More Stephensons underneath a plot marker beneath the school, this time three young sisters and a brother, whose parents may or may not be resting with them. And there’s still a mystery at the end of it all even though we figured so much of the story out…
William Stephenson – no relation to the ones at S6.3 – was born in 1852, the year after his future wife Mary Stansfield. William’s father James was a grocer living at Stile whose wife Mary, William’s mother, had died a few years after William’s birth, leaving James with both their children together as well as Mary’s children from her previous marriage. No wonder he married again quickly, this time to Margaret Wilson of Lydgate. Margaret was a schoolmistress who made sure all the children got an education. This would set William up for some success, maybe more than he’d have had otherwise.
Mary, meanwhile, was also a Lydgate lass, the daughter of John and Sally (Stott) Stansfield of Hartley Royd Lodge, and the sister of Sarah Stansfield Holt who you may have recently read about on our website. Mary grew up at Lineholme before the family moved to Bacup for a spell in the late 1860s, perhaps to avoid unemployment during the cotton famine, but by the time Mary and William got married in 1874 Mary at least had returned. Maybe it was to support her sister?
By 1881 William had become a drysalter’s assistant, which meant he was somewhere between a grocer and a chemist. He would have been helping sell everything from salt and minerals to chemicals. Nine children were on the way, two of whom are here…Florence Mary and Sarah Alice. Florence was born earlier (1878) but Sarah died sooner (1882). Sarah was three when she died and Florence was seven, and both losses would have been felt keenly. Even though the Stephensons had left Todmorden altogether by 1882 they still felt strong enough ties to the town to keep baptising their children at Christ Church and to make it the place where they buried their daughters. They might have thought that maybe one day they’d come back…
…they didn’t though. The Stephensons settled in Burnley and it was where they would make their lives. William went on to become a book keeper and then an insurance agent and they settled at Pomfret Street, just across from Holy Trinity church. His education had paid off. If their lives were calm, we hope they appreciated it, because more grief was on their way. First their last child, Alice Stansfield Stephenson who had been born in 1893, died in 1900 at the age of seven. Yes, she was buried at Christ Church. But this wasn’t it.
Harry Victor was apprenticing at a local musical instrument manufacturer and learning how to build organs. He was also a typical 16 year old boy who had friends and loved larks. One Sunday morning in January 1904 he left home saying he was going for a long walk, and went first to fetch one friend named Albert Alston and then another named Thomas Wilson, and they decided to go all the way down to Hameldon Hill and to the quarry there. They knew no one would be there on a Sunday and it was full of fun things to do. They ran around, threw some stones, and even got a crane running so they could tip over a large box of rocks. Then Harry jumped on top of a railway bogie (a wheeled base for crates and boxes) and told his friends he could operate it with his knee while pushing with his other foot and not to worry because he would jump off before it got to the rock tip. He managed to get it going but couldn’t jump off. He hit the rock tip and was sent flying, and when his friends ran to the hole where he had landed they found he was dead.
Whether William ever recovered or not is up for debate. He died in 1910 and is buried at Christ Church, but not in a marked grave. Is he here with his children? Almost certainly! But we suppose there’s a chance that Harry is buried in a separate plot and William joined him there; again, though, there’s no evidence of where that might be.
Sarah was left widowed but thankfully with the support of four of her remaining six children, three of whom were working as elementary school teachers! More emphasis on education, thanks to Margaret perhaps…eventually it was just her and Annie in their little house on Romney Avenue. Mary kept the house while Annie worked as a teacher at Coal Clough Special School.
And when Mary died at the end of January 1929, yes, she was buried here at Christ Church.
One last note: that 1911 Census is how we know there is still one child whose birth and death has not yet been accounted for. You can see it says that Mary and William had eleven children together and five of those had died by 1911. Who was number five? We don’t know. We did our best but if any family members can shed light, it would not just bring another name back into the light but also provide the last bit of evidence for or against this plot marker definitely being for these Stephensons. We’re 99% sure but we also know we aren’t perfect!