Farmers, weavers, and spinners – and more importantly, hard workers, not-so-secret lovers, and independent spirits.
Daniel Ogden was born in Todmorden in 1789. Seven years later his future wife Hannah Fielding would be born in the town as well. The couple got married in Rochdale in February 1816, seven months before their first daughter Mary was born. Robert was next in 1819; both these children were named after Daniel’s parents. Hannah’s parentage is unconfirmed but perhaps we can guess…then came Ann, then Alice, then John, then Grace, and finally Susey in 1839. 23 years of childbearing, but only seven children, so perhaps Daniel and Hannah knew how to be cautious. There are no “also of x infants” inscriptions here so it seems they had good luck.
The family lived at Todmorden Edge. The Ogdens were weavers and all had to pitch in – even though they lived on the tops they still worked as weavers in and amongst other less-onerous farming duties, as did many at the time. This enabled them to be comfortable enough to be charged for the church rates though, and it appears they may have even owned property up at Sourhall. Hard work paid off in their case. The 1841 Census shows all the Ogdens old enough to weave as being weavers, even Hannah with her three children under the age of eleven. Robert had, by now, moved out and married Mary Hirst of Rochdale and settled down at Stones and then later, Scaitcliffe, where he raised cattle. The couple had three children, Daniel, Sarah and Alice.
Robert was “a bit of a one” and a year after Alice’s birth in 1846 he got himself into a bit of bother. At some point Jonathan Crowther and his wife Susan and their children had moved to Todmorden Edge, taking up residence next to Jonathan’s brother William. Jonathan had a daughter from a previous, short marriage; in 1822 he married Grace Fielding of Heptonstall (no relation) and the couple had a daughter, Sally in 1824. Grace died the following year and Jonathan didn’t remarry for almost a decade. Sally lived independently from the couple but must have come up to visit at some point and met Robert while he was also visiting…and in 1847 she had a daughter by him named Grace, after her mother she wouldn’t have even been able to remember. Poor Mary Ogden! We don’t know if the two events were related or not but she died the following year, and in 1850 Robert and Sally were married.
Daniel and Hannah continued on at Todmorden Edge but in 1858 he died, and Hannah and the remaining children at home were left wondering what to do. Ann decided to go it alone, as it were, and moved to Ridge Side (the Ridge Lane area) where she lived on her own, no housemates or siblings around. Mary moved to Queen Street and later to Well Lane with the two youngest Ogden children Grace and Susey.
Robert and Sally had three more children before Sally died suddenly in 1862. We know it was suddenly because the newspaper said so. We wouldn’t know who the newspaper was talking about, though, because she was only named as “the wife of Robert Ogden”. Nice.
Sally was buried here with her father-in-law, where her name was memorialised. Yes, of course we checked, and the circumstances really were tragic. Sally died from sudden heart failure while in labour. It doesn’t look as though the child survived.
In case you wondered about Robert, he remarried two years later and had another five children, bringing the grand total to twelve. Young Grace grew up and married and had a family of her own before dying in 1886, and she’s buried up at Cross Stone with them. Interestingly, she wasn’t baptised until December 1862, six months after her mother’s death, and there’s an interesting error in the baptism record; her last name is given as Ogden, which is incorrect, but there is the beginning of a C in the surname area where it would correspond with Sally’s surname, and the occupation of her father is given as spinster…what it means we can’t guess. There are lots of interesting possibilities but none are clear to us as the right explanation in the here and now.
Back to this family though. Four years later Hannah joined her late husband and daughter-in-law. The Ogden children were on their own now, but that didn’t bother Ann – she thrived on her own. No marriage for her, not even a roommate for her. Census after census came and went and Ann was working as a cotton weaver and residing alone. But as time passed she seems to have missed her younger days on the tops and by 1881 she was living (alone of course) back up at Todmorden Edge above Scaitcliffe. No man or woman is an island though and in those days successful independence for a woman depended on her ability to command a sufficient wage to stay independent. Where was Ann’s safety net? The answer is that she didn’t have one. By 1891 she was 68 years old and really struggling. In March she was admitted to the workhouse at Stansfield View as a pauper. We know this because the minutes of the Board of Guardians meeting published in the newspaper for March 7th includes a mention of a discussion about whether or not the 12s 6d in Ann’s pocket when she was admitted was “hers” to spend as she wished or not. The details aren’t there, but the outcome was that the money would be balanced against the cost of keeping her. It’s all very mercenary when paupers are involved, then as now.
Ann died at Stansfield View in 1893 and was the last one into this grave. There are plenty of Ogdens in the graveyard here in other graves, but of this line, these are the oldest.