas and Sally had eight children together, starting with Crossley in 1860 and ending with Emma in 1876 (Emma is buried in an unmarked grave at 13.1 with her husband Francis Brammah, so more on them another time). They stayed at Cross Lee for a long time but by 1881 had taken up residence on farmland at Causey or Causeway Farm (on the way from Woodhouse Mill up to Lumbutts) where Thomas was farming 16 acres by 1881. His main crop wasn’t a plant but an animal – cattle, with a side order of geese. All the children were working as weavers or spinners so we wonder who was helping out with the livestock? It isn’t clear. We do know though that the Wilkinsons were devout Methodists, and supported Oldroyd Chapel by letting them use barns or fields for their Whitsunday events.
Ultimately all the children went into weaving or spinning, with only James breaking the mould and becoming a clogger. And so, when 1892 came and James died, there was no one to take things over. Sally auctioned the animals, then sought a tenant for the farm, and then moved out with the children still remaining at home. In 1896 daughter Violetta married warp dresser Henry Sutcliffe and by 1901 Sally and James were living with the couple and their little son Edgar on Industrial Street. Thomas had left behind a decent estate and so she had more than a little breathing space, which is a valuable thing for a widow to have.
This continued on until 1912 when Sally died, and then past that point, as James and Violetta clearly had a close sibling relationship (and must have gotten on well with Henry too). James died in 1919 and while there was no mention in the papers on his passing, a year later the Sutcliffes posted a loving in memoriam to him.
