These two graves aren’t strictly side by side – at least we don’t think they originally were, even though now their stones are – but they contain the majority of a large family unit; that made up of Thomas and Sarah (Stansfield) Scholfield, their children and a grandchild, and Sarah’s brother and sister-in-law Barker and Elizabeth (Riley) Stansfield. There’s also a truly unique cause of death linked to these graves. Ever had a problem with cow’s tongue? Want a handy excuse to say “no thanks” if you’re ever offered some? Then read on.
George Stansfield, parish clerk, cotton weaver and Toddite, married Ann Booth of Pilkington in 1837, and they had seven children. Sarah Stansfield was born in 1843, their third child and second to live beyond childhood, and her brother Barker in 1848. Sarah grew up in the house at Blind Lane, which would later be amended on the census to 10 Gandy Bridge, and became a cotton power loom weaver after she left school. Sarah would get married in April 1870, but not to someone she met at work…but someone who she met because of someone else’s work. Barker had become a clerk for a timber merchant, and working in the same wood yard as a sawyer was a certain Thomas Scholfield.
Thomas Scholfield was born in 1842 to William and Elizabeth (Greenwood) Scholfield of Back Brook Street. William was a platelayer, probably for the railway, but Thomas became a cotton weaver as soon as he was old enough to go to work. This work didn’t suit him though, and he later became a timber sawyer, work that was probably as physically arduous as platelaying! He and Sarah were married in April 1870 and wasted no time starting a family, with their first son George born in late January 1871. Sadly little George wasn’t long for this world; he died in March and was buried here.
Thomas had been living on George Street prior to marriage, but afterwards he and Sarah had initially settled at Blind Lane, not far from the other Stansfields. Their next child, Elizabeth Ann, was born in Todmorden proper, but by 1875 when Thomas William was born they had moved down to Walsden. Perhaps part of that sadness was down to Sarah losing her brother Barker…but we’ll come to that later. 1881 found them at Montreal Place in Walsden, just down from the train station, and with five children. All told, little George included, they had eight children together. As the children grew up they seemed to be content more or less to stay at home. This may have made the family’s next loss harder. In 1897 they lost another child. In a cruel twist of fate it was their middle son, 18 year old George Henry; named for the son they’d lost at such a young age, he joined that first baby here in this grave. A cotton mill operative, his cause of death was “idiopathic anaemia”, a new one on us – an autoimmune disorder that causes the immune system to attack the body’s bone marrow cells. Nowadays, with modern medicine, there is a cure…but it’s stem cell transplants. In 1897 George Henry stood no chance at all.
The Scholfields by this time were back in the centre of Todmorden, at 3 Joshua Street. It was now Thomas’s turn to suffer ill health, and in 1907 he died and was buried here. His obituary reveals that he was a sidesman at Christ Church and had been “prominently involved” with the church and the Sunday School for a very long time. Hopefully some of that faith helped propel him and Sarah through their losses. Sarah was left a widow but at least one with many adult children to help support her. Thomas also left her £912 which was a handsome sum of money in 1907. But many of those adult children were now married, and so Sarah settled in with her two youngest daughters, who had remained unmarried – Sarah and Susan Alice. The younger Sarah was a sewing machinist working for a tailor producing readymade clothing, and Susan Alice was a dressmaker. Between their wages and Thomas’s estate, the older Sarah was well kept.
The older Sarah died in 1928 and was buried here; just in time to avoid seeing the sudden death of her son James, who died a year later and is buried at 32.43. Susan Alice and the younger Sarah decided to stick together. In 1939 they were both “draper dealers” living at 26 Burnley Road together, and by the time Susan Alice died in 1952 and Sarah in 1965 they were both living at 16 Garden Street. Their deaths closed the chapter on this double grave.
Back to Barker. Barker was, like all the Stansfield children, both literate and an early school leaver. At age 12 he was a cotton doffer to help the family make ends meet but when we arrive at 1871 Barker has moved along in his career and, as we mentioned before, has become a bookkeeper for a timber merchant. Whether this meant Barker did a little bit of travelling, or whether his mother Ann’s Pilkington roots were responsible, Barker was able to travel down to Radcliffe, near Bury, and meet and marry Elizabeth Riley.
Elizabeth was six years Barker’s senior and the daughter of Solomon and Ann Riley of Pilkington. Solomon was a cotton yarn printer and, like the Stansfields, ran a household where every child worked (but also were able to write their own names). Elizabeth became a cotton weaver and helped support Ann after Solomon died in 1856. Even Ann returned to work (as a stitcher) after this, but her health was also failing, and by 1871 Elizabeth was living with her younger brothers Mark and Thomas in a mutually supportive sibling household. However she and Barker met, he was sufficiently smitten to marry her, and at the ceremony at St. Thomas’s in Radcliffe the Christ Church Sunday School teacher John Crowther (who would later marry Barker’s sister Susan) was one of the witnesses and the Rev. Molesworth the officiant.
All those names prominently connected with Christ Church – maybe the connection between Thomas and Barker wasn’t the timber yard, but Christ Church itself?
Barker and Elizabeth had only three years together before his death, and the pair had no children. Barker’s death is a truly extraordinary one, only rivalled by John Pugh’s overly-weighty Christmas dinner. Let us set the scene: a bazaar was held at the Town Hall. It was July, the height of the summer. The Queen’s Own 20th Regiment of Infantry’s band had been engaged to play. Tickets were oversold, people were thrilled, the event was a success. And so the bazaar’s organising committee decided to hold a little congratulatory dinner for themselves at the National School.
The grand total of affected people was 19 out of 33 attendees, brother-in-law John Crowther included, as well as three of schoolmaster John Turner’s children – but Barker was the only one unlucky enough to lose his life. His inquest seems to have been quite the event, with one expert witness doctor throwing a small incendiary device into the mix by suggesting that the violence of Barker’s symptoms indicated the possible presence of an “irritant poison”, although the newspaper coverage doesn’t specify how such a thing could have been introduced. Poor Elizabeth – did she feel like this was aimed at her? Or was the doctor suggesting that the cow’s tongue was deliberately poisoned as a directionless attempt to hurt someone? In the end the jury concluded that the quality of the tongue was to blame rather than an outside poison of some sort and that his death was merely a sad accident.
Three years later, Elizabeth died. It turns out that in the meantime she had moved down to Walsden and to Montreal Place, no doubt staying with Sarah and Thomas Scholfield and their family. This wasn’t because she was without children or family locally, although no doubt that was a factor. No, the reason was that Elizabeth had epilepsy or perhaps vasovagal syncope, which can mimic epilepsy and for years was misdiagnosed as such. Both conditions are dangerous even today, so just as with George Henry Scholfield’s illness, in the 1870s there wasn’t anything you could do. After Elizabeth’s loss she was no doubt stressed and sad and under great strain, and so in 1879 she died as the result of “epilepsy syncope”. Barker’s memory was still alive in the registrar’s mind, as she was initially recorded as his wife before that was struck out and replaced with “widow”.
That concludes the lives of the named people in these two graves. As we can see, Sarah Scholfield the younger is buried with Barker and Elizabeth, but that may well be because the other grave had been filled up.
We haven’t forgotten the sixth person in 49.51, the unnamed grandchild of Thomas and Sarah. Everyone else in that grave is listed in perfect chronological order so we can start making guesses around when this grandchild died – between 1897 and 1907 – but that doesn’t help. All the married Scholfield children give the number of children who have died as none on their 1911 Census returns, so whoever this little one was, they were likely stillborn and so don’t have a burial register entry or any way of identifying their specific parents. Never mind; at least their grandparents made sure to have them mentioned on the stone.
Love reading these stories
Thank you Janet – we love researching and writing them!