The uniquely named Dransfield was a surprise for us – what a name, but what was its origin?
If you want an answer don’t read on, because we don’t have one. Now that that’s out of the way, onto our story!
Joseph Ratcliffe was born around 1815 to James and Sally (Fielden) Ratcliffe of Roundfield “Mill”, really a farm near Dulesgate where James had set up a waterwheel and begun producing accessories and tools for handloom weavers. According to John Travis the family was a large one and all the daughters became weavers and the sons overlookers. Joseph was the exception, instead becoming a shuttle and later picker maker. As handlooms went out of style, you had to adapt, and Joseph had his father’s skill with toolmaking and put it to good use that way.
In September 1833 he married Maria Stansfield, whose origins are somewhat hazy. Maria was two years older than Joseph at least and that’s where we keep coming a cropper with identifying her. She might have been the daughter of Betty and James, landlord of Toad Carr, or Hannah and Abraham, slubber of Bolton. The banns in those days didn’t name the fathers of the bride and groom so sadly we can only guess. Unless she later lied about her age or the stone is wrong, she was likely James and Betty’s daughter.
The following year their son James was born, and the following year their daughter Sarah Ann was born. The year after that, both James and Sarah Ann died, four days apart from each other. Many years later their son Edwin would know the same pain as his children James Edwin and Hannah Maria died within two days of each other. When children get ill they pass it to each other easily, then as now. They were both buried on April 1st 1836, the day that Sarah Ann died. It’s impossible to imagine how that morning must have been for the parents who found themselves doubly bereaved of their first and only two children.
In 1837 their son James – named after his lost brother – was born, and in 1839 Dransfield. Now you’d wonder if Dransfield was simply how a half-illiterate, maybe out-of-towner stonemason misheard the name Stansfield, given Maria’s maiden name. But no – the GRO index shows his birth registered as Dransfield, each census says Dransfield, and his GRO death registrations reads Dransfield. His burial register entry says…well, it says Deansfield, but no one’s perfect ok? And we’re skipping ahead of ourselves. Edwin came in 1841, Sarah in 1848 (again, trying to reuse the forename), and Elizabeth in 1851 finished off the family.
Maria died in 1852, a year after being diagnosed with phthsis. Two years later Dransfield died from complications from rheumatic fever. Another two Ratcliffes in the grave. Maria’s sister Nancy certified her death, and Dransfield’s brother James certified his. Joseph mourned Maria for a few years before turning to a new wife with an old name: Maria Dugdale. Joseph and the new Maria Ratcliffe now lived at Temperance Street and Joseph was busy making shuttles and pickers, good work that (usually) paid very well. Decades later during WW1 picker makers would initially be one of the small number of exempted professions as the work was so vital to the British textile industry. In 1861 it was a little less well paid and secure because of the cotton famine. The Ratcliffes would have lived better than many but not so good as those who were comfortable in those times, not by any stretch.
Joseph died in December 1863 and his creditors and debtors descended. What they made of his estate we don’t know. When administration of his estate was granted to Maria a month later all that remained was less than £100 in effects. She had her solicitor advertise in the paper for anyone who was owed, or who might owe him, to come forward; what the result of that is anyone’s guess. She remarried in 1867 so whatever came to her wasn’t enough to sustain her as an independent widow for long.
Joseph and Maria’s daughters Sarah and Elizabeth are buried at 37.8, but their other adult children are all buried in Walsden.