This post isn’t a story so much as it’s an example of how we can try to use available records to identify mysterious burials, like plot markers – and how as more research gets carried out, previous assumptions need to be revisited and revised.
A colleague of mine [researcher Sarah] asked me if I knew who T.V. was. This plot marker is, as far as we can plot it, is in row 40. Christ Church is set out more or less in a grid as you may know but “more or less” does include “less”, and on this part of the upper slope sometimes it’s a case of anything goes. The three graves to the left of it include 1855-56 burials so it seemed safe to think this might be one of those. You’d think as well that a surname starting with V would help narrow things down, wouldn’t you? Oh dear.
Plot markers with initials aren’t as straightforward as you’d think. The initials could be the plot owner’s initials or the first burial’s initials. Sometimes there are two sets of initials on them. Usually when the initials are those of an owner it ends up being those of the father of a child or young person buried here – although in the case of Nathan Ogden under the school, the initials are of his stepfather Richard Greenwood. The point I’m making here is that you have to do a little bit of investigation and can’t assume that a burial with those initials is the person you’re looking at. So my first step was to check burials at Christ Church with the surname V.
The next step was to ignore burials prior to 1825 since they will all be over at St. Mary’s. Then, the tedious checking of each individual, since there’s no handy 1855-56 burial there with a V surname that we haven’t already accounted for. This must be one of the out of sequence graves. Or, at least, on the balance of probability it’s out of sequence. Lots of Veeverses (ironic since they were a fiercely Methodist family!) with the occasional Varley, and a lone Varney.
But, remember what I put in italics above…we’ll come back to James Veevers in a little while.
All the people with only a forename showing are children, and are all Veevers – most of them the children of William and Betty Veevers, who were very fertile and very very unlucky with children. Mary Varney was an interesting story; she was born Mary Pickles and first married John Chambers, a member of the printing and bookbinding Chambers family, and then Thomas Varney after she was widowed in 1837. T. V.! But we have a problem here. The couple had only a single child of their own, William Parker Varney, in 1842, before Thomas died in 1844. Thomas was buried at Cross Stone with his family…and Mary, on her death in 1851, was buried at St. Mary’s with John Chambers. William Parker Varney was buried there with her the following year when he died aged ten. Remember, on Ancestry, just because it says Christ Church doesn’t mean it’s Christ Church – everything before 1825 was St. Mary’s and for a long time only burials denoted as “new ground” were Christ Church burials. Mary doesn’t have that notation, nor did John Chambers in 1837 or William in 1852. So we can rule Thomas Varney out as T. V.
Mary Ann Veevers was another interesting story; she was born Mary Ann Hartley and married Thomas Veevers in 1855. The couple had two sons, John William in 1858 and Ambrose in 1859, but none after that. Mary Ann died in 1864 which is rather outside of the range of this row, but not totally…but remember James Veevers before? We told his story alongside that of his brother George, surmising that the plot marker W. V. contained at least George but also perhaps James. James makes more sense to be buried here though, chronologically. But why would his brother bury him in a plot he owned? Maybe that marker up at the top is a much earlier one, marking all those other lost children of William and Betty’s. Or maybe this isn’t a Veevers plot at all?
Looking at the other names gets us no closer to an answer. All those Varleys apart from Mary are from a single family – Alfred and Laura Ellen were children of Fielden and Betsy Hannah Varley; Betsy Hannah Varley speaks for herself; and Mary Jane Varley was the daughter of Fielden and his second wife Betty, and anyway, all these Varleys are also accounted for at another plot marker, F. V., and it makes less sense to reevaluate them than it does James Veevers. The other Varley whose date of death could possibly make sense with the plot marker’s design (another consideration – how old does it look?) was Mary Varley, no relation to the above Varleys, and there are no men or children with a T forename in her orbit.
So in the end, we are left with questions…did I get it wrong with James Veevers, and he’s buried here, with his brother Thomas owning the plot? Is this plot actually empty and it only has a plot marker here in order to throw us off the scent entirely? Is it like the Roman Catholic burials in the yard, many of which are “out of sequence” burials in plots which had presumably not been filled and been bought by St. Joseph’s for Catholic pauper burials, which they mostly are? Will we ever know? Do we need to know?
Some mysteries never get solved and T. V. is likely to be one of them.
Hi Sarah,
Further to your research, and my FB post of 28th April 2024, I may be able to add a little more.
William Veevers (1805-1866) Wharfinger at Canal Yard, was the firebrand Methodist, indeed his son Thomas (1831-1872) was also a part time preacher when he moved to Manchester. Thomas’ two sons Ambrose and John William both became full time Ministers. Their history is quite fascinating and runs to many pages. The rest of the family at the time were mostly C of E.
I think we can rule out James (1828-1855), as his parents William & Betty were still living at Canal Yard when he died.
Thomas (1831-1872) died at Openshaw on 2nd April 1872. As yet I don’t know where he is buried, but there is nothing to suggest he lies in Todmorden.
His first wife, Mary Anne Hartley (1832-1864) remains a possibility.
As for little Thomas (1903-1904), my Great Uncle. His parents George and Isabella were undoubtedly very poor, so a basic marker stone does make sense. By December of 1904 they were living back in Middleton again, where another child, William was born. Isabella died just four months later, leaving George with a baby, William, and my Grandfather George (1901-1982). As I understand it the children came to Todmorden, and were largely brought up by their Grandmother, whilst George snr sought work in Manchester, where he remarried in 1906.
Just over two years later he was widowed again, and returned to Todmorden. He died in WW I in 1915.
If TV is little Thomas, then there are good reasons to explain why that marker was never improved upon.
Perhaps we will never truly know, but I think we have it narrowed down to two possibilities.
That is very interesting…I did wonder about this marker as it’s larger than a lot of others and the lettering isn’t quite 1850s style. 1904 doesn’t sound out of the realm of possibility at all when looking at the engraving style – that fits the time period for little Thomas.
The only argument against it is that there’s only one other plot marker in the yard from around that time that isn’t a kerbstone-style marker, and it’s a lot smaller than TV’s marker, literally half its size. You tend to see patterns in marker styles for different time periods and occasionally different denominations but TV and the Mottram marker styes don’t fit the time or even fit each other so well. But that’s the only argument, and it might be a moot one – further study is needed 🙂 I’ll return to it another day!