A family from Buckinghamshire that set down roots in Todmorden, and one woman’s occasionally turbulent life. Mary West was the oldest figure here, so we’ll start first with her. She was born in 1838 in Newport Pagnell to a “sculptor and carpenter” Thomas West and his wife Caroline, formerly Whiting. Thomas was a descendant of …
Read more “45.58 – William Robert Keys, Mary Carter, and James and Elizabeth Jackson”
Right at the front row of vaults stands this cross commemorating four siblings and a man who married into their family – the branch of the Greenlees family that was concerned with shoeing and veterinary practice at Der Street. This story is one of sisters who were doing it for themselves and a brother whose …
Read more “V1.5 – Charles Henry, Sarah and Alice Greenlees, and Arthur and Henrietta Corbett”
More of the smithing Greenlees family here, this time two brothers and the wife and son of one of them. How much ironwork in the town can be traced back to them and to the Scholfield family? Someone ought to take a count at some point. We’ve already discussed some of this family’s origins at …
This war grave is one of our Remembrance Sunday 2024 stories, sitting alongside that of Percy Smallwood. Percy died only five weeks before WW1 came to an end; Harry here died about seven weeks after. John Helliwell was born in Walsden in 1852. His father John was a railway porter and he and his wife …
Read more “V1.8 – Fanny, John, Harry, Charles Henry and Ann Horsfall Helliwell”
Two William Henry Robinsons are buried here, or rather one is buried here but two are named. A father and son who both died young, the wife and mother left to mourn them, and the second man in her life (and the only one who outlived her). The first William Henry Robinson was born in …
Read more “28.28 – William Henry Robinson (x2) and Alice and James Thomas Highley”
This story, we thought, would be a relatively straightforward “war grave” story to post in time for Remembrance Sunday 2024. Instead, the background work on John William threw up a horrible sad story of its own; that of a soldier who was found guilty of one of the worst crimes and who was able to …
A lad like any other lad who met an early end – one of three named here, in fact – and a wife and mother who had to carry on regardless. Samuel Thomas was born in 1855 to another Samuel, a railway labourer, and his wife Betty. He was the youngest of the four children …
Read more “11.22 – Samuel, Sarah Jane, Henry and Charles William Thomas”
This war grave is a tricky one, because when we get down to William, outside of his war service there’s no heroes of the story – only a child to absorb the consequences of her parents’ and grandparents’ choices. Sometimes it’s hard to respect the dead and tell the truth. Patrick Walls was born in …
Read more “13.6 – Patrick, Mary Ann, Mary Jane, Florence and William Walls”
Here’s a war grave that encompasses quite a bit more than “just” WW1; here we have wealth gained, wealth lost, new starts, domestic violence, and a little bit of Russian and Canadian intrigue. The story begins with George Hirst and Harriet Rowlandson of Knottingley, who married at Christ Church in East Knottingley in July 1851. …
Read more “15.30 – William, Thomas and Sarah Elizabeth Lord, and Joe Hirst and Mary Ann Shackleton”
Following on from our story about Sarah Elizabeth and Mary Ann Hirst, enjoy another Hirst story. The story of these two is straightforward, but this grave contains a mystery: who was Maria Hudson? We’ll get to her at the end. Firstly, though, a recap on Arthur Hirst’s childhood. His parents George and Hannah Hirst came …
Read more “15.25 -Arthur and Hannah Hirst, and Maria Hudson”