43.7 – John and Ruth Holt

This grave holds two parents and commemorates three unnamed infant sons. We did our best to try and identify these children but sadly weren’t able to; they must be buried elsewhere, which is common, although usually where they’re buried is also mentioned. We have some theories about why this might not be…

John Holt was born in 1802 in Todmorden. We don’t know for certain but we think his parents were Thomas and Mary Holt of Scaitcliffe Bridge. Some of those cottages still exist today, tucked behind the newer flats by Burnley Road, but most of the buildings in this area are long since gone. The other possibility is John Holt who was born to Betty Eastwood of Todmorden, the illegitimate son of a James Holt; it wasn’t often though that illegitimate children took their father’s name unless there was a later marriage or legal adoption. It’s still possible but less likely. Regardless, John grew up in Todmorden and went into cotton spinning and weaving like most others.

In 1828 he married 23 year old Ruth Ingham of Todmorden. Ruth was originally born in Bolton and so unfortunately her baptism can’t be traced and therefore her parentage. What remains from church marriages at this time is the banns forms, and they don’t name fathers like later marriage certificates would. She would give Bolton as her birthplace on later census returns and that’s the only clue we have to her origins. John became an overlooker and later manager at Folly Mill (more on that later) and he and Ruth were able to sustain a very large family as a result. Between 1829 and 1846 they had eight children that we know of…and then another three we don’t know of. Those three sons do not have baptism or burial records that we can find. So where are they and what happened?

It’s worth knowing a few things about the rules around baptisms and burials. Unbaptised infants could be buried in an Anglican burial ground but they would not be permitted to have the vicar deliver a service at the graveside. Sometimes this meant that a burial went unrecorded. Stillborn infants are the most commonly unrecorded burials by nature of not having had a chance at life, and post-1837 not having their births registered either, so there being no trace at all in public records of their existence. When Andy and Sarah went to Blackshaw Head Methodist to put together an MI transcript for them, they were given access to the burial records, and two curious and sad items stood out from their bundles of records. They were handwritten letters by a man in Eastwood certifying that two infant boys were stillborn to his wife at different times. The name of the doctor present at the birth was given, if there was one, and they were signed and dated. These were what someone would have to produce in order to certify the birth and death of an infant in order for their burial to be legal, which of course would be a requirement before any burial could take place. Such things do not seem to have survived for Christ Church but we suspect that this was the case. But where are those infants? The lack of an entry in the burial registers hints at their burials having been in other parts of the graveyard. We have been told several times that at least later on it was common here for a stillborn infant to be buried with an unrelated person who was being interred at whatever time the infant would also need to be buried. These “additions” were done with a small cash-in-hand fee paid to the gravedigger and a nod and a wink; so of course wouldn’t be included in the burial register.

Now there are unaccounted for Holt male children born in Todmorden whose mothers had the maiden name Ingham – Daniel Holt, born in 1848, fits the bill. We almost missed him but that’s easily done, as he isn’t buried at Christ Church. Two death registrations could be his – one in late 1848 in Salford and one in early 1849 in Oldham.

The graves in this part of the graveyard have initial interments around 1838-1841, though, and so it’s a surprise that no burials are recorded in this particular grave around that time that are relations of John or Ruth. At least not that we know of…so who knows. Perhaps they bought the plot and paid a little extra for an entirely unrecorded burial, although that seems a bit unlikely. The answer is a mystery. A frustrating one for us, because we try as much as we can to name the unnamed here in the graveyard, but not all mysteries can be solved.

Anyway, the 1841 Census puts the Holts at Oldroyd Mill up Woodhouse Road, which would later be known as Folly Mill, hence New Mill Dam gaining the nickname Folly Dam. The couple’s whereabouts are unknown in 1851 but by 1861 they were firmly settled at Queen Street in Todmorden, where John is described as a “cotton manager”. He’d retired by 1871, and in 1872 he died aged 70 and was buried here and a stone laid for him. Ruth followed in 1876. The three infant sons were commemorated alongside their parents, so their existence acknowledged here even if nowhere else.

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