A father and son are here, and the father’s tale is particularly interesting – one of those people whose name appears regularly and whose presence we take for granted, both then and now; although these days it’s common to hear that we don’t see enough of his sort on the street!
Joseph Hopkins was born in 1830 in Preston to John and Ann Hopkins. By 1841 his mother Ann was a widow, raising seven children on her own. Luckily for her her oldest three children were able to work and help out. Joseph was her third son and after leaving school he became a railway porter. He found love in the form of Nancy Frimson and the pair married in March 1851. By the time the census was being taken in April 1851 he and Nancy were living with Nancy’s mother, grandmother, aunt and cousin in a small house on Cunliffe Street in Preston (now gone), and soon Joseph would decide to take a punt on law enforcement. In 1857 he joined the West Riding Constabulary and within three years had progressed to grade 1. It was all uphill from there.
We can see from his record that by now he had a child – son William – and that he had also served in the Navy for four and a half years. Not one to sit still!
Joseph and Nancy moved to Barkisland near Halifax and that was where John Battersby Hopkins was born in 1858. Why Battersby? Good question! Ann Hopkins’s maiden name was Rawcliffe. He was baptised at Christ Church in Barkisland but soon, after Margaret Ann was born in 1860, the family moved along to Todmorden and Joseph started working here as a constable and later sergeant.
1862 brought mixed emotions to the Hopkins family. First, in April, Joseph assisted with the capture of some thieves who had stolen goods from a man at Pecket Well. While Joseph’s name didn’t make the newspapers, his record includes a commendation for “praiseworthy conduct in the apprehension of Thomas Parker and James Ashworth on Wadsworth Moor on the 9th April 62.” But then, a month later, little John Battersby died and was buried here in this grave. Just four years old. Life does this, offer you something and take something away in the same breath…
The Hopkinses were in Lydgate first but later moved to Willow Bank at Meadow Bottom, and Joseph kept on working. He had to deal with everything from attempted suicides to daft lads who’d had too many pints. But for someone so active it must have been the perfect job; you never knew what each day would bring.
But the future brought poor health for Joseph due to an unspecified liver ailment…he was first sent to Sowerby Bridge, but soon his health declined further and he retired from the police force in 1871. He returned to Todmorden but died soon after at the age of 42.
There’s always a what happened next isn’t there. What happened over the next two decades was that Nancy and the children stayed in Todmorden, and much as we’d like to say this was the end of their spell of bad luck, it wasn’t. In 1892 Margaret Ann died, and in 1894 Mary Jane died. Both are buried at Christ Church and are almost certainly in this grave, although why their names aren’t on the stone is a mystery. Nancy went to live with her daughter Betsy and Betsy’s husband George Pearson and died in 1912, but the Pearsons (Nancy included) are all buried at Walsden St. Peter’s. Perhaps this grave wasn’t dug deep enough for more than four inhabitants…