There are a great many Dawsons here in the graveyard, many descended from Samuel and Hannah here. One of their sons is also here, along with his wife, and their granddaughter – but not the daughter of the son who’s here.
Samuel Dawson, the oldest person buried here, was born in 1816 and christened at St. Mary’s the following year. The Dawsons lived at Bank Top, by Shoebroad Lane just outside of what we see mentioned so often as Hanging Ditch and Honey Hole. John was a weaver but Samuel became an iron moulder, creating shaped metalwork using moulds made of sand. He was one of ten children at least who in 1841 were all living at home still, along with some grandchildren, but in 1844 he moved out and got married to near neighbour Hannah Howarth. Hannah and her family lived at Hall Barn, down by the timber yard next to what is now Bankfield Buildings on Rochdale Road. She was eight years his junior and also one of ten children. So how many children do you think she and Samuel would have?
The answer was – not ten! They would have five, and they were all sons. First William, after Hannah’s dad, then John, after Samuel’s dad, and then James, Thomas, and Edwin. All five boys were born in Manchester and environs because Samuel was travelling around for work. The Dawsons were gone from Todmorden for nearly twenty years in the end, living in Salford and Ancoats on and off. By the time they returned only their three youngest sons were still alive. For whatever reason, Samuel was also no longer calling himself an iron moulder, and in 1871 the Dawsons were living at Cross Bank in Meadow Bottom with Samuel’s occupation listed as farm labourer. Funnily enough his next door neighbour was also named Samuel Dawson, and was an engine stoker! No relation though.
Also funnily enough, on the same page are familiar names to those of us who spend time in the yard – Amos Cunliffe and Henry Langstreth. Near neighbours in life and death.
Youngest son Edwin was a scholar and half timer in 1871, which is about right for a twelve year old. Once he turned thirteen he’d be going to work full time. The Dawsons didn’t have the sort of money for him to stay in education and so he became a factory operative like his brothers. He also, as the youngest son, was still at home for quite some time. In 1881 we find out what Samuel was up to; he had taken on the running of Royd Farm, above Ashenhurst! He was farming 56 acres with the help of one employee. Hannah was, of course, a “farmer’s wife”. Edwin’s occupation? “Farmer’s son”. He was the one employee. And in 1882 the household expanded as Edwin married a farmer’s daughter, Elizabeth Ormerod.
Elizabeth’s story is one of a more consistent farming background as opposed to Edwin’s. She was two years older than Edwin and born at Lineholme, where her father George was farming land at North Scaitcliffe. They were there for a long time but in 1877 George died, and her mother Hannah died in 1878. So in 1881 it was just three Ormerod siblings found together, and nowhere near the farm – Sarah working as a dressmaker and Elizabeth and the younger George both working as cotton weavers. Their address? Law Street, at Meadow Bottom. And so the two met…
Funnily enough again, Elizabeth’s address was given as “Flying Holme” on her marriage certificate. A mishearing of Lineholme, or a joke?
The couple were married in April 1882 which meant Hannah got to see her youngest son wed before she died. That came in September of that year. She was buried here and life went on. We won’t tell James Dawson’s story in detail here as he’s also buried at Christ Church and so will get his fair shake another time; but in 1889 his second daughter and fifth child, Edith Ellen, died aged two. Since he and his wife Eliza didn’t yet own a grave plot of their own she was buried here with the grandmother she’d never met. The year after, Samuel died. There were three buried here now, but still room for more.
Edwin and Elizabeth had four children, three daughters and a son, between 1883 and 1891. The family at that census was the couple, the children, and Elizabeth’s siblings who were still living within this (hopefully sizeable) family home at Lineholme. They would eventually settle at 2 Church Road and fortunately there is a photograph out there that not only shows their home but shows the four children, Hannah, Edna, Alberta and Rufus. You can view it on the Todmorden Album website – follow the link, click “places”, select “Burnley Valley”, then “Scaitcliffe/Lineholme”, then “Church Street”. It’s worth it. Plus, the photographer’s son is buried at Christ Church too, because it’s all connected…but anyway. The Dawsons would make this house their home for the rest of their lives, collectively – the three girls never married and stayed in this house together until the last one of them died, in 1982.
Edwin carried on farming but eventually went back into weaving as he got older. He found work at Newell’s at Canteen Shed just over the main road from their home. Elizabeth and Hannah, the eldest daughter, stayed home keeping the house, and the girls and Elizabeth’s brother George (who continued to live with the couple through to the start of WW1) became weavers and went to work at Newell’s too. Son Rufus became a pharmacist, a dispenser specifically, and if Edwin had any regrets about his son not becoming a farmer like him and Samuel those regrets were soon quelled by the war. Rufus attested in 1915 but wasn’t mobilised until October 1918, and never seems to have seen any theatre of war. Instead he stayed in the RAMC and worked at hospitals helping look after injured soldiers. His job may have saved his life. Sister Alberta took his place at Boots while he was gone and continued to work as a pharmacist’s assistant after the war, clearly having a talent for it. Elizabeth spent the war years in the local Needlework Guild making clothing for soldiers and it must have been a relief to her to know her son was as safe as any young man serving could have been.
Edwin and Elizabeth had quiet lives and so rarely if ever appear in the newspapers. We know from the grave here that they died within two years of each other, Edwin in 1934 and Elizabeth in 1936. As we said, the three girls stayed in the house until the bitter end.
We said earlier that this grave has links all over the graveyard, and we weren’t lying! The supporting cast at Christ Church is as follows:
Edith Ellen’s parents James and Eliza are at 24.25
Samuel and Hannah’s son Thomas is at 30.32
Elizabeth’s sister Sarah, brother George, and daughter Edna are at 14.12
And that’s just who we’ve actively linked so far. More may appear later.