Poor William Smith. Initially we knew nothing about him that wasn’t on his death registration. He was a warehouseman, he lived at Knowlwood at what was once called Butcher Hill, he was 58 years old when he died on June 10th 1841…and his cause of death was “visitation of God”.
What more can we say? Well, a little bit more actually – because sometimes you have to search two or three times, two or three different ways, to find the information you need. And we did find some eventually. We found that William Smith was born around 1783 and was a weaver – of course! – and in 1806 married Susan Lingard of Heptonstall. The couple may have had children prior to 1813 but we’ve only found four – Sarah, Grace, Jane, and Maria. Maria was the baby of the family, born in 1822. William became an overlooker and the family never seem to have strayed from Knowlwood and Butcher Hill, at least not during the period between 1814 and 1822 when the above children were born.
Susan died in 1845 and is buried somewhere at Christ Church – most likely here, but the absence of her name is a surprise. But that may be down to dwindling finances and the high rate of mortality in that decade. Sarah died in 1842 and Grace in 1847. Jane and Maria had both gotten married – Maria in 1842 and Jane in 1849 – but in Maria’s case at least this meant a move to Wadsworth and then to Halifax, seemingly never to return. Hence why no one’s names got added to this stone…it’s just one more of many stones where only the first person into the ground is commemorated.