Researcher Sally writes:
This is the grave of my 2 x g. Uncle, his wife Rachel (nee Firth) who came from Millwood, and two of their 7 children. Thomas Holt was the second of the eleven children of Martin Holt and his wife Mary (nee Fielden) and was born at Sourhall in 1806. Thomas’s father, Martin, was a picker maker and Thomas, like 7 of his brothers, also became a picker maker, operating from Peel Mill, Sourhall, which had houses at one end and the factory at the other. (This building became the Sourhall Isolation hospital years later) In the 1861 census, he is described as a “cotton manufacturer, picker maker and farmer of 17 acres”. Thomas died in 1867 on his way back from a business meeting in Warrington.
This is the report from the Burnley Gazette dated 9th November 1867:
“TODMORDEN. SUDDEN DEATH.
On Friday the 1st inst. in the evening, a case of this kind occurred to Mr. Thomas Holt, picker maker of this town. Deceased had been on business to Warrington, and when he got into the train at Victoria Station, Manchester, he appeared in his usual health and spirits, but when the train had proceeded as far as Miles Platting, the deceased was noticed to be taken suddenly unwell by the passengers in the same compartment, and they did what they could to alleviate his sufferings, but he gradually sank. On the train reaching Middleton Junction, the station master was made acquainted with the matter and he ordered that Mr Holt should be taken from the train; this was done, and deceased breathed his last a few minutes after.”
Thomas’s wife, Rachel, had died the previous year a few months after the death of their only son, Nathan, who had been named after Rachel’s father. Nathan was baptised at Christ Church on the 2nd December 1855, together with his sister, Rachel and his cousins, Fielden (my G. Grandfather)and Betsy and died on the 5th January 1866. His death certificate gives his cause of death as convulsions.
Ellen Holt who was baptised at Christ Church on the 3rd July 1839 was 16 when she died, and was a cotton weaver. She died from consumption.