These two graves aren’t strictly side by side – at least we don’t think they originally were, even though now their stones are – but they contain the majority of a large family unit; that made up of Thomas and Sarah (Stansfield) Scholfield, their children and a grandchild, and Sarah’s brother and sister-in-law Barker and …
Some gravestone epitaphs leap out at you and scream that there’s a story to be told here. There’s certainly one here. George Brammah was born in 1835 in Cudworth, near Barnsley. His father George was a quarryman and no doubt was working in one of the many mines or mine-adjacent industries in that part of …
This story was told on our Remembrance Sunday 2023 tour. This is another tale that is about a family, not just a soldier. As often happens, it is filled with tragedy, and not a little graphic detail. Reader discretion is advised. John Albert Barker was born in 1882 to John and Susannah (Marshall) Barker. Susanna …
This story was told on our Remembrance Sunday 2023 tour. This is a story of not just a soldier, but an entire family that were drastically affected by the events of WW1. But let’s start with the birth of a little boy that would one day die for his country. George William Rohrer was born …
Read more “15.4 – Margaretta, George, Leopold and Sarah Mary Rohrer”
(the following is the text from our coverage of this grave on our Remembrance Sunday 2023 tour, so does not cover all the abovenamed in full detail) I’d like to share the life of Fred Ashworth with you, another of our brave Tod lads who died for his country, fighting to keep us all free. …
Read more “V7.7 – Annie, Fred, Mary, Edith, Richard and Will Ashworth”
This grave holds a man, a woman, and a number of small grandchildren. So often people will ask us where a young child or infant is buried, and if we can’t find them on the transcript, the first thing we ask is “who are the grandparents”. This grave is a good example of this theory. …
Read more “53.50 – James and Grace Spencer, and their many grandchildren”
This set of sidestones is a frustrating one, because not only have William and Andrew’s stones been separated but Clarissa’s stone has also gone missing between the 1980s and now. Clarissa was buried here with both her husbands, two very different men in many ways. William Howarth was born in 1849 in Sowerby Bridge. His …
Read more “46.62 – William Howarth and Andrew and Clarissa Russell”
George here was another transplant from Staffordshire who came here for work with his family. He met a wet end whose circumstances were sadly very predictable. George Samuel Morris, or Samuel as he would choose to be known and to call himself, was born in 1820 in Monk Upton in Shropshire. His movements prior to …
This lancet with its still-clear ivy motif marks a grave with two small and only children, and a husband and wife whose bond remained beyond death and remarriage. Sally Haigh was born in the summer of 1845 to James and Ann (Dyson) Haigh of Walsden and was baptised at Walsden St. Peter’s in September of …
Read more “53.64 – Mary Ann, Rachel Alice and John Howorth, and Sally Hollinrake”
All records spell it Akroyd, their grave reads Ackroyd. Rather than waste time arguing about it let’s find out more about the people in this grave. One, at least, has a great number of records behind him, because he rose through the ranks of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. But was he as respectable as …