We know little about these servant Kershaws, only little glimpses, and most of those only afforded at death.

Samuel and Ann Kershaw (both were born Kershaws) were married in January 1822 at St. Chad’s in Rochdale. Samuel was a Rochdale lad, or at least living there, and Ann was a Tod lass from Toad Carr. Their marriage banns gave his occupation as weaver, but by 1826 when he joined the Harmony Lodge of Freemasons in Todmorden he had become a coachman. The family must have settled at Scaitcliffe by 1835 as that’s where they were living with their first lost child, only daughter Sarah, died and was buried at St. Mary’s. With whom we don’t know – most likely Ann’s family given that she was definitely from Todmorden.

Having said that, their next child to die, William, was not noted as having been buried in the “new ground” when his burial was written into the register on April 16th 1841. Joseph Cowell was very assiduous in noting when burials were done in the new ground at Christ Church, but perhaps William Morgan wasn’t.

Sarah’s death registration doesn’t exist as it’s pre-1837 but William’s does, and his cause of death appears to have been hydrocephalus, though from what cause we do not know.
As you can see, by 1841 the Kershaws were at Newgate Bottom in Lydgate, not so far from Scaitcliffe. The Census shows that William was at this point working as an “oastler”, aka working with horses, so may well have still been a coachman of some sort. It also shows another child, daughter Elizabeth, whose existence we only discovered because of that one census return. She isn’t buried here you see and here is where the bulk of our knowledge comes from. The Kershaws though were a family who were firmly in service, with their most likely employer being John Crossley of Scaitcliffe who was born in 1807 and died in 1864.
The 1840s were a bad decade for this family. Deaths occurred in quick succession; 2 year old William in 1841, Ann in 1842, and Samuel in 1843. William had died just before the 1841 Census was taken. Their eldest son, John, was living at Scaitcliffe Hall as a manservant to John Crossley. He died in 1846 from our old friend phthsis, still acting as a footman.

Interestingly, Ann died at Roomfield Lane, and Samuel died at John Street in Rochdale. Why did they leave? It’s likely both of them also had phthsis and were either convalescing somewhere or trying (in vain, as it turns out) to avoid passing it onto any other children.
This left just Thomas, Samuel Jr., and Elizabeth standing from the family. The 1850s would not prove much better though. Thomas died in 1851, and Samuel Jr. in 1856. That’s an odd coincidence indeed: John was 20, Thomas was 21, and Samuel Jr. was 20. An unlucky age for these boys. They had also left Todmorden following their parents’ deaths and died in Manchester and Rochdale, respectively. Both were in service, with Thomas working as a “gentleman’s servant” for an unnamed family at Mill Street in Altrincham. He must have been in lodgings with his informant, William Owen, who in 1841 and 1851 was described as an agricultural labourer living at Mill Place (just off of Mill Street) in the Bowdon area.

Samuel Jr. was working as a servant to Thomas Brown, a widowed hairdresser, in Oldham in 1851. He did move on from service though and became a salesman for a flannel manufacturer in Wardleworth. Not that this saved him – phthsis was everywhere and by late 1855 he began to feel the effects of it. He died in 1856, the last one into this grave. Ironically the registrar in Rochdale at the time was named John Kershaw.

James Ashworth, his informant, was a married cotton spinner who again must have been lodging with Samuel, and with his own wife Elizabeth. By 1856 he and Elizabeth had three children of their own so it must have been a house where money was tight, for them to have a lodger as well. All in all the Kershaws were not wealthy folk, and it must have been a matter of saving up and then benefitting perhaps from the generosity of their employers that allowed them to have such a fine gravestone here. Other servants in the graveyard had the same kindness in death, but with that also mentioned directly on the stone, like Joseph Scragg at 10.34 and Walter Lightell at 22.24. Alternately, given the compass symbol at the top of the stone, perhaps the Freemasons paid for the stone. The difference in engraving style between Sarah’s name and William’s indicates that Sarah was remembered first – and perhaps really is buried here after all
It’s frustrating when only small pieces of the picture can be found – like a jigsaw with the edges done but only a handful pieces of middle left to work with – but we try our best…
What about Elizabeth, the missing child not buried here? She’s missing because she alone managed to have a life beyond age 21. In 1857 she married mechanic John Hardman in Castleton, with father Samuel described as a coachman on the certificate. She died in Rochdale in 1911 at the age of 78.