The Taylors were hard to research, quiet-living people, and as such their story is very short. Read to the end though to find out why their stone is flat.
John Taylor was born in either Todmorden or Whalley in about 1813 (it would vary on the census later on), to parents we haven’t been able to identify. He was married by banns to Elizabeth Lord in 1836 at St. Chad’s in Rochdale so unfortunately there are no clues there to his parentage. Both were living in Todmorden at the time. Elizabeth had been born in 1817 in Todmorden and was the illegitimate daughter of Luke Earnshaw with Sally Lord, both of Doghouse. She was baptised at St. Mary’s and, again, that’s all we know until her marriage.
The couple had two children, Mary (born around 1837) and Sarah, aka Sally (born in 1840). They started out their married life living at Pexwood, with John working as a cotton carder, and would move to Knowlwood later. Both John and Elizabeth worked as weavers and so did their children, as was common for working class families. By 1861 though both daughters were either grown and married (or dead) and the couple moved to Whitworth for work. They can be found there on the 1861 and 1871 Censuses.
At some point in the mid-1870s the couple came back to Todmorden. For ill-health reasons? Elizabeth died in Feburary 1878 and was buried here. John remarried rather swiftly, to near-neighbour Hannah Carter (also widowed), but their married life together would be brief. They settled at Bucklins Mount, a now-demolished terrace of houses on Lumbutts Road just up from Lane Square. The view towards the valley would be of Pexwood, where John and Elizabeth’s married life had started. Yes, we’re hopeless romantics, we know…
As we said, this second marriage was a brief one, and John died in April 1882 and joined Elizabeth here. Hannah didn’t live much longer herself, dying in October 1884. She isn’t buried at Christ Church so may have gone to join her first husband at this point.
John and Elizabeth have what once would have been a lovely upright lancet, but at some point (likely the building of the 2001 school extension, since that’s where the majority of stone damage came from) the stone was broken at the base and moved over a few spaces to be laid flat. It must have been in the way of someone or something. Thankfully the base of the stone still peeks up above the ground and we were able to match the breakage pattern on base and stone to each other. So we know where the Taylors are and where their stone once was, and that’s something…
