Did you know about this stone? Even if you walked the path to and from the school every day you might not always see it, due to it being laid flat in a natural dip which means all rain and leaf fall covers it with mud and muck and renders it invisible very quickly. Putting …
This unusual tomb, one of only two in the graveyard, holds a parent and child – vicar and singer – two figures whose time in this town was relatively brief but who were essential parts of people’s lives here. William Augustus Conway was born in West Derby near Liverpool in 1821, one of the children …
Read more “37.11 – William Augustus and Maria Louise Salusbury Conway”
Another story about a Lord family dairy farmer – but we aren’t yet sure if William was related to John. Given it’s Todmorden, he probably was! William Lord was born on August 5th 1842 to Samuel and Hannah (Stansfield) Lord, who are buried at 39.0 not too far away. He was their first baby, born …
Read more “37.15 – Sarah, Edwin, Edgar, Hannah, William and Arthur Lord”
Many people stand on their principles at some point or another – few follow those principles to jail. Herbert followed his to jail not once but twice…but his principle was that he wouldn’t pay child support “and would not be made by the best man breathing”. We can’t all be heroes! There isn’t much to …
This was research I [Researcher Sally] didn’t intend to do, but getting one birth certificate was like opening a treasure chest of information! I was researching the Crowthers when I saw a baby’s burial at Christ Church (Fred Crowther) on Holly’s tree. He was all on his own (the GRO index showed he was illegitimate) …
Christ Church graveyard has a number of unknown graves where the occupant is shown in the burial books but their final resting place is unknown. These are four people whose grave is unknown, we can’t be sure if they are buried together in the same grave, but it’s possible because they are all related. The …
Read more “William, John and Nicholas Hopwood, and Eli Crowther (unknown)”
A farmer’s grandson who made the ultimate sacrifice is remembered here. The question is…why? Maybe we can figure out the “why” from the first story here. William comes first. Born in 1807 in Todmorden, William was the son of a farmer and became a farmer himself. William Sr. lived at Scaitcliffe but William Jr., our …
Read more “37.21 – William and Ellen Mitchell, and Albion Mitchell Barker”
If that title gave you a headache, spare a thought for us poor researchers, trying to untangle this multigenerational tale full of illegitimate children and marriages that weren’t. Thankfully Daniel Noble’s excellent family tree on Ancestry gave us some help with piecing it all together. Mary’s story starts off easily enough. She was born in …
Read more “37.22 – Mary and John Dawson, and Betty, Mary Ann, John Thomas, Jane and John Spencer”
Charles and Sally have many children and grandchildren buried at Christ Church, and if we tried to link them all in we’d get very tired. But a good place to start to catch a little of their story is to read about the children we’ve written the stories up for so far: Richard, Hannah, Henry, …
Read more “38.23 – Mary, John, Charles and Sally Stansfield”
Men who died young and women who didn’t – a not uncommon scenario here in the graveyard. So who were the Eastwoods? What was their story? Who rests here under this laid-flat lancet with an unusual rose emblem carved at the top? This family’s stories start with two people and two extremes. John Eastwood was …
Read more “37.24 – John, Ada, Lucy, John Henry, Alice and Emily Eastwood”