After many, many days, researchers are stumped; how do these couples connect? The answer sees to be that they don’t. So here’s their stories, and perhaps someone knows the secret reason that they were joined together in death.
Editor’s note: the connection has been found; we’ve tacked it onto the end of the post!
William and Ann Oldroyd: The first two burials in this plot, the names facing outwards, are the first two burials in here. We’ll start with William, who was born in Liverpool in 1836 to Thomas and Maria Oldroyd. Thomas and Maria are slight mysteries themselves as we haven’t been able to find their marriage details or dates of birth. William was their second to last child – three girls and a boy preceded him, and a boy followed – and both father Thomas and little brother Thomas died in 1840 and were buried at Christ Church in a location unknown. Maria, whatever her name, was a Tod lass by birth, and in 1841 she and her children were living at Brook Street with Maria’s occupation being “Ind” which presumably meant independent means of some sort. By 1851 she was taking in lodgers to support herself and the children, with there being more lodgers than Oldroyds. William and his sisters (brother Henry had since passed away) were all working as power loom weavers. But the sisters married and moved out, and Maria and Thomas were left living at the Mechanics Insitute in 1861 next door to the Haighs, who had been their former lodgers, and Eliza Fielden and her niece Sarah.
Was this the link between him and his future wife Ann? Ann Fielden, as she was known first, was also born in 1836 but in Todmorden instead, to William and Sarah (Greenwoood) Fielden of Shade. William was a saddler and good at his job, becoming a master saddler by 1861 and having two men in his employ. Ann grew up working, finding it as a throstle spinner in 1851 and cotton weaver in 1861. In 1861 there was also her nephew, Sidney, her brother Sam’s son. Sidney would hold a special place in her heart for the rest of her life. But in 1865 she wasn’t considering Sidney’s place in her future, only her own, because this was the year she and William married.
Shortly after their marriage William, for reasons known only to himself, decided to change careers and become a fishmonger. And not just a man who sells fish for someone else, but a businessman. The Oldroyds left Todmorden for Heywood, where he took over the running of the Scarborough Fish House and announced his SALMON! SALMON!! SALMON!!! business accordingly.
William and Ann were the right age to be having a family when they married, but for reasons unknown they never seem to have had any luck there. Perhaps that’s why Sidney became so important to her. The business grew meanwhile, William adding game to his offer, but by 1873 for whatever reason he had grown tired of Heywood (or it had grown tired of him) and he sold the business to his brother in law Robert Barker and moved along to Bury. He was still a fish dealer but there were no more fancy advertisements. Also Ann’s mother Sarah moved in with them at this point, or at least was there in 1881. William Fielden had died in 1877 and Ann was by no means the closest child, but maybe she was the favourite. Or maybe she was lonely.
By 1891 Sarah had gone back to Todmorden to live with her granddaughter Margaret and her family, and William and Ann were in Blackpool, the best place of course to retire to. What they were doing isn’t clear – neither has an occupation on the census – and their home, 40 George Street, is no more. There’s a Sainsbury’s in its place now so we can’t get a clue about the size or value of it. They had two visitors, Martha Hardman and her son Percy, and that’s all we know. No more newspaper mentions now until his death, and even then, no mention in the Todmorden newspapers. But he was buried here in this plot in 1900 when he died at the age of 64.
Ann now moved back to Heywood, to Gorsey Hill Street, which again is now heavily populated with newer builds and has little trace of what might have been there before. She lived alone, no lodgers or visitors of any kind. Her health began to fail her though and she came back to Todmorden to be near her family. She lodged with Sam and Susey Farrar (of V13.7) at 156 Burnley Road, and it was there that she died in 1905 from a cerebral hemmorhage or stroke. The probate records finally can help us picture the couple’s retirement; William left Ann about £890 when he died, and Ann’s estate was £1131. Her executors were Sidney and her brother James, who had done very well for himself and become a professor of music.
Perhaps part of her final wishes were that this burial plot be shared amongst the family, or that others be allowed to be buried here. Shame we can’t find this out, because oh boy, we have a mystery on our hands with the next two people into this grave.
Willie and Olive Marshall: The Webster/Marshall alliance is a more recent one than that of the Fielden/Oldroyds. Olive Webster was the first of the pair to be born. She was born in September 1876, six months after her parents William and Mary Ann (Barker) were wed. She wasn’t their first child together – she had an older sister, Ann, who had been born in 1873. William was an overlooker at a cotton mill, likely Ridgefoot as he had already been living at Mount Pleasant and the Websters ended up settling in at Doghouse and Ridge Bank for the long term. Two brothers and two sisters followed and by 1891 there were eight people in the house at Mount Pleasant. Not that Olive would notice a lot of the time, as she was at work as a factory operative. Sometime in the 1890s she met Willie Marshall, and the couple had their first child, Ada, a month before their marriage, as was something of a family tradition now (on both sides!)
Willie Marshall was born in 1878 to parents Sam and Sarah Ellen (Sager). He was the third of four children and the only son. We said illegitimacy was a family tradition on both sides because Sarah Ellen was herself illegitimate; her father was reputed to be a James Butterworth but her mother Anne and he never married. Sam Marshall was a fire beater who lived at Springside, now the outer edges of Lob Mill/Eastwood, but by 1891 the family had moved nearer to the centre and settled at Key Sike Lane. Willie was then twelve, and still at school it seems, or at least not working at any one occupation. He would become a cut-looker by the time he and Olive married, which is an interesting role. The cut looker basically looks at cuts of cloth…hence the name…and was tasked with identifying flaws with the fabric. A high pressure job in its way, since selling inferior cloth wouldn’t be good for business. He must have also had exceptionally good eyes.
Incidentally, the appearance of a William Fielden as a witness to their marriage is the only time a surname presents itself as overlapping with anyone in these two families. It isn’t Ann’s father as he was dead by 1877, and she didn’t have any brothers named William…so who knows.
As we read in Ada and Kathleen’s stories, the Marshalls had quite a few children. They started married life living with Olive’s parents and younger sisters at Ridge Bank but would later move down the road to Back Pleasant View. Perhaps for financial reasons Willie also left his job looking at cloth and became first a general labourer and then an iron foundry worker. He’d have known the work from his father’s employment and given the strain it puts on the body you’d hope it paid better. By 1936 at the latest the Marshalls had moved along to 10 Barker Street at Harley Bank. These were also back to backs and would have been tight quarters, but the sons were all marrying and moving out apace so things eased up. Willie and Olive led quiet lives and rarely made the news, although Willie especially would be hard to pin down due to his common name. It’s frustrating trying to figure it out, and perhaps a clue lies there somewhere, but given the little chronological or locational overlap between these couples who knows.
Come 1939 and Willie was still working as a machine labourer, and the Register adds the annotation “heavy worker”. He must have been healthy and strong to still be doing so aged 61! The Register also reveals a detail we missed the first time around, which is that Olive and Ada shared a birthday – September 13th.
Time passed and the 1950s, as we’ve seen, brought a few deaths to the Marshall family. Willie died in 1954 and Olive in 1958, and both were laid to rest here for reasons which we again cannot work out. The lettering on the cross here is consistent across the two sides, so it could be that the cross was put up after 1958; or someone made sure that the Marshalls didn’t look out of place. If you know anything about this strange plot then do let us know, because an unsolved mystery is the worst kind.
Editor’s note, again: Olive Webster had a sister, Ann Barker Webster. She married William Fielden of 108 Rochdale Road, who was the son of Thomas Fielden and Esther Crossley. Thomas’s sister Ann is our Ann Fielden here. Mystery solved!
Pingback:43.56 and 43.57 – Thomas and Esther Fielden and family – F.O.C.C.T.