A family from Buckinghamshire that set down roots in Todmorden, and one woman’s occasionally turbulent life.
Mary West was the oldest figure here, so we’ll start first with her. She was born in 1838 in Newport Pagnell to a “sculptor and carpenter” Thomas West and his wife Caroline, formerly Whiting. Thomas was a descendant of Lord De le Warr, although as a descendant puts it, “the poorer side of the family”. She was the eldest daughter and you’d think with a father who called himself a sculptor she’d have had a serene and at least somewhat comfortable life. As always, assumptions are silly! And Thomas was overstretching himself a little by also taking on work as a paper-hanger and a “wholesale and retail brewer and seller of beer”. He wanted to live a better sort of life like the ones his titled relatives had and knew he’d have to work for it, but he couldn’t make all that work bring the income required. We know this because in 1849 he became insolvent. The magistrate noted that while his yearly income from all his businesses was about £90 – which in 1849 wasn’t a bad income – his living costs were about £200. So yeah, a bit of a problem there.
This probably explains why in 1861 Mary can be found in Hampstead, working as a housemaid for “fundholder” Anna MacInnes, the widow of a Major-General. As a place to work it was spectacular; but the pressure must have been enormous. Never mind, Mary kept going at it, and in 1865 while living in Sussex she caught the eye of a fellow Buckinghamshire native – fishmonger William Robert Keys. William had been born a few years after Mary, in 1844, to Edward and Hannah (Roads) Keys of Quainton. Edward was a shoemaker from Kent who had settled in Quainton when he met and married Hannah, and William was also the eldest child of the marriage. On the 1861 Census William is going by his middle name, Robert, and at the age of 17 was already working as a fishmonger’s servant. By the time he and Mary married he had “graduated” to fishmonger proper, and it explains his presence down in Hastings, where he and Mary were married at St. Leonard’s in the presence of Mary’s sister Sarah.
William and Mary had moved to Cheetham Hill in Manchester by 1871, and William had added “poulterer” to his list of occupations. The Keys had moved to Todmorden by 1874, when the first child born to them was baptised at Christ Church, and William had joined the Oddfellows which was very much a basic requirement if you wanted to get on in the business world, so things seemed all right. They settled at Meadow Bottom and by 1876 there were four living children in the household. A lovely domestic image, but sadly William at this point was very much not long for this world. He was an extremely unwell man; and soon after coming to Todmorden he gave up the fish business altogether and began working on the railway as a porter. 1876 is the year we mentioned because it was his last year; he died suddenly in November. Suddenly in the sense that he was young, but not in the sense that no one could have seen it coming. His death certificate makes alarming reading: emphysema, heart disease, and syncope (fainting fits and likely also heart irregularities).
The Oddfellows attended his funeral – we know this from a newspaper advertisement where they called to their fellow “brothers” to attend – but that’s all we know about William’s short life. What would Mary do now? The youngest, Ellen, was only a year old. Of course she remarried, she only had working in service as experience, and she couldn’t take on “the business” as a railway porter the way she perhaps could have were William to have stayed a fishmonger. Family lore is that she loved William deeply and was left bereft when he died. Needs must though and in 1879 she remarried, this time to Abraham Eastwood, a…well…perhaps a bit of a one. He had previous form for getting a little drunk and disorderly, and it’s no surprise that their marriage was rocky. He brought a daughter of his own to the marriage, Mary Jane, the same age as Mary’s eldest daughter Mary Jane. This must have been fun. Mary and Abraham had a single child of their own, daughter Agnes, born in 1880. The couple moved to Swineshead and took in lodgers to help make ends meet. This is what led to the marriage breaking down for a spell, because in 1882 one of the lodgers accused Abraham of coming into the room where the girls slept and touching her inappropriately. Abraham’s defense was that he did no such thing, and that the girl had been put up to the accusation by Mary, who was using it as an excuse to move out!
The charge was thrown out as the young woman’s evidence was contradictory and even Mary’s daughters who were called as witnesses didn’t remember seeing or hearing anything. Perhaps Mary was fed up of his ways and found it all too easy to believe that something accidental was more sinister. She stayed in contact with her husband and the two reconciled at some point, however uneasily, as when Abraham died suddenly in 1885 she was there and was able to give evidence about his drinking habits to the jurors at the coroner’s inquest. Mary must have kept her Meadow Bottom contacts as when he died the family were all living at Willow Bank.
The next time around Mary waited longer to remarry. But in the meantime, what of Elizabeth Jackson who’s also buried here? Elizabeth Jackson was, of course, Elizabeth Keys, the third child of William and Mary. She might have been the fourth though technically as she was a twin; her and her sister Caroline were baptised together in Longsight on April 30th 1871, the same day they were born. You see this often when the babies are born unwell, or early, as parents were anxious to ensure that the children were buried in consecrated ground if the worst happened. Caroline died the following year but Elizabeth thrived. Once she was old enough to work she started in the cotton mills, as did her sisters, and in 1891 her occupation was listed as “cotton operative”. As some sisters married and moved out she and Mary, Ellen and Agnes moved from Meadow Bottom down to Der Street. A few years later she got married, and as far as we can tell her marriage was a much happier one than the one Mary had just experienced!
James Jackson was the first “true” Tod lad in this grave – born in Shade in 1869 to Thomas and Sarah Ann (Hargreaves) Jackson, and baptised at Christ Church. All three of his BMD events would be held here. Thomas was a mechanic and died while James was still young, and unlike Mary his mother decided and/or was able to carry on without having to remarry. The Jacksons moved to Union Street in the town centre and while the younger two sons also moved into mechanics, James went for cotton weaving. Did he and Elizabeth meet in the weaving shed? However they met they married in 1894 at Christ Church, and her sister Ellen and Ellen’s future husband Frank Sutcliffe were their witnesses. (Ellen and Frank and their family are buried at 16.10)
They set up their home at Albion Place, with James’s sister Amy moving in as well, and all three were hard at work at the mill. Where was Mary? Mary had remarried in 1896, to her last husband – John Carter, a widower sixteen years her senior! John was a labourer but one of presumably some small means, because in 1901 he gave his occupation as “living on his own means”. They moved from the centre up to Wellfield Terrace, to the part which has since been demolished and replaced with newer buildings, with Agnes coming along to help support the pair. “Living on his own means and also hers a little” was maybe more accurate? John was 73 when he and Mary married so it’s no surprise that their marriage wasn’t a terribly long one, but it was twelve years long which is impressive in itself for those days. He was hardy stuff. He died in 1908, and Mary went to live with James and Elizabeth. Agnes had married the previous year and she probably felt that this other daughter needed her more. James had taken a leap, you see, and opened a fish and chip potato saloon as they were called back then. Elizabeth helped in the shop, so Mary was able to keep the house and feel useful.
The Jacksons had no children, or at least none born alive, as the 1911 Census always so sensitively puts it. They were living at 283 Halifax Road at that point; you now would know this shop and home as the Go Local on the corner of Halifax Road and King Street, near Castle Hill. They stayed here until Mary’s death in 1921, after which James seems to have been in two minds about what to do next. Mary had been moving back and forth between the Jackson residence and one of her other married daughters, Annie Louisa Sutcliffe and her family, who also lived at Castle Hill. She was an invalid at the end (so says the census) and after her death there was less of a need to stay in that area. He kept hold of the business but had someone else running it, and moved with Elizabeth down to Shade and became an insurance agent. This may be to do with some issues around the price of fish that had arisen in the early 1920s – perhaps he wanted to keep all his options open – but by 1924 was in the odd position of both advertising to sell his existing fish and chip shop and the attached dwelling house, while simultaneously (on the same page of the newspaper!) signalling that he was in the market to purchase an existing fish and chip shop and attached dwelling house, just a smaller dwelling and cheaper cost. Fair enough.
Was this retirement or playing the odds? The latter, as James later began advertising himself as an insurance and estate agent, and began placing ads soliciting for anyone at all who wished to buy or sell a business, working on commission. By late 1924 he was selling used furniture, and by mid-1925 he was selling used motorcycles and giving his occupation in the ad as “salesman”.
The Jacksons eventually moved back up to Castle Hill and to 387 Halifax Road, just in front of Tenterfield Terrace. Much that used to stand around it is gone – Cinderhill Mill, for a start, and a few dozen smaller dwellings on either side of the house – but it still stands. James reappears in the newspapers there in 1931 as the generous giver of a gift of magazines to the residents of Stansfield View at Christmas. The couple saw out their last days here. James died in 1933 and Elizabeth mourned him deeply – this marriage was clearly a loving one.
The in memoriams continued for a few years, and then in 1936 Elizabeth restarted James’s tradition and began making donations of books and papers to Stansfield View at Christmastime herself. She died in 1938 and joined the husband she called “worthy of everlasting remembrance” here, as well as her parents. Having never had children, Elizabeth named his nephew Thomas Jackson Wills as her executor. A quiet end to two relatively quiet lives.