This is a large section of the Ashworth family, parents and four daughters. One son is at Heptonstall and the other is also at Christ Church, but they were the ones who flew the nest…these sisters stayed put, for the most part.
Thomas Ashworth was a Stansfield lad and Grace Uttley was a Langfield lass. The two met sometime in 1830, and were married in February 1831 – just in time too, because their first daughter Susan, or Susey, was born in May of that year. Thomas was a joiner and the family lived at Great House Clough above Eastwood. Susey was followed by William, who was blind from birth, and then Ann, Hannah, Young and Mary. Mary was the baby, born in 1846.
The 1840s saw some changes for the family. Susey and William had been baptised at Myrtle Grove Independent in Eastwood, but following a disagreement amongst the congregation over where the new chapel would be built a number of worshippers left the chapel altogether. Cross Stone experienced a baptism boom as entire families were bulk-baptised over at the Anglican chapel as some sort of protest. The protest was somewhat symbolic though since several influential families, including the Eastwoods of Eastwood Hall, had already done so. Without wishing to cast aspersions on Thomas and Grace it might be that they thought it would be good for business. Anyway, the Ashworths also made a physical move to the Ferney Lee area, where they were described as living on September 27th 1850 when Ann, Hannah and Mary were baptised together at Cross Stone. Why not Young? Good question. We’ll answer it when we tell his story (he’s buried at 38.5 with his wife and five very, very young children).
Eventually the Ashworths moved to Mills Street where they settled for what would be most of the rest of most of their lives. William had become a talented basket maker despite his blindness and would be famous across what is now Calderdale for his skills for the rest of his life. Meanwhile all the other children became cotton weavers. Susey unfortunately got herself into a small bit of bother and had a son, William Henry, out of wedlock in 1854. She never named his father (or he never took responsibility) and so he was raised within the family, later leaving a blank spot on his marriage certificate.
Sadly in 1858 Mary died at the age of 12, and she was buried here – again, why here and not Cross Stone? They must have had their reasons. Unfortunately Thomas and Grace are difficult to definitively pin down for their own baptisms and so we don’t know for sure whether there was a family link to Christ Church already. So as far as we know Mary is the first Ashworth here.
Thomas died in 1864 which left Grace and the rest of the children without their primary earner in the middle of the “cotton famine”. With so much of their income tied up in cotton weaving it must have been a horrendous time for the family. Everyone stuck close and only after the famine did Young marry his sweetheart and leave the house, and this story, behind. The others stayed though and kept working. Even William Henry stayed. And so things ticked over for a few decades until April 1892 when Grace breathed her last and joined her husband and daughter here in this grave.
Now that her mother was gone and her obligations there fulfilled, Susey took the chance to reinvent herself a little bit. She made the acquaintance of wealthy widower Joshua Greenwood, a grocer from Ovenden who lived at Chain Bar which was the name for the area on the road between Halifax and Keighley where a tollbooth once stood. The couple were married in 1893 at Cross Stone – her as Susan, not Susey! and Thomas is now a cabinet maker, not a joiner! – and she left for Halifax where they had six years together before his sudden death in 1899. Probate was granted to both his solicitor and to William Henry, so clearly there was a good relationship there between stepfather and stepson. Meanwhile though Ann had died, in 1895, and Hannah was now on her own. Susan returned to Todmorden and Hannah and the pair settled back into the steady groove of life at 18 Mills Street.
Now, looking at the 1901 Census, Susan was living on her own account and Hannah was described as a grocer – was this a continuation of Joshua’s business? If it was then it was short lived. Both sisters were getting on a bit and in 1909 Hannah died. Susan’s “own means” were dwindling and so she moved in with her brother Young, who had also been recently bereaved, and his son and daughter in law and grandson on Bacup Road. She was a tough old bird and held on until 1916 when she finally decided it was time to go.