Here we have some Walsden-born publicans who left the area – but came back one way or another.

This story begins with James Fielden of Inchfield Fold, who was born in 1808 and would later move up to Speak Edge, or Speke Edge, to become a stonecutter. This area was rife with Fieldens in 1841 – a veritable den of them, to quote our chair – with the page of the census he appears on containing five households out of twelve whose head was a Fielden. Whether any of them were related or not is obviously beyond us, since like Greenwoods or Sutcliffes, it’s impenetrable.

James was the head of his household in 1841 because in 1831 he had married then-17 year old Mary Hollas, or Hollows. Mary was the eldest child in her family and her parents, James and Betty (Crossley) Hollas were Bacup Road folks, with Mary having been born at Watty and the family being resident at Gauxholme in 1841. Mary and James would go on to have seven children, starting with Lord Fielden born in 1833 and ending with Thomas in 1855. Lord was sent to live with Mary’s parents quite early on and never seems to have returned – there’s a story there maybe – and one day we’ll tell it as he’s buried at 20.30, but not today.
James continued on as a farm labourer at Speak Edge until some point in the 1860s when he changed professions and became the landlord of the Black Bull Inn at Gauxholme. The previous licenseholder had been a Sally Crossley – maybe some relation to Mary’s mother? – and James held the position until 1873, when he and Mary abruptly moved to Rochdale. Their third son William stayed behind for a year but suddenly died in 1874. He wasn’t their first child who they lost, or the first buried here at Christ Church, but he’s the first one in this plot. He was only 28 years old and it must have come as a shock. Only a week before his death the new landlord, John Howorth, had held an auction of furniture and goods at the Black Bull and one wonders if the Fieldens had gone bankrupt or at least had an insolvency issue, or maybe even had some medical bills to pay due to family illness, and William one way or another overextended himself. All supposition of course.

In May 1874 some of William’s silver plate and cutlery went up for sale at the Red Lion Inn in Littleborough. If it was to raise badly needed funds then spare a thought for his family as it took over two months for the items to sell.

Meanwhile brother Thomas, a cotton weaver, and sister Emma continued to live with their parents on and off. Other sister Sarah had married in 1860 to William Shackleton of Todmorden and on her bereavement took over the running of the Temperance Hotel that used to be at Patmos. Emma moved back to Todmorden and got married to James Smith in 1879 and Thomas stayed with James and Mary at what was likely to have been the New Inn on the corner of Kossuth Street (now gone) and Bury Road in Heywood. Usually the eldest daughter stayed home and helped but this time it was Thomas.
In February 1881 James died and when the census was taken a month later it was Mary and Thomas keeping the Inn, with Mary on the record as the licenseholder “and victualler” and Thomas now assisting her in running things. The now-widowed Sarah was also there visiting, maybe lending her mother some help as another experienced hotel manager. Mary died next, in October 1889, having come back to Todmorden along with Thomas. Her address was given as 3 Mill Street down in Cobden which means she was living with Sarah at the end of her life. Thomas, having helped out at the New Inn, found work at the White Hart as a groom and began settling into his own life – but it didn’t last. We don’t know why, but by 1901 he was back working as a cotton warp sizer and living with sister Sarah and her youngest daughter Ellen, as well as a lodger.
This arrangement would last until after the 1911 Census was taken in April 1911; in October 1911 Sarah died, and she’s buried here at Christ Church but over at 34.35 with her paternal uncle and aunt, Abraham and Mary Fielden. Her daughter Ellen had been working as a slubber in a cotton mill and Thomas had been working as a domestic servant. The uncle and niece decided to stay together a little longer for economic security.
Thomas died in April 1918, and at the end of the same year Ellen married widower John William Platt. Were they waiting for her familiar duties to end? They had 25 years together before his death in 1943 so at least if they were waiting they still managed to spend some time together.
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