These three siblings stayed close in life and death.
There are many Crossleys in Todmorden and this batch weren’t one of the well off ones – not Crosslees or Crosleghs, but straightforward Crossleys. Not of Scaitcliffe but of Honey Hole. That doesn’t mean they were poor, but they weren’t the gentry. William Crossley, their father, was a cotton hand loom weaver, and the Crossley children grew up with him and their mother Mary (Dodgson) at Bank Top just off Shoebroad Lane. There were six children altogether born between 1795 and 1815, and three are buried here: Susan, Edward (also known as Edmund), and Hannah.
Susan’s story: Susan was the eldest daughter, and the first to be buried here. She was born in 1799 and became a weaver, first hand looms and then power looms as they began to appear on the industrial landscape in the 1820s. She was not atypical in that she had two illegitimate children as well, and not atypical in that she never married their father (whose identity we don’t know). Illegitimacy WAS common then, not so much as now perhaps but common enough that magistrates and church leaders lamented it. A hand loom weaver from Cornholme’s diary, whose 1825/26 extracts are in the Todmorden Antiquarian Society’s collection, mentions a local magistrate who had overseen a breach of promise case involving illegitimate children talking about young people today all too commonly “having their meat before the Grace” – a very poetic way of saying it, for sure! Susan’s children also, as was all too common, did not thrive equally. Her son John was born in January 1822 and died eight weeks later, and is buried at St. Mary’s. Her daughter Sarah, born in 1824, fared much better. Sarah grew up within the family unit and also became a power loom weaver. The Crossleys stuck together, as we’ll see, and even in 1851 at age 27 she was still at home with her mother, uncle, aunt, and two cousins.
Susan had a good run in the end, dying in 1858 at the age of 59. By this point the Crossley siblings and children were living at Goshen Terrace.
Edward’s story: Edward, or should we call him Edmund? was born sometime around 1804, with records putting his birth anywhere between 1803 and 1806 variably. We have two names for him because he was able to write his own name, as evidenced by his marriage banns, and he thought he was an Edmund. Various census records name him as both Edward and Edmund. His stone says Edward and presumably it was placed by people who actually knew him! What a palaver eh. Anyway – Edward did not become a weaver, but instead became a timber sawyer. There were various timber yards dotting the valley bottom around Salford and he would have had several sites on which to work near his home at Bank Top. He probably ended up working for John Holt whose timber yard was where Waterside Mill would later be built but that’s supposition only – we can’t prove it. In 1826 he married Mary Rawson of Langfield with whom he may or may not have already had a child, Nancy, born in 1823. A Nancy Crossley whose parents were named Edmund and Mary died in 1833 but the address is given as “Stoney Field” and so we have our doubts. They would have five, or five more depending how you want to think about it, between 1826 and 1833. If Nancy was their daughter then 1833 was a truly bad year for their little family, as later on that year Mary also died. Both Nancy and Mary, as well as a daughter Hannah who died in 1828, are all buried at St. Mary’s.
In 1841 the widowed Edward was living next door to his father and siblings at Bank Top, but after William’s death in 1844 he moved his four remaining children in with Susan and his other sister still at home, Hannah. In 1851 the three siblings were living with Susan’s daughter Sarah, as we mentioned, and Edward’s two youngest Jane and William (now 20 and 18). Susan was the head of the household. The situation must have suited Edward as he never remarried, having no need to for the sake of his children, and a year after Susan died he joined her in the grave here. By that point St. Mary’s was to all intents and purposes full up, so there was no chance of joining his wife and daughter.
Hannah’s story: Hannah was the youngest daughter of William and Mary Crossley and, unlike them, remained both unmarried and without any children of her own. Her story is the shortest even though she lived the longest, because she lived a quiet life working and helping keep house. Another cotton power loom weaver, after her sister and brother died she continued living in the house on Goshen Terrace with her nephew William, Edward’s son. William had gotten married to Mary Gledhill in 1859 and in 1861 they and Hannah were living at now-vanished house terraced house number 22. William had also become a wood sawyer and Mary and Hannah were weavers. His work with wood was probably the saving of them in many ways, since having the primary wage earner not tied up in cotton during the Cotton Famine would have given them a little more security (or a little less insecurity) than many.
By 1871 William and Mary had two sons, John and George, and the family of now five people had moved to 11 Back Goshen Terrace. Hannah was still working but by this point she was 60 and would have been wanting to slow things down. When she died in November 1877, she would have been very tired indeed. We all know how hard it was to work in the weaving sheds and what it did to you over time – loss of hearing, loss of fingers if you weren’t careful, musculoskeletal stress. It was hard work.
It’s not the most thrilling grave story, but we can’t all be exciting or die interestingly or have gossip following us around…