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) so I thought I’d get his birth certificate to give him his family. The certificate showed Hannah Crowther was his mother and his birth had been registered by Susy Crowther his grandmother.
I checked to see if Holly had Fred’s family in her tree & saw she had a Hannah Crowther with a illegitimate son, John, and a newspaper cutting regarding a bastardy order. Surely it couldn’t be the same Hannah with two illegitimate children? So I got John’s certificate and found that it was – Hannah was the mother of both John and Fred. It turns out they weren’t her only children, but she never married.
Because we now had a name for Hannah’s mother it was easy to find who Hannah was and who her family were – like many others in these times it’s a sad story, but one that shows the importance of what Holly’s doing by putting the occupants of unmarked graves on the Headstones tree so we can research them and their stories can be told. Although Hannah herself isn’t in the graveyard she is the person that links them all.
Hannah Crowther was born on the 29th April 1858, in London Road, Todmorden (either Mankinholes or the old name for Wellington Road), the daughter of William Crowther, a cotton spinner, and his wife Susy (nee Holden). She had one sister, Harriet, who was born in 1849 (she was born prior to the marriage) and two brothers, John, who was born in 1854 and James William, who was born in 1863.
As far as we can tell, Hannah’s early years were uneventful, the family had moved to Queen Street by the time the 1861 census was taken and were still there in 1871. Hannah was then working as a Doffer in a cotton mill and her father had risen to become a manager of one. Hannah’s father died in 1877, and the family remained at Queen Street for a few years after that. Her brother John aka Jack), a cricket player for Todmorden died there suddenly from an ulcerated throat in 1882 and they were still there in March 1883 when Hannah gave birth to her first child, a son, William Potentia Crowther. His middle name we think gives a clue as to who his father was. He was born in January 1883 and was only 2 months old when he died as a result of bronchitis. He was buried at Christ Church on the 10th March 1883, the first of the family to be buried there.
The following year, 1884, Hannah gave birth to her second son, Sam, at Sutcliffe Strret, where the family were now living. He was born in July but died when he was 3 months old on the 3rd October 1884. His death certificate gives the cause of death as Tabes Mesenterica (tuberculosis of the mesenteric and retroperitoneal lymph nodes). He was buried at Christ Church on the 6th October 1884.
Fred Crowther was born on the 18th May 1886 but only lived for 5 months. He died on the 7th November 1886 at Sutcliffe Street, from the same condition that his brother Sam died of. Hannah must have been devastated by the loss of her third son, but would have have been heartbroken a few months later when Fred’s twin, Henry, died on the 28th March 1887 at the age of 10 months from bronchitis and diarrhoea and was buried at Christ Church.
Hannah’s brother, James William married in 1884 and his new wife, Sarah Ellen Pickup, appears to have moved in with his family. She gave birth to their first child, John Uttley, in 1884 and for a year he would have been the much-loved centre of attention in the household. Tragedy struck again though, and on the 10th December 1885 he died as a result of pertussis (whooping cough) and bronchitis. James William and Sarah had a second child, a daughter, Ethel, in March 1887. She was born prematurely and was only 7 days old when she died on the 3rd April 1887, just days after her cousin Henry’s death. She and her brother were both also buried at Christ Church.
The childrens’ deaths must have been devastating for all the family. We have been unable to find out much about Susy, their grandmother, she seems to have been the lynchpin of the family but losing six grandchildren must have been traumatic for her. Two years after the deaths of her youngest grandchildren she died on the 13th August 1889 at 1 Sutcliffe Street. She was laid to rest at Christ Church on the 15th August 1889, we hope with her six little grandchildren.
By 1891 the family had moved away from Sutcliffe Street. Hannah and her sister Harriet were living in Bedford Street together and James William and Sarah had moved to Newchurch. Shortly after the 1891 census was taken, on the 28th June 1891, Hannah gave birth to her fifth son, John. This time we do know who his father was (a man named Herbert Howarth) as she successfully applied for a bastardy order against him.
Harriet and Hannah remained in Bedford Street for the next few years and Hannah’s son John grew up there. He went to Robinwood School, starting at the young age of 3 in 1894 and leaving in 1904 when he was 13.
The 1911 census shows that the siblings were all living near each other again. James William, a slipper maker and Sarah (who didn’t have any more children) were living at 407 Bowed Row, Lydgate and Harriet, Hannah and John were living a few doors away at 401 Bowed Row. Harriet and Hannah were still working as cotton winders as they had for the majority of their working lives and John was a weaver. John married that year, to Winifred Josephine Gavaghan (known as Josephine).
James William died at his home in Bowed Row on the 3rd November 1911 and was buried at Christ Church on the 7th November. His sister Harriet died just under a year later, on the 8th September 1912 and was buried at Christ Church on the 11th September. Although his involvement in this story is minimal, we should also mention that Herbert Howorth also died in 1912, and is buried in an unmarked grave at 16.4.
After Harriet’s death Hannah left Todmorden and moved to Colne. WW1 took her remaining son away from her; he was killed on the Somme on the 4th March 1917 and is buried at Hem Farm Military Cemetery, Picardie. He and his wife had a son, Thomas William, who was born in 1916.
Hannah had such a sad life that it’s to be hoped she saw her grandson growing up. His mother remarried and moved to Accrington, though she was back in Todmorden by 1939. Hannah died in Colne in 1937, where she’s buried is unknown.
Harriet Crowther, Hannah’s sister, is the only person in this whole story apart from Herbert Howorth whose location in the graveyard is known- an unmarked plot at 3.22. [Sarah adds now] This is in line with other dates for first interments in this row, which means that if there was a Crowther family grave elsewhere with James William and any earlier burials in it, that it must have been full up. It’s just as likely that the Crowthers never managed to purchase their own plot and are scattered throughout the yard in unmarked “general” graves, resting alongside a variety of good, bad, and indifferent fellow citizens. It does, though, mean that there’s a chance Hannah was buried here alongside her following her death in 1937…but we’ll likely never know.