Another publican – and another Blomley – a surprise? Not really, because even though there’s a Blomley here, the trade was coming from inside the (public) house.
John Suthers was born in 1821, the eldest child of Jeremiah and Mary (Bulcock) Suthers. Jeremiah was a publican, the son of one too; his own father John held the license for the Peacock Inn, the first licensed beerhouse in Todmorden under the licensing rules brought in in 1830. He soon took over the running of it, although he nearly lost it (nearly lost it all) in 1831 when he was accused of the murder of weaver John Horsfall. He was acquitted but rumours followed him for a long time afterwards, and in 1848 he hung himself in the woods behind Todmorden Hall. All of which makes for a difficult childhood for young John; he would have been ten when his father was first arrested, eleven when he was acquitted, and it’s no wonder that in 1841 he was (a) working as an iron moulder and (b) no longer living at home.
Interestingly, though, he was lodging at the Golden Lion, which is where he met his future wife Sarah Blomley! Sarah was the tenth of eleven children that Edmund Blomley had with his wife Jane Isherwood and was four years younger than John, so at the time of their marriage in December 1843 she was only a few months into her 18th year. Their first child wasn’t born until late 1845, and was unsurprisingly named after Sarah’s eldest sibling James who had earlier that year killed himself at his pub in Blackburn – James Edward Suthers. John and Sarah seemed to be relatively successful in spacing their children because it was another two years before their next child was born – Samuel Mash Suthers in 1847. Sadly he died around seven months old, while the family were living at Bank Bottom at Hanging Ditch, and he was buried here in a plot right next to his cousins and uncle.
Frederick, Frank and Clara were next, then Annie Elizabeth, Mary Jane, and Edmund Blomley Suthers rounded out the family in 1865. These intermediate children were not safe from disease, though. In 1852 Frederick died and was buried at Cross Stone, presumably in the Suthers plot where his grandfather Jeremiah was buried. Why not here though? Good question, we wish we knew. In 1861 Annie Elizabeth was just a few months old and John seems by this point to have given up on iron moulding as an exclusive trade and accepted that in his heart the Peacock Inn was his home. He, Sarah, and the children were back in residence there and his occupation was “iron moulder and beer seller”. Annie Elizabeth died there in 1864 at the age of three.
The X through her entry gave us some pause, but we double checked the GRO – definitely 1864.
The following year, 1865, was especially bad. First their son James, named to remember his uncle, died at the age of 20 in July. He had been working as a clerk to an attorney and must have seemed to have such a bright and interesting future – but there’s lots of those buried hopes here at Christ Church. In September baby Edmund died only six months old. Perhaps it’s no surprise that no more children came after this point…Sarah was still young enough, but maybe she’d had enough grief.
John, less maybe and more definitely, had had enough of the Peacock now. Too many negative connotations were involved in the place, and a month after little Edmund’s death he was selling the premises at a local auction. Selling beer was in his blood though and so a compromise was found: in 1866 he opened the Clarence Inn at Crescent. It stood where 102 Rochdale Road does now, or rather, where it would stand if it still stood. Now a garage marks the spot. Then, though, it was yet another public house ready and waiting to serve the thirsty weavers and ironworkers of Waterside, Crescent and Salford. Having said all that, however…it doesn’t appear as if John was the one running the Crescent at all. Rather, it seems to have been Sarah who ran it, as in a letter to the newspaper in 1871 complaining about being slandered, she states that her husband is busy out of the house and at work all day long and that she runs the Clarence respectably! It makes you wonder what her role was at the Peacock, or if this was a new development.
John had eight good years at the Clarence, whether he was actually running it or not, before his death in 1874. He was respected and respectable enough to serve on juries during this time, including at the coroner’s inquest for Ingham Procter (it’s all connected!), and while his death didn’t attract any interest from the newspaper it was still a loss to his family if not those closer around him. Sarah continued to run the Clarence until 1879 after which she disappears for a time from public records. She reappeared in 1891 in Liverpool where she was now living with her daughter Mary Jane and her husband, William Henry Greenwood, a bookseller and stalwart of Hope Chapel in South Toxteth. She spent the rest of her days there with the couple, and when she died in 1897 she was brought back to Todmorden and buried here with her family.
