All five buried here, their names too painful or expensive to record; but remembered nonetheless.

Of this couple, Ann came first. Ann, or “Nanny” as she was nicknamed, Lord was born around 1803 in Sowerby. John Turner was born four years later in Walsden. Either Ann or her family made the move down to Todmorden after a while, and she and John met and married at St. Chad’s in Rochdale in 1829. John was by then working as a spinner. As was common for the time, neither of them could write their names, and their banns were signed with their marks.
The Turners had at least nine children that we know of, which includes the “five infant sons” named here. We’ve given them back their names:
John Lord Turner, 1838-1839
Thomas Edward Turner, 1842-1844
Albert Turner, 1845-1846
Sutcliffe Crowther Turner, 1847-1851
John Robert Turner, 1853-1854

It seems John was never intended to have a namesake. He and Ann did have other children though who survived well into adulthood. Their first three children were all girls – Emma, Maria and Mary – and their second son, James Young Turner, also survived. John became a cotton carder and the family lived first at Clough Holmes, Walsden, before moving to Shade and then Butcher Hill. Death remained all around them, as was common; 30 year old Emma had moved back home by the 1861 Census because her husband had died and left her with a one year old daughter, Betsy, and she needed Ann’s help to look after Betsy while she went back to work. She would move on again though. Maria was the daughter who stayed with her parents while the others spread their wings.
In 1865 John died, and Ann followed him in 1870. Both joined their five sons here. And Maria? She was now homeless, since factory work wasn’t sufficient for a single woman to subsist on. She moved in with her sister Mary and her husband William Gill in Millwood. They both worked and their daughter Jane was too young to go to work full-time in 1871, so Maria’s income helped with the household. Their house was one of the now-demolished cottages adjoining the Swan Inn, aka Swan With Two Necks, just across from where Castle Hill School stands now. She moved out from there at some point and disappeared – the 1881 Census gives us no clues at all – but by 1891 she was back in Shade, in the Dobroyd area, lodging with a mother and daughter at number 7. Was she happy with her life? A good question. In 1893 Maria married James Thomas at Cross Lanes Baptist Chapel in Heptonstall, whether for love or security we’ll never know.

James was a retired gas fitter who the year before had suffered a surprise loss when his wife Ellen, aged 60, had some sort of episode while at the top of the cellar stairs and was found dead at the bottom by him when he got home from work. The couple’s children were all grown and what was probably intended to be a nice retirement was suddenly over. He and Maria might have crossed paths previously, maybe not, but after their marriage they moved to Oak Cottage at Knowlwood and seem to have made a good go of it. Maria’s life certainly would have become more comfortable – James had the money spare to buy properties, purchasing one at Crescent in 1900 – so no more hard grafting at the loom. Also, have you seen Oak Cottage? It’s quite a good sized property with plenty of room which would have been convenient. In 1901 James’s widowed daughter Emma and her daughter Helen came to stay, a strange echo of Maria’s sister Emma having to move home after losing her husband.
Maria died in 1906 at 47 Hollins Road, which indicates that either she and James had given up Oak Cottage or she had been receiving nursing care from his daughter Fanny Crabtree, who lived there with her daughter Edith. Another widowed daughter! James continued to live there for many years after. He would have been planning to be buried with Ellen, so Maria was buried here with her parents and little brothers. He eventually died in 1924 at the age of 89.