Two husbands, four children; some of them are here, along with the woman whose affection they all held in common.
John Binns was born in 1811 somewhere outside of Todmorden. The short time he was alive and the time he was alive in means we know nothing else about him apart from that he was a cordwainer, or shoemaker. And we only know that because of his marriage to Betsy Mallinson in September 1833. Not a very good start is it.
Betsy we know a little more about thanks to her local roots. She was born in 1813 to George and Hannah (Popplewell) Mallinson of Gauxholme. George was a corn miller who originally hailed from Skircoat, as had his wife. The Mallinsons were of relatively comfortable standing and Betsy was the couple’s second to last child. When she married John Binns she was almost certainly pregnant with their first child, George Mallinson Binns, and within a year she was pregnant again with their second. But poor John wasn’t long for this world and died in May 1835, less than two years after they married, and leaving behind a pregnant wife with a baby. Poor Betsy!
John was buried, at the time, “oposite portch” – from the location of the grave this must be a reference to the original lychgate rather than the original eastern entrance to Christ Church, now covered by the later chancel extension.
When their second child, John, was born in early 1836 she had both sons baptised at St. Mary’s and tried to move on with her life. She stayed single for a long time, bringing the boys with her to live with her also-widowed mother Hannah and her three older siblings who were still at home as well as a nephew and a boarder. It must have been a big and busy house they all inhabited! Elder sister Lydia was a dressmaker and Betsy assisted her in the business, while brother George was a tea-dealer. This is probably why Betsy was slow to remarry; she had the luxury of being able to take her time about it.
In 1850 though she did remarry, to Joshua Taylor who originally hailed from Facit. Joshua was an engine tenter and general mechanical labourer in cotton mills, doing a variety of jobs which would have required a lot of muscle, heat tolerance, and stamina. He was also nine years her junior. With Betsy’s background we’re tempted to say it must have been a love match, but maybe that’s a bit reductive and stereotypically “posh girl falls for working class bloke” of us to do…Joshua was living in Shade at the time, so she and the two boys settled in there while he worked, apparently sometimes afar, since in 1851 he wasn’t present in the home for the census. Luxury was now in short supply as even once married Betsy was still working as a dressmaker and both her sons were also working hard. By this time Betsy was pregnant with their first child, another boy, who would be named Thomas Popplewell Taylor. In 1854 their son Richard was born and this seems to have been the extent of the couple’s family.
The Taylors stayed in Todmorden for a long time but by 1871 had left for Rochdale and settled at a now demolished house on Peel Street with Richard in tow. In 1878 death came for both Joshua and Betsy, and within a day of each other. This is not an uncommon occurrence. The newspaper in Todmorden recorded the double funeral, and so Betsy and her two husbands all came to rest together.
But what about her other children? The Binns boys had grown up and gone their separate ways, with George staying in Todmorden and John moving somewhere unknown. Likewise Thomas moved to Manchester. Richard stayed in the area for a little while, leaving cotton mills altogether and becoming a railway porter. He lodged with a postman in Littleborough before coming back to Todmorden to work as a signalman and lodging at Patmos with John and Rosa Stott (who are buried under the school). He lived a quiet life in all these places and sadly that means we have little to say about who he was and what else he might have gotten up to. All we know is that in 1891 he died and was buried here with his parents, and that’s the end of the story.