There are two names on this stone, a father, and his son, but only the father is actually in the grave. His son, Peter who is named died at sea, so has no known grave, which is why he is remembered here.
The sole occupant of the grave, James Stuttard, was born in Oldham in 1854, the son of Peter Stuttard, a warp sizer and his wife Grace (nee Heap). In the 1871 census James was still living at home and was also a warp sizer. He probably moved to Todmorden when his elder brother, Matthew acquired Copperas House Mill in 1879 as in the 1881 census he was living at Gauxholme and was working as a warp sizer.
On the 1st November 1882 James married Ida Zipporah King Farrar at St. James’s Church, Hebden Bridge. You can learn more about her earlier life if you read the story of her parents, Howorth and Amelia Farrar. The couple set up home at Watty Hole and between 1884 and 1889 welcomed four children, Rupert, Amelia, Peter, and Albert. In 1889, his brother’s company, Matthew Stuttard and sons (Warp Sizers and Cotton Spinners) was set up as a Limited Company and James became one of the Directors. At this time Matthew Stuttard and sons had four mills, one of which was Knowlwood Mill. There were two other mills in Whitworth and one in Rochdale.
James was also prominent in Todmorden society, he was one of the Vice Presidents of the Horticultural and Floral Society and in 1884 was elected as one of the Overseers of the Poor.
James and Ida can’t be found on the 1891 census in Todmorden so maybe they had already moved to the Isle of Man by then. (Two of their children were in Todmorden, Peter was staying with his Uncle Willie Stuttard and Amelia was staying with friends in Walsden). The next time James appears in any records is when he died on the Isle of Man on the 27th of December 1897. He was buried at Christ Church on the 31st December 1897. Probate records show that he left £6756 to his wife, Ida Zipporah. (£6,756 in 1897 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £1,100,479.61 today)
The other person named on the grave is James and Ida’s son, Peter King Stuttard. Peter was born on the 27th February 1887 at Watty Hole and baptised at Knowlwood Chapel on the April 30th 1887. After his father’s death his mother returned to England and in 1901 Peter, his sister Amelia and their mother were living in Ribby with Wrea, Fylde. In May 1905, aged just 18, Peter sailed from Liverpool to Quebec on the steamship SS Southwark. The passenger list gives the information that his destination was Toronto. He didn’t stay in Toronto and returned to England, only to set off on his travels again in 1909 when he sailed on the SS Mauretania, going to New York.
In April 1915 Peter married a first generation Canadian, Bessie Barker, in Calgary. Six months later he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces and was sent to France in 1916, serving as a Sapper with the Canadian Engineers. After the war he returned to Canada and in 1921 he and Bessie were living in Alberta, where Peter was a farmer, working for himself. By 1931 Peter’s circumstances had changed and he and Bessie were living in British Columbia, where Peter was a cook in a lumber camp. They didn’t have any children.
In 1938 Peter was on a ship travelling from Vancouver to Hull when he fell overboard and drowned. This is from Canadian newspaper The Vancouver Sun, April 11th 1938: “STUTTARD–On March 17, 1938, washed overboard and drowned whilst on passage from Vancouver Island to Hull, England. Peter K. Stuttard, aged 51. Late of Port Alberni, B. C. Served in France with 9th Battalion Canadian Engineers. Survived by his wife, Mrs. Bessie Stuttard c/o Mrs. Barker, 104 Rochdale Road, Halifax, Yorks, England, also mother, sister and one brother in England.”‘
So, that’s the story of the two people named on this gravestone and you’d think the story would end there, but there is a twist in the tale – and maybe, just maybe, there should be another name on the stone.
James and Ida’s eldest son was Rupert Harvey Stuttard. He was born on the 30th April 1884 at Watty House and baptised at Knowlwood Chapel on the 29th November 1884. Rupert’s early life is something of a mystery as he doesn’t appear on any UK census and the only record of him after his baptism is a record of him being a pupil at a school in York, Elmfield College, in 1895.
A tree on Ancestry (without any sources to verify it) says that Rupert arrived in Canada in 1908. Unfortunately, there aren’t any records showing when he travelled or when he arrived in Canada. However, we do know he was in Canada in 1909 as on the 24th May 1909 Rupert married Pansy May Miller in British Columbia, Canada. He gave his occupation as Captain, but there isn’t any further explanation. An article about his wife, Pansy May, states he was a former Royal Navy veteran (no records exist showing him in the Royal Navy at any time) who with his wife ran a tugboat/steamer company.
In 1919 Rupert became an American citizen and the following year, 1920, he and his wife, Pansy May, divorced on the grounds of incompatibility. We haven’t found any records to verify this but have to assume it happened because the following year, 1921, he married again, in Oregon, to Elizabeth Porter (confusingly they seem to have married again in January 1922 in Seattle). Both his wives were interesting characters who followed the same line of illegal activities – bootlegging.
1926 was an important year in Rupert’s life. Records show him and his wife, Elizabeth, living in Everett, Washington. Sometime that year Rupert received a prison sentence of 5 months 12 days for an unknown offence from the court of Snohomish, Washington. Then, in July 1926, Rupert drowned, whilst sailing from Everett to Vancouver – or did he?
Newspaper reports from the time say that Rupert (who the papers give the title of ‘Captain Bob’ to) left his home on the 12th July 1926, having withdrawn their savings from the bank, telling his wife that he was going to sail to Vancouver and buy a boat. Several days later, a sailboat described as “similar to the one he was buying” was found drifting upside down. Rupert was assumed to have drowned and was never heard from again. One of the newspapers reports has the headline “Foul Play in Sea Mystery”.
So, why isn’t Rupert’s name on the gravestone, like his brother’s is? Possibly because his mother obviously knew her son, questioned whether or not he had drowned and had possibly faked his own death. There are reasons to think that may have been the case. His first wife, Pansy May, has had a book and newspaper articles written about her and from these articles we’ve been able to glean a little more information. She and Rupert were involved in bootlegging (an offence his second wife was imprisoned for) they ran a tug boat freight company (presumably where Rupert acquired the title ‘Captain’) and they also ran a brothel called the ‘Blind Pigs Inn’. We know Rupert was convicted of a crime in 1926, was it an opportune time for him to vanish?
We know his mother wasn’t certain he’d drowned because when she died, in 1943, she left him money in her will, and directed her solicitors to insert an advert in The Times and the News of the World asking for people with any information about him to contact them. To the best of our knowledge, he didn’t come forward – but there could be various reasons for this. He may not have seen the advert, it was only published in English papers, he may have assumed another identity and wanted to protect that identity, or he may actually have died!
In the meantime Ida Zipporah King Farrar, later Studdard, lastly Barker, was buried with her second husband and his family on her death in 1943. This went counter to what often happened at Christ Church, which was husbands and wives buried with their first partner and any dead children rather than with the second partner. Both James and Peter predeceased her…so why isn’t she here?
Mysteries, mysteries!