Albert Jackson was born in Burnley on the 24th February 1886, the son of Fergus and Mary Jackson (nee Heys). He was Mary’s birthday present to herself; they shared a birthday 34 years apart. Later records give his year of birth as 1887 but we can be certain that those are in error. Fergus was …
This grave is two graves – the real one, and the accidental one. The accidental one is a CWGC marker at the front of the graveyard, and the real one lies further back near the school path. The second one contains two heroes, father and son, and a woman who loved them both dearly. Arthur …
Read more “2.11 and 37.31 – Will and Arthur Marshall and Alice Ada Swindells”
This post initially focuses on Jack Clegg, one of the subjects of our 2023 Holocaust Memorial Day tour. Following his story below we will return to the rest of his family – and don’t think it isn’t worth continuing to read, because we’re going to touch on a number of famous (occasionally infamous) figures. It …
Read more “4.2 – Ruth Harcourt, Samuel, Emily, Walter, Clara and Jack Clegg”
Samuel Rigg was a Tod lad, born and bred. He arrived in Tod in 1897 to proud dad Samuel, who was himself a Tod lad, and mum Harriet Fosbrook (a Mancunian but at least she got here in the end). He was the 3rd of 6 children. The first three were boys, and the rest …
This is the final resting place of Private Walter Hollis, a proper working class Tod lad, from a proper working class Tod family. He was born in 1897 at Gauxholme Fold, to Edmund Barker Hollis and Hannah Maria Stott and he was the youngest of their 7 children. In 1901, the family were living at …
John Arthur Woodhead was born in 1889 in Todmorden – in 1891, he was living at 12 Shade Street with his parents, 5 siblings and maternal grandmother. His father John Herbert Woodhead was a clogger with a mildly chequered past; serving time at various points for stealing and unpaid debts, with the theft being from …
You could be forgiven for missing Peter Carroll – his name is on the plinth of a larger, newer stone, whose inhabitants lived very long lives and whose names are picked out in black. But Peter is the reason this grave gets freshened regularly – he is one of the seven servicemen whose died in …
Read more “17.3 – Peter Carroll, Gilbert and Elizabeth Halstead”
There are only six graves in the graveyard which we can access that are Commonwealth War Grave Commission graves. The 7th is on the grounds of the school, the extension built around it in a way that allows the stone to still be visible and visitable, and in that grave over there is Eric Mitchell. …