Two rows down from his brother John lies Edmund Holt (Jr.) and some of his own family.
Edmund Holt was John Holt’s younger brother and so his early life was much the same as John’s – life up at Lumbutts – and also in terms of employment – the Fielden family. While John went down to Waterside Edmund stayed up at Lumbutts and worked under his father, although this was preceded by a short time spent learning to become a joiner. But carpentry wasn’t for him, and why pass up an excellent opportunity to progress under a family that was already clearly on the ascent? And why not take advantage of a little light nepotism?
In 1823 Edmund married Sarah Judson, who was six years his junior and who originally hailed from Ponden, near Haworth. Her father William was a farmer and weaver and as far as we’ve been able to tell, Sarah only had one sibling, a younger brother John who was born ten years after her. The other Judsons seem to have stayed in Haworth so how Sarah got over this end of the valley is unknown…but she got here, and she and Edmund tied the knot at St. Chad’s, and the two decided to start a family.
If you read John’s story you know that a number of children is a feature of his grave story, and it’s no different for these Holts. This was actually a Holt specialty, producing children at an impressive (and slightly alarming) rate. Their first child we know of, Sarah Ann, was born in 1826; 25 years later their ninth and final child, Robert, was born. During this time Edmund continued to flourish under his father’s management and on his death took over the role of mill manager at Lumbutts. And, fortunately for Edmund and Sarah, they only suffered the loss of two of their nine young children. These were William in 1848 and Robert in 1849, both of whom were buried here.
Sarah Ann, the eldest, doesn’t seem to have had an occupation we can figure out from either the 1841 Census or her marriage, which makes us think that the Holt children were given the freedom to not have to go to work to help support the household. Lucky them! So if she had outside interests we don’t know what they were. On New Year’s Day 1851, she married local watchmaker Henry Ingham in Halifax. Henry was a talented watchmaker but slightly feckless in his business dealings, although this doesn’t seem to have come to a head for some time. The couple had three children but any Holt-ish tendencies towards a large family were interrupted by Sarah Ann’s death in 1857, a year after their third child and third daughter was born. Henry went bankrupt the following year but don’t worry, he bounced back…Sarah Ann was buried here with her brothers, and Henry and her children would go on to have their own adventures, and the ones who stayed in Todmorden are buried up at Cross Stone. It’s worth noting that her address at the time of her burial is given as Lumbutts – whatever was wrong, she went home to die. This isn’t uncommon for grown, married women in the graveyard here.
A few years later, in 1861, Sarah Holt died. Edmund mourned her for over a year, but in October 1862 he remarried, to local-to-him widow Harriet Hollinrake Uttley. Both were in their 60s at this point and had a few years of happiness together before Harriet herself died in 1865. Her wish was apparently to be buried with her first husband as she was laid to rest at Lumbutts Chapel’s graveyard up there on the tops. A few years passed and Edmund became lonely again, and married for the third and final time. This time his new wife was Halifax lass Jane Alice Bolam, who was 26 years younger than him. Still, she and Edmund didn’t have any children together, even though she wasn’t totally outside her childbearing years.
Edmund died in 1871 after having spent over 50 years of his life in the service of the Fieldens, burying three children and two wives, and – according to his obituary – being one of the most frequent and faithful users of the Todmorden Subscription Library at the Golden Lion. A shame he didn’t live to see the Free Library built, but never mind.
