This is the second of our Leek family graves; grandparents and a grandson, at least on the stone. John is at St. Mary’s and the Orrell story is a brief but moving one.
John Orrell was born somewhere – we don’t know where – around 1808. He worked many jobs of the labourer sort but for most of his short life was a joiner by trade. In November 1832 he married Mary Firth at St. Chad’s in Rochdale, giving his occupation on the banns as “wheelwright”. Mary is equally mysterious, with a William Firth witnessing her marriage but no certificate in existence explaining his relationship to her or the name of her father. We know from a later census return that she was born in Walsden, and that’s all.
John and Mary had five children all told. First came Isaac and Betty, possibly twins but certainly very close together, in 1833. Then came Sarah, who would later marry John Leek; then Ann, who would later marry Jeffrey Leek; and finally Henry in 1841. But by the time Sarah was born she was their only child, because Isaac and Betty were both buried at St. Mary’s on October 25th 1835. Both were listed as two years old, with their parents living at Butcher Hill in Walsden.
We can’t trace the Orrells in 1841, but as the gravestone says, in 1844 John died at the very young age of 35 and was buried with his two children at St. Mary’s. The family were possibly travelling for a spell, as while the first three Orrell children were baptised relatively quickly after their births Ann and Henry weren’t baptised until 1851. The record makes no mention of John being deceased but gives his occupation as joiner, which his three children would all repeat over time on their own marriage certificates. His death certificate gives his address as 17 Shade Street and occupation as carpenter, and the informant is a Henry Firth (Mary’s brother? Father?) who lives at the “Bobbin Shop”. His cause of death was our old friend phthsis.
The 1851 Census shows the family living at Shade with the girls working as throstle tenters and Henry still at school, even though he was old enough to work. As you’ll see in the third Leek grave, where Ann is buried, Henry grew up to have some serious issues which undoubtedly held him back. Mary had high hopes for his future and kept him in school…but he would get a reputation as “a bit of a one” thanks to his poor relationship with alcohol.
Mary stayed at Knowlwood for the rest of her life, at least as far as we know. She was there in 1861, but we can’t find her on the 1871 Census. She died in 1873 at Lewis Street with Ann as the informant, and bronchitis as the cause.
We don’t know if Ann was having difficulties yet in her marriage to Jeffrey Leek – again, more on that in the third story – but two years later when her third child, Fred, died at just three months old, she laid him to rest with her mother. Three names on the stone, two bodies in this grave, and now on to little Fred’s parents and their complicated life…