“Can a woman’s tender care eyre forget?” As you can see from the inscription, this marker was erected by a mother to the last memory of her children. That mother is Martha Sunderland, and her story is a sad one. Draw close and listen, and maybe at the end you’ll say a little prayer for …
Read more “26.27 – Agnes, Jess, George, Wilbert, Martha Ellen and Herbert Sunderland”
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”
Another war grave, and a stirring tale of bravery in the face of the most pressing danger. Harriet Whitham was the tiny sister of Mary Eliza Whitham, later Gavaghan, and died in 1891 only two years old. Mary Eliza grew up as part of a large family, the daughter of Charles and Caroline (Kay) Whitham …
Read more “27.22 – Harriet Whitham, John, Charles, and Mary Eliza Gavaghan”
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 …
This stone betrayed a small part of this story in the naming: Mary Ellen’s surname, specifically. William Hudson and Sarah Howorth married on September 29th 1860; Mary Ellen was born in September 1860, probably during the first or second week of the month as she was aged 13 weeks old at her death on December …
Read more “39.4 – Mary Ellen Howorth, Sarah and William Hudson, Alice, Percy, and Fred Marshall”
“Previously unmarked” is underselling things; this was one of the most frustrating graves we’ve come across at Christ Church. Some stones were buried, some were dislodged, and only a great deal of investigative work across all available online family history platforms allowed us to reassemble the sidestones and ensure they were where they belonged, and …
Read more “15.33 – John Glynn, Mary Ann, Mary and Thomas Kendall (previously unmarked)”
This grave is one of a small number at Christ Church which contains a father and son who served in the World Wars, and only one is buried here – but the one missing is not, as is more commonplace, the WW1 veteran. Jack Ingham was born in Todmorden on the 15th September 1919, the …
Bridget Greaves was born Bridget Stanton in 1849 in Dublin. Because a lot of Irish records were accidentally destroyed over time, it can be hard to track people down before they arrive in the UK or some other country. The first time we find Bridget here is in Newchurch, Bacup, in 1871, lodging with the …
Read more “2.15 – Samuel and Bridget Greaves, James Luke Stanton”
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 …