Christ Church graveyard has a number of unknown graves where the occupant is shown in the burial books but their final resting place is unknown. These are four people whose grave is unknown, we can’t be sure if they are buried together in the same grave, but it’s possible because they are all related.
The first of these 4 burials was William Hopwood who was born in Lancashire in about 1773. Information about him is sparse. We know his wife was Mary (possibly Mary Evans) and they had one son. If they had more children, then we have been unable to find them. Their son Nicholas was born in Little Marsden in 1822. His baptism record shows us that at that time his father was a stone mason by trade.
William and Nicholas moved to Todmorden sometime between 1841 and 1848. Mary Hopwood, wife of William and mother of Nicholas, died in 1838 in Little Marsden and is buried there and William and Nicholas are shown as living in Little Marsden in 1841, when both were working as weavers. Nicholas married Elizabeth Crowther at St Chad’s on the 21st April 1848 and stated he was living in Todmorden.
William Hopwood died at Wadsworth Mill in 1851, and was buried at Christ Church on the 15th March. The 1851 census, taken a fortnight later shows Nicholas and Elizabeth living at Wadsworth Mill so it looks as if he was probably living with them. Nicholas was a warehouseman and Elizabeth worked in a silk card room.
Nicholas and Elizabeth had 5 children . their first child, Charles, was born in 1859 sadly he didn’t live for long and died at two weeks old from convulsions. Their second son, William Edgar, was born in 1860, followed by Mary, born in 1862, John who was born in 1864 (and sadly also died at a young age from rubella and pneumonia in 1866), and Cate born 1866. John is buried at Christ Church, presumably with his grandfather, but we have been unable to find where Charles is buried. Could he also be at Christ Church but was omitted from the burial register?
Nicholas had a few jobs and the family seem to have lived in a few different houses. On his first son’s death certificate he stated he was a greengrocer and they were living at Waterloo, in 1861 the family were living in Union Street and his occupation was Lodge keeper. In 1866 when his son John died the family were living in Temperance Street, and he was a Lodge Keeper at a cotton factory. In 1871 the family, plus Elizabeth’s brother, Eli, were living at Longfield East and he was once again a weaver. He died on the 30th July 1873 at Longfield East and was buried at Christ Church on the 2nd August 1873.
Elizabeth, his wife, was left with three children to bring up, but she was well accustomed to hardship in life. She was the 7th of the 8 children (and the only daughter) of Philip Crowther, a shoemaker, and former soldier and his wife Catherine (nee O’Neill) . She and her brothers had a fairly nomadic childhood and moved frequently due to the fact that her mother was Irish and wasn’t accepted by the people of Todmorden (the non-acceptance included Philip’s family). The children of the family were ostracised too and had stones thrown at them by other children. Elizabeth was about 10 and her brother Eli barely in his teens, when their father disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
Philip Crowther had left his home at Howroyd to join the Army, the 34th Foot Regiment, when he was a young man in the early1800s. He was discharged from his barracks in Ireland (where he met his wife) in 1817 as a pensioner. His pension was paid quarterly and he used to walk from Todmorden to Rochdale to collect it. The last time he collected his pension he didn’t return home. At the time the Summit Tunnel was being built and about 20 years later one of the former navvies confessed that he and another navvy had killed Philip for his pension and buried his body. The exact date of his death is unknown (1838 to 1840) but Elizabeth was orphaned when she was about 14 when her mother died in 1844.
After her mother’s death Elizabeth may have become the housekeeper for her brothers but this is just supposition. Three of her brothers had died, two had married and left home, and just two, Eli and Edwin were still at home. She was only 18 when she married (though the marriage register shows her as full age) and by the time her first child was born her brother Eli was the only one left in Todmorden, the others having left to live in America.
Maybe Eli Crowther known locally as Eli O’Philip’s was the one most affected by his father’s disappearance. He was a stone cutter by trade and seems to have been in trouble for most of his adult life. At the age of 20 he was sent to prison for housebreaking and this was followed by many other prison sentences. He did join the army at one point, perhaps to try and get his life in order, but he doesn’t seem to have been a successful soldier as he was court martialled in 1851 a couple of times, once for abusive language and then for absence and kicking a corporal. He married whilst he was serving in Ireland but his wife never lived in Todmorden with him and there is no mention of her after the marriage. There are a number of newspaper reports about his misdemeanours but one sums him up quite well. In May 1862 it was reported in the paper that when he was given a fine of 10 shillings or, in default, a prison sentence of 2 months for assault he replied ”Thank you. I can manage that lot. I have been 5 times at the New Bailey, 4 times at Wakefield, and been whipped once”.
In January 1879 Eli was admitted to Gauxholme workhouse. He discharged himself the following month – perhaps before they kicked him out! His discharge document states that his character and behaviour was ”very bad”.
Eli died on the 4th October 1880 at Speak’s Lodging House, Shade, and he was buried at Christ Church on the 6th October.
Three years after his death Elizabeth (Crowther) Hopwood (above), his sister, with her three children and her son in law emigrated to America to join her brothers.
More information about the Crowthers can be found in the transcript of this letter, which Researcher Sally was good enough to type up for us!