There are five members of the Spencer family in this grave, William, Grace his wife and three of their seven children.
We don’t know much about William Spencer; according to the information from the census he was born in 1796 in Stansfield and in his adult life was a farm labourer – that’s all the information we have on him. It hasn’t been possible to ascertain who his parents were.
On the 3rd November 1822 William married Grace Greenwood at St. Mary’s. She was the daughter of William Greenwood, a weaver, and his wife Susan and was born on the 6th May 1798 at Cally Hall, Whirlaw. By the time they were married, though, the Greenwoods were living at Scaitcliffe.
In 1841 William and Grace were living at Newton Green with six of their children, Hannah, John, Willam, Betty, James and Sarah. Their youngest child, Grace, was born the following year. In 1851 census William and Grace were still living at Newton Green with five of their children. Their son John had moved out as he had married and was living with his wife and daughter at Holme. Their daughter, Sarah, isn’t with the family on this census.
William died on the 10th December 1852, at Newton Green, aged 52, the first of the family to be interred in the grave. Sometime after his death the family moved from Newton Green to Ewood Malt Kilns and the 1861 census shows the widowed Grace, described as “formerly a servant” living there with three of her children, James, who was a maltster and Hannah and William who were both cotton weavers.
William Spencer died from liver disease on the 25th December 1862 at Ewood Malt Kilns. He was 35 years old and was buried on the last day of 1862. It was to be another 10 years before any other family member would join the father and son in the grave. Grace Spencer died on the 11th November 1872 at Ewood Malt Kilns.
After her mother’s death it seems as though William and Grace’s daughter, Hannah, who had never married, became the head of the household. In the 1881 census she and her younger sisters, Sarah and Grace, who were also single, were living in Bath Street. Hannah didn’t have an occupation listed, but Sarah was a dressmaker and Grace was a cotton weaver.
The other siblings all married (as did Sarah too, fairly late in life). Betty, the second daughter, who had married William Fielden, had died in 1870 and had been buried at Cross Stone. John the eldest son, died not long after the 1881 census was taken and was buried at Christ Church on the 17th May 1881. We can’t be sure but there’s a chance, we suppose, that he is in the plot marker next to this grave marked “J. S.” – more research is needed though! It could just be wishful thinking. James died in 1891 at the Model Farm, Dobroyd and is buried in grave 53.50 with his wife and other members of his family.
Hannah Spencer died on the 12th October 1889 at her home in Bath Street and was buried at Christ Church on the 15th October. Her sister, Grace, was the informant. She and her sister, Sarah must have continued living at Bath Street until Sarah’s marriage on the 9th July 1891 to John Travis when it seems as though both sisters moved to his home in Walsden.
Sarah and Grace Spencer appear to have been close. That’s understandable because they were the two youngest siblings in the family, but there’s also another reason. Sarah was disabled. The 1871 census which shows her living with her mother and two sisters, Hannah and Grace, has a note in the end column stating she was ‘deaf and dumb’.
Grace wasn’t born when the 1841 census was taken, but she was living with her parents and four of her siblings at Newton Green in 1851. The reason Sarah isn’t on the census with her family is because she was in Manchester, she was a pupil at the Manchester Deaf and Dumb school, where she was learning to be a dressmaker.
It hasn’t been possible to find either Sarah or Grace on the 1861 census, but we think we do know where they were. A Slater’s trade directory for the 1860s shows that there was a Grace Spencer, a dressmaker, living at 65 Tipping Street, Ardwick. Sarah was the dressmaker but wouldn’t have been able to be the face of the business, so the business was in Grace’s name. By 1871 both sisters were back in Todmorden, Sarah was working as a dressmaker and Grace was working as a cotton weaver. Sarah continued as a dressmaker until she married but in the 1901 census she didn’t have an occupation. In the same census Grace was working as a cotton weaver and living with Sarah and John.
On the 9th of July 1891 Sarah Spencer married John Travis, the local historian, at St. Peter’s, Walsden. They were married for almost 17 years until she died on the 9th of June 1908 at 39 Hollins Road as a result of Parkinsons Disease and Bronchitis. She is buried at St. Peter’s, Walsden. Her sister, Grace, who had been her companion and support for many years, died only a couple of months later, on the 13th August 1908. Grace joined her siblings and parents in the grave at Christ Church and has this epitaph (perhaps written by John Travis) “A Faithful and True Friend” on the stone.
