Another grave with Chartist links – this corner truly does have a fantastic selection of radical townsmen!
Jakeh Butterworth was born in Oldham in 1804. He was baptised Jackey, and his name morphs over time and changes back and forth between Jackey, Jackeh, Jacky, Jakey, and finally Jakeh. How was it pronounced? It might be the most “northern” name in the graveyard, spelled as it was said, but we don’t know for sure do we. Anyway, Jakeh was born in Oldham to parents John and Ann Butterworth of Dobstile, spinners, and he would himself grow up to become a spinner. Jakeh though went in for finer things, literally, and became a silk spinner and twister-in.
In 1828 he found himself in Rochdale, and found himself noticing a young lady his age named Betty Greenlees. Greenlees is a popular name in Todmorden but her particular wing of the family seems to have only been in Todmorden fleetingly, now and again. Her father Thomas was a cotton spinner and her mother Hannah, or Ann, were living at Carrlaith when she was born in 1804. They don’t seem to have spent long in Todmorden though and she’s the only child of theirs in the baptism registers at either St. Mary’s or Cross Stone. She might have a brother who was born the following year, but if that’s the case, Hannah/Ann must have died soon after Betty’s birth. So we can’t say much more about her apart from to say that she and Jakeh were married at St. Chad’s on Halloween 1825, and their first child Ann was born at the end of April 1826.
Jakeh’s silk work seems to have paid off particularly well for him, and he joined an emerging class of professional manufacturing or educated men who found themselves unable to vote due to suffrage laws of the time. This, and his move to Todmorden, seems to be the start of his radicalism. He wasn’t a firebrand or podium thumper but he attended meetings, supported the Chartist National Land Trust, and joined the Oddfellows and later Free Gardeners. Jakeh knew the power of a union, as it were.
Jakeh missed the riots, though, because he was busy with his business and starting a family. He and Betty went first to Halifax where they had four children between 1826 and 1826 – Ann, John, Jane and Thomas (who much later on would become an esteemed Alderman in Brighouse). All four were baptised at once at Christ Church in 1836 on their return to the area, while the family were living at Field House (where this was we don’t know – do you?) but soon after the Butterworths would move to Salford. From Thomas’s accounting later on, Jakeh had found work with the Fieldens, which makes more sense of his involvement with radicalism. It wasn’t just about bettering himself and his family’s prospects electorally, but also financially.
Sadly Todmorden was not so healthy for the family. Betty’s health took a turn after their move here and in 1839 she died, only 35 years old (35 and a half according to her death registration), and was buried here on the slope. She died from consumption, and she wouldn’t be the only one…
A year later Jakeh remarried, this time to Mary Fielden or Fielding, whose father James was a grocer. These Fieldens – James, his wife Mary, our Mary, and her brother Thomas – lived at Sutcliffe Buildings nearly next door to the Butterworths, hence why she and Jakeh knew each other. Mary was a year younger than Jakeh and on their marriage arrived to a fully formed, grieving, set of four children to take on the care of. She did her best, but the conditions that had led to Betty’s illness were still around and about, and in 1846 the family suffered a double blow. First Ann died, then Jane, both from phthsis. Ann was 19 and Jane was 14. Now it was just Jakeh, Mary, John and Thomas, living at Salford. Thomas said later on that times were hard and he was at first sent to William and James Dewhirst’s academy on Wellington Road, but by 1846 had to go to work at Waterside as a silk piecer – he doesn’t spell it out, but this was probably because the family had lost two full-time wage earners in Ann and Jane. Sounds mercenary but that’s how things were. It’s interesting to note that in 1851 Mary and Thomas were living apart from Jakeh and his father John; Mary and Thomas in Mytholmroyd along with a female servant, and Jakeh and John in Walsden on Peel Street. Times can’t have been too hard by that point. Mary also noted herself down as a “widow”, but what might have led her to either accidentally or ill-temperedly said as much is complete speculation…
Whatever it was, the couple were back together by 1861, and living at the Oddfellows Hall in the town centre. John and Thomas had now moved on and it was just the two of them. Jakeh was now working as a rents collector and agent for the Oddfellows who owned 22 houses and shops in that area. Maybe it meant he got a bit of a discount on the rent. This would have suited him fine in his retirement from hard active work, as it were. Mary though began to get sick, and in 1868 she died. Jakeh was now left alone. His widowed sister-in-law Nancy (Clegg) Butterworth came to live with him and he continued on, deciding to fill his time further by becoming a postman and joining the Humility Lodge of Freemasons. Time creeps up on us all though in and 1875 it crept up on him, and he was buried here with his wives and daughters. His attendees were somewhat overshadowed by the attention shown to the memory of the wealthier and more influential Thomas Edward Hammerton (if you live on Hammerton Terrace, that’s named for him), but his name still made it into the paper.
