This grave hold five siblings, four of which died very young. The fifth made it to adulthood but his life was needlessly chaotic, and one wonders what his poor parents made of it all.
Those parents were James and Susan (Feber) Farrar of Todmorden, who were married at Heptonstall in March 1825. Just in time, as their first son William was born that same month. Poor William; first in all things, he died in June 1825 aged three months old, and was buried at Christ Church somewhere. Here, perhaps? Perhaps, although this area has mostly 1840-ish burials in it. At that time James was still a weaver living at Knowlwood and perhaps they didn’t have the money yet for an exclusive grave.
Next came Howarth (or Howorth, as he’s named on this stone) in 1826, John in 1828, and Sarah in 1830. Poor Sarah was the next to be buried here in March 1832, aged 18 months, and there’s a chance that she really is here in this spot. That’s because now the family are living at York Street, which means James had embarked on his second career: that of hairdresser. It was a fancy word for barber, but James was fancy.
The next set of children to be born were Zipporah in 1834 and Mary Ann in 1838. In December 1840, while Susan was pregnant with her seventh child, John died. He was twelve years old when he was buried here and is definitely buried here – 1840 fits the graves around it very neatly. When Susan gave birth the next spring she named her new son James John, for his father and his lost brother. But it was a time of poor medicine and illnesses like typhoid and smallpox being prevalent, and something took James John in March 1847 at the age of five. Shortly after he was buried, Susan found herself pregnant for the final time. Frederick James Farrar was born in early 1848. And now this grave would lay undisturbed for 28 years…
Where was Howorth? Howorth was finding his own way. James was now a hairdresser and perfumer – we told you he was fancy – and some of this style rubbed off on the child who was now his eldest son. Howarth was intelligent and became an accountant for an unknown wine and spirit merchant in Liverpool. His brains and confidence didn’t just get him a job, but also a wife – Amelia King, the daughter of a cotton spinner. Amelia also had style, as evidenced by her and Howarth’s marriage certificate. Amelia was named after her mother, and when she signed the certificate, she signed herself as “Amelia King junr.”. We like her a lot.
To be honest, we like her a little bit more than Howorth. Howorth’s confidence got him into trouble at times. The couple had a son, George King Farrar, in 1854, and lost him the year after while still living in Liverpool. They later had a daughter who lived, Ida Zipporah King Farrar, in 1859 while the couple were living in Ipswich where Howorth was the “foreign correspondent” for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Fancy indeed! By 1861 they had come back to Todmorden to live with his parents and sisters on Wellington Road, and for him to work as a “commercial clerk” for another unknown company. He would later take Amelia and Ida to Manchester and started working on bankruptcy cases and clearing estates after death. All very exciting and posh, but things weren’t perfect. In 1868 he was fined for lying about having the right to enter the Royal Exchange Company’s buildings (and although the paper doesn’t report this, was not in fact visiting his brother – none of his brothers worked there).
And then, in 1869, Amelia died. She was buried with her mother and Howorth was left with a ten year old daughter, and things began to unravel. Ida was sent to live at a posh school near Warrington and Howorth returned to Todmorden. He had entered into a trust deed with creditors a few months after Amelia’s death because there was an issue with her estate. She left behind over £2300 but probate would stretch out until long after Howorth himself died. The estate did shrink a little during that time so perhaps money was released only to be spent on Ida’s education. Howorth was left to sort himself out. Susan had died earlier in the decade and James had remarried, and Howorth went to live with them.
Howorth was busy but he was also grieving, and missing his daughter, and maybe his lifestyle was also starting to catch up with him. It’s easy to fall into the bottle when you’re already hanging over the lip. In 1873 he advertised his new business, but in 1873 he also started appearing before the local magistrate for drunkenness in public. Some of these occasions even involved him being arrested for causing a nuisance by “kicking at his sister’s door” in Wellington Road, and mentions as an aside that this was a regular occurrence and regular complaints were being made. The drunken escapades began about four months before he began advertising his services and we can only wonder how many people were champing at the bit to obtain the services of an inebriated accountant. It sounds harsh but it was likely the truth, and a lack of custom would have only left Howorth more depressed than he already was.
Two years later, at his home at Inchfield (well away from Todmorden centre), Howorth died. He had taken ill with bronchitis and was also suffering from heart palpitations and dropsy. Not surprising given his struggle with alcohol.
His and Amelia’s estates would not be settled until 1883, when Ida was able to finally take control of the money that was rightfully hers. How much that ended up being after debts and other obligations were sorted is unknown. But she married well, twice, and is buried under an enormous obelisk monument high at the top of Cross Stone graveyard so things worked out eventually. Her first husband and one of her sons is buried here in the vaults. Meanwhile Howorth rests here with some of his siblings, perhaps, under a much more humble stone.
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