Sometimes only a fleeting spell in Todmorden is enough to draw someone back later, in the hopes of a better life. Thanks to Leesa Harwood for sending us this story about her ancestors! The gravestone in Christ Church Graveyard marks the burial place of Charles Neesham, his wife Jane (Kilburn) Neesham and their daughter Margaret …
This grave piqued this researcher’s interest while writing up the story of Winifred Hogan, mainly because Mary here started her life as a Hogan. The TAS’s transcript knew about three of the four inhabitants here, and the fourth – Mary – is only a guess, but it seems like a realistic one. Where else would …
Read more “21.34 – Sarah Hannah, Mary, John and William Butterworth (unmarked)”
Winifred looks to be lying here alone, but we think she might have some family with her – some small comfort (hopefully) for a woman who died young. Winifred’s story begins with that of her parents, William Hogan and Margaret O’Donohoe. William and Margaret were both Irish immigrants who married in Shrewsbury in 1852. William …
This is one of our mysteries of the graveyard, and a tale about the power of grief and shame. Caroline Coles was not a poor woman, and her husband not without some local prestige; so where’s her grave, and where are her two children who are buried here? They might be at this plot marker …
Read more “Caroline Elizabeth Coles and her children (location unknown)”
A Todmorden couple who crossed the border to Burnley, but held on to their Todmorden links to the end. Alice Stott opens this story as the older member of the pair. She was born Alice Davies in 1827, the second youngest child of her father Peter and mother Hannah (Jackson). She grew up in the …
A lost plot marker – a family who left – and two brothers who never met…and perhaps a grandfather and grandmother to boot. Edmund Tattersall Stephenson had a glorious name and a dirty job; that of engine stoker. He had been born in Newchurch in 1860 to John Dewhirst Stephenson and his wife Harriet, formerly …
Lineholme stalwarts here, with a dash of Liverpudlian for good measure. Thomas Sutcliffe was born in 1846, the first child of his parents Joseph and Grace (Rigg) of Lineholme, Lydgate today, on the Burnley side of Todmorden. Joseph was a labourer who soon became a grocer and who spent the rest of his life supplying …
Read more “38.17 – Thomas, Harriet, Willie, Joseph and Eva Sutcliffe”
Love comes late to some of us, and that’s ok. It’s no less wonderful for that! William Culshaw, the senior partner, was born around 1785 in Manchester. His father James was a butcher and sadly that’s the end of our knowledge of William’s life. He became a blacksmith and seemingly never married, although this makes …
Generations and generations on one stone – some stories we know, some we don’t, and some we can only guess at. Zechariah Astin was born in Rossendale in 1782, and Betty…unknown last name…was born in Leeds in 1787. These Astins are the famous Astin and Barker Astins, even though they did live at Harley House …
More continuity here for those with an interest in the Freemason’s and later Weaver’s Arms on Blind Lane – maybe you remember William and Martha Jane Sutcliffe under the school’s story? Well this is how they got there (or at least how Martha Jane got there). We have go back a bit though. Let’s start …