Brampton Parish Hall Roll of Honour, Cortonwood War Memorial and a Name Listed Twice in the Same Census

I am continuing my research into the men named on the Roll of Honour (RoH) at Brampton Parish Hall. A recent contact with a retired member of the Parish Council did not really shed any light on its provenance but we have agreed to meet face to face along with an interested local historian to see if we can work it out.  My contact was under the impression that the Roll of Honour was a forerunner to the 'Cortonwood Cenotaph' as he called the memorial now situated outside the Parish Hall. However of the 100 men named on the Brampton Parish Hall RoH (I will continue to call it this for now, but the current Parish Hall is not old enough to have been the original home of the document) only 58 men (including some possibilities with common surnames) are listed on the massive Cortonwood memorial. 

Cortonwood Colliery war memorial and memorial to the Colliery 1873 to 1985.
The Parish Hall is the low brick building behind on the right.

Cortonwood Colliery War Memorial

As a result of the current investigation I was prompted to complete a task that has been on my 'to do' list for some time. This was a transcription of the names of the men who served listed on the Cortonwood Colliery memorial, as only the names of the Fallen appear on the Barnsley War Memorials Project's page for the memorial. I started this as a Microsoft Word document but it soon became apparent that keeping my place amid the host of names as I typed required some kind of double checking system so I decided to lay it out in an Excel spreadsheet in columns as presented on the memorial. This way I could check the rows of names for accuracy as well as the columns. I did make a few mistakes, but the new system enabled me to spot them fairly quickly. 

Panel 4 of the Cortonwood memorial

There are four panels on the Cortonwood memorial. The first, for “Men of the Cortonwood Collieries who have Fallen During the War” lists 94 names and there are three for “Men Who Joined H.M. Forces from the Cortonwood Collieries”.  The second panel lists 162 names, mainly surnames A to Gr, the third lists 165 names, mainly surnames Go to Po, and the fourth 171 names, mainly surnames Pl to Wo.  I say mainly because the names are not in a completely alphabetical order and at the end of each panel are a number of names obviously added later and from across the alphabet. The final panel in particular lists, at its foot, 33 names that are totally out of order. This gives a grand total of 592 names.  I was able to use the Find facility in Excel to search these names in my new spreadsheet for each of the men named on the Brampton Parish Hall RoH.  

The Cortonwood memorial lists initials and surname only.  The Brampton Parish Hall RoH gives most, but not all, of the men's forenames in full.  This makes it easier for me to research them, but means that a tally between the two memorials is, in the cases of common surnames, a matter of some guesswork. Roughly 12 of the 16 men who fell who are named on the Brampton Parish Hall RoH are also named on the 'Fallen' panel of the Cortonwood memorial. Roughly 46 of the remaining 84 men named on the Brampton Parish Hall RoH are listed as 'Men who Joined' on the Cortonwood memorial. Therefore just under half the names on the Brampton Parish Hall RoH are NOT listed on the Cortonwood memorial. The 4 fallen men who not included on Cortonwood's memorial are all listed on memorials in Wombwell - but so are a number of the men who ARE listed on the Cortonwood memorial.  It is very complicated!

As a result of this analysis I am fairly sure that this RoH was NOT a forerunner to the 'Cortonwood Cenotaph' as my contact suggested.  Further research necessary!

Fred Kelham - Named Twice in the 1901 Census

Returning to investigating the individual names on the Brampton Parish Hall RoH I was fascinated to see an example of a person (actually one man who was named and his younger brother) being enumerated twice in the same census.  I have looked at a lot of census returns over the past 30 years and this is not a common occurrence.

Four names from the Brampton Parish Hall RoH

Fred Kelham is clearly named on the Brampton Parish Hall RoH (see right).  It is an unusual name and I hadn't expected much difficulty finding him in the census returns.  Fred is also named on Cortonwood Colliery war memorial, the Roll of Honour in Christ Church Brampton and the Wath Wesleyan Church memorial tablet.  He survived the war.

The image above, including Fred's name, shows an example of the damaged state of the Brampton Parish Hall RoH.  There is a tear, maybe on an old fold, right across the lower third, and a flake of paper has been lost obscuring part of one surname.  There is a lot more flaking damage around the edges of the document and a dark stain on the lower left (see the photo on this other post).

When I searched for Fred in the 1911 census on Ancestry I did not find him immediately. It later transpired that the family had been transcribed as Kelhan, rather than Kelham. My secondary strategy was to search the 1901 census with similar search parameters, birth 1892 +/- 10 years, living in the Wombwell area. This is where it got confusing. 

1901 census for 6 Concrete, Wombwell, in the Parish of Brampton Bierlow

I found a possible candidate, Fred Kelham, aged 6, living at 6 Concrete Cottages (described in my previous post) in Wombwell with his younger brother, William aged 5 and their grandparents, William and Elizabeth who had both been born in Sudbrook, Lincolnshire. The boys had been transcribed by Ancestry as the sons of John W. Kelham, aged 28, who was in turn the son of William. John was the third listed occupant of the property.  As John was described as 'S' for single it seemed a bit strange that the two boys were his sons. If he had been a 'W' for widower I would probably have thought no more about it, as it was common for widowed young men to return to their parents' homes for assistance with childcare. John W Kelham was described as being born in Barnsley, whilst Fred and little William were described as having been born in West Melton.

1901 census for 55 Castle Avenue, Rotherham

There was a second hit in the 1901 census for a Fred Kelham of the same age, but this time in Rotherham at 55 Castle Avenue.  This address is about 1.5 miles south of Rotherham town centre in an area called Canklow. This second Fred Kelham, who was described as having been born in Wombwell, was living with his parents Fred snr and Bessie along with younger brother William aged 5 and younger sisters Daisy aged 2 and Ethel aged 1. There is a distance of about 8 miles between the addresses for the two Fred Kelham hits. The co-incidence of a brother called William in Rotherham also the same age as the one found in Concrete Cottages was sufficiently interesting to keep me poking around to try to find an answer.

With Fred only being 6 years old in 1901 the only other option was to look for him again in the 1911 census, as he would not have been born at the time of the 1891 census.  With the additional family information from the 1901 census Fred snr, Bessie and their children, starting with Fred, William, Daisy and Ethel, were much easier to find in the 1911 census.

1911 census for 4 Concrete Cottages, Wombwell

The address for the family was 4 Concrete Buildings or Cottages, Wombwell. The addresses vary between the actual schedule, which states Buildings and the schedule's cover sheet which states Cottages. This may reflect a different understanding of the address by the occupier, William Kelham and the census enumerator who distributed and collected the schedules. William and Elizabeth had been living at 6 Concrete Cottages in 1901 but they were no longer at that address in 1911. This entry is the only hit for the combination of Kelham family forenames and ages, adding some corroboration to the theory that the boys Fred and William were enumerated twice in 1901. Examining this entry it is not surprising that Ancestry transcribed the family surname as Kelhan, the final letter of the surname is unclear.

As we now know that Fred snr and Bessie married in 1894 (this year is just visible in column 6, completed years of marriage, but has been over written with 17, the correct format for that field), it was quite straightforward to find a record of their marriage in the indexes. Fred Kelham married Bessie Drew in the first quarter of 1894 in the Rotherham Registration District which includes Brampton. There is no sign of a parish record for their marriage on Ancestry or Find My Past, which suggests they may have married in the local Register Office. In 1911 a John H Drew aged 41 is listed as a visitor on Fred and Bessie's census return, could this be Bessie's brother?  Their birthplaces are both given as Crediton, Devon, so it seems likely.

The probable reason for grandparents William and Elizabeth's absence from 6 Concrete Cottages is that William Kelham snr, who had been enumerated as 68 years old in March 1901, appears to have died in the fourth quarter of 1901 in the Rotherham Registration District.  A William Kelham was buried at Christ Church in Brampton, aged 66 from 58 Concrete Row on 22 December 1901. Despite the slight difference in ages and address it is very likely that this is Fred jnr's grandfather as there are very few families named Kelham in the area.

I was able to find Elizabeth Kelham in the 1911 census, aged 74, in the household of her son John William Kelham aged 38, the same John W Kelham who had been living with William and Elizabeth in 1901. Their 1911 address is 24 Gower Street, Wombwell, less than a mile from the Concrete Cottages. The Elizabeth Kelham who dies in the fourth quarter of 1920 aged 83, in the Barnsley Registration District is probably Fred's grandmother as this age fits with the age given for her in 1911. I imagine William's death in late 1901 could have prompted the return of Fred jnr and little William to their parents as their elderly grand-mother would now have been entirely dependent on her son John for support.

Note that in April 1911 Fred snr and Bessie have 6 children living with them and in the marriage information fields they state that 11 children had been born to them in 17 years of marriage, 5 of whom had died prior to the 1911 census. Bessie had borne at least 4 children by 1901, possibly more, if some of 5 deceased children were born and died between Fred jnr, William, Daisy and Ethel. She may have been pregnant again in March 1901.  

Further research could be done on this question by using the General Register Office (GRO) online birth indexes which now give mother's maiden name for the period 1837 to 1920 (updated each year to include the last 100 years). A search for Kelham births with mother's maiden name Drew should result in a list of Fred and Bessie's children, although still born children were registered differently and any early miscarriages may not have been recorded at all by anyone but Fred and Bessie themselves. The pressure of continual pregnancy and small children to care for may explain why grandparents, William and Elizabeth, are caring for Fred jnr and little William in 1901. 

The reason for the double enumeration may have been that Fred and Bessie interpreted the instructions of the enumerator to mean that they should list all the members of their family. William and Elizabeth included Fred jnr and little William on their schedule because they spent the night of the census in their house, which is the correct interpretation. 

Fred and Bessie Kelham's family - did she really have 11 children?

Fred jnr was baptised at Christ Church, Brampton on 5 August 1894, at the most seven months after Fred and Bessie's marriage. As only the quarter date of their marriage is known for certain they could have married at any time in January to March 1894. The fact that Bessie was already pregnant with Fred jnr is another reason they may have chosen a Register Office wedding. It would have avoided calling the banns in the local church and kept the actual date of the wedding out of the public eye. The address given at Fred jnr's baptism is simply 'Concrete'. Of the six children in the 1911 census with Fred snr and Bessie all were born at 'Concrete' except Ethel who was born in Rotherham in about 1900, which fits nicely with the 1901 census information. There is a gap between Ethel and the next surviving child Elizabeth, who was born about 1908 at 'Concrete' so it is difficult to say exactly when the family returned to Brampton/Wombwell from Rotherham. 

A search for children born to surname Kelham, mother's maiden name Drew between 1894 and 1915 was carried out on the General Register Office (GRO) site.  Despite Fred and Bessie declaring a total of 11 children up to 1911 the search only produced 8 birth registrations.  As Rotherham Registration District (RD) includes Brampton and Canklow this information doesn't assist in working out when Fred and Bessie moved to and from Concrete Cottages. The birth of Jim Kelham in 1905 in Barnsley RD is the only variation.

Fred Kelham born Q2 1894 in Rotherham RD

William Kelham born Q3 1895 in Rotherham RD

John Kelham born Q1 1897 in Rotherham RD

Daisy Amelia Kelham born Q3 1898 in Rotherham RD

Ethel Kelham born Q1 1900 in Rotherham RD

Jim Kelham born Q3 1905 in Barnsley RD

Elizabeth Kelham born Q1 1908 in Rotherham RD

Emily Kelham born Q4 in Rotherham RD 

A search of the burials at Christ Church, Brampton on Find My Past (FMP) revealed a burial for one of these children. 

John Kelham [Abode] Concrete [When Buried] 3rd July 1897 [Age] 6 months

This must be John born Q1 1897.  Concrete will be the Concrete Cottages, which lie in the Civil Parish of Brampton, in Rotherham RD, despite the enumerator and the householders (in 1911) all adding Wombwell to the address.  Burials at Brampton are only listed by FMP between 1855 and 1911 and this is the only relevant Kelham burial.  If there are other Kelham family graves at Christ Church the information will be in the parish registers, which are apparently not in the collection at Doncaster Archives.  The later burial register(s) may still be in the possession of the church.  This burial does suggest that Fred and Bessie were still living in the Concrete Cottages in mid 1897.

A search of burials in Wombwell Cemetery (the Dearne Memorials Group's Barnsley Cemeteries Project provides a search facility, but full results require a small payment) uncovered a burial which fits with the children found above.

KELHAM    Jim    [Burial plot] Con 9    4117    [Date of Death] 16-4-1906  [Date of burial]   18-4-1906 [Age]   9mths   [Place of Death]     14 Gower Street, Wombwell

This must be the child born Q3 1905 in Barnsley RD. So was Gower Street in Barnsley RD? It was only one mile away from the Concrete Cottages. UKBMD provide a downloadable index places in Registration Districts, and sure enough Wombwell was in the Barnsley RD between 1850 and 1938, whereas Brampton (also known as Brampton Bierlow) was in Rotherham from 1837 to 1938.  'Con' in the entry above means Consecrated.

There was another Kelham burial from the same address:

KELHAM    Infant    U/C    CPG    no entry    25-3-1904    Stillborn        14 Gower Street, Wombwell

Stillborn children were not registered in the same way as live births until 1926, which is why there is no correlating entry for this child in the GRO index.  In the entry above U/C means Unconsecrated and CPG means Children's Public Grave. 

Assuming this stillborn child was born to Fred and Bessie Kelham that brings the total number of children found to nine.  The problem here is that the instructions on the 1911 census say to only declare children 'Born Alive', so stillborn children and miscarriages, which the couple may have thought ought to count, should not have been declared.  This burial entry also suggests that Fred and Bessie have returned from Rotherham by early 1904.

A search of deaths on the GRO site between 1894 (when Fred and Bessie married) and 1925 revealed a little more relevant information. 

The early death of another of their children.

Name:     Age at Death (in years):

KELHAM, DAISY  AMELIA       14 
GRO Reference: 1913  M Quarter in ROTHERHAM  Volume 09C  Page 1012 

And the deaths of Fred Kelham snr and his wife Bessie.

KELHAM, FRED         55 
GRO Reference: 1925  M Quarter in ROTHERHAM  Volume 09C  Page 850

KELHAM, BESSIE         65 
GRO Reference: 1932  M Quarter in ROTHERHAM  Volume 09C  Page 926

None of the three above deaths correspond to burials at Wombwell cemetery.  The spreadsheet which I have access to contains entries into the 2000s.  This suggests that the family moved out of Gower Street at some point before Daisy died in 1913.

This brings the family of Fred and Bessie Kelham to a conclusion. This section has been a very interesting puzzle to solve and gives a clear insight into some particular challenges, mobility, fertility, frequent childbirth and infant deaths, faced by working class families, especially women, at the turn of the century.

This story began with Fred Kelham jnr's name on the Brampton Parish Hall Roll of Honour. His story continues, but will have to wait for another day.  In a tiny sneak preview I can reveal that Fred jnr's Army Service records his father's address (as his next of kin) as 15 Hoober Street, West Melton in 1915 and 1919.  So the family did move again, and back into the Rotherham RD, maybe to the address at which Daisy died in 1913.   

Thank you for reading.

Acknowledgments

Photos of the Cortonwood war memorial by Nigel Croft 8 February 2014.

Photos of the RoH at Brampton Parish Hall by Andrew Taylor on 2 February 2020.

Census images from Ancestry. 

Census and Parish Register information from Ancestry, Find My Past and FreeBMD.

Carlton War Memorial and CAMRA pubs - a photographic expedition

Yesterday afternoon we (the OH and I) went out for a circular tour of Barnsley in the car.  He needed to take some photographs of pubs for the forthcoming issue of the Barnsley Ale Report (The Bar) which he edits for the Barnsley Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.  The magazine comes out quarterly - the perennial problem of trying to get advertising and the lack of 'copy' from contributors just got too much for the branch a few years ago and the frequency had to be reduced from six copies a year to four but the couple of weeks before the magazine go to print are still a bit fraught in our house(s).


A 1920s map showing part of our photographic expedition (from National Library of Scotland)

I was going along for the ride and I had my own agenda too!  If he had to go to A, B and C for photos of pubs and we passed W, X, Y and Z on the way then I could get some pictures of War Memorials to add to my project! Honestly, it won't take us out of the way, hardly at all!  The OH needed a photo from Brierley on the right of the above map snip and from Mapplewell on the left - so we had to go through Carlton and Royston ... 

Just look at all the railway stations on this 1920s map, Grimethorpe, Staincross,  Notton & Royston and Cudworth's is just off the map at the bottom and Darton (which is the only one remaining) off at the left. No wonder there are so many Station Roads dotted about this area, once upon a time they would have each led to the local railway stations.  I can see at least three collieries as well - no make that four, there's a little Colly noted just under Mapplewell.  I'm still new to the Barnsley area, I've lived here ten years now but there's still so much to take in and lots and lots of history to find out about.  Old maps like the Bartholomew Series on the National Library of Scotland's website are a great way of seeing how places fitted together in the past

I ended up taking 71 photographs in total of five different memorials.  They were all the kind which stand in churchyards - I had been able to find good general images online especially on a website that specialises in Second World War research but what I needed was clear photographs of the names and inscriptions on the monuments.  Happily the OH didn't mind his quick trip out for a few pictures taking twice as long - and he took some extra photos too, of me taking photos!

Barnsley Chronicle 7 Aug 1920

I found a good piece in the digitised Barnsley Chronicle last week relating the unveiling of the War Memorial at St John's church in Carlton, a small village about three miles north east of Barnsley town centre.  The item was published on Friday 7 Aug 1920 and states that the memorial was unveiled the previous Tuesday. 

The article records the sentiment that I am finding underlies a lot of the planning for commemoration in Barnsley after the First World War - the community was split as what kind of memorial would be suitable, "At first when the idea was mooted in the village petty jealousies were aroused as to what form the Memorial should take and where it should be erected ..."

I have found that some villages preferred the option of a public park or cottage hospital or homes for disabled soldiers.  As I am still only beginning my research it will be interesting to see how many of these alternative proposals were carried through as the standard monumental style of war memorial seems fairly common around the area. 

As you can see from the snip above the people of Carlton were won over to the idea of a "magnificent Cruxifix in Carlton Churchyard" and it further claims that "practically every resident in the village - man, woman and child" contributed to the £400 cost.  Converting money is always difficult as prices and expectations have changed so much over the years but that is over £8,000 in todays money according to the currency converter on the National Archives website.

War Memorial at St John's Church, Carlton, Barnsley

There are already pictures of the Carlton War Memorial and a transcription online on the Genuki website.  It has not been my intention to 'reinvent the wheel' at any point in my research, however it is very satisfying to go and actually see a memorial yourself rather than relying on other people's work.  Plus I wanted to add the memorial to the War Memorials Online website and I could not do that with someone else's photos.

There are 52 names inscribed on this memorial for men who lost their lives in the First World War and 20 for men from the Second World War.  The entry on War Memorials Online has now been created and has a short description of the monument and a list of the all the names.

A branch of the OH's family lived in Carlton at the end of the 19th and beginning of the twentieth centuries.  I have been able to link several of the names on this memorial to his family tree - they are not direct ancestors or even great uncles, but they are members of a large extended family.  Carlton would have been a very small village or even just a few farms before the pits opened in the middle of the 19th century but hundreds of men arrived there from all over the country, most notably Wales - see a piece in volume 2 of Aspects of Barnsley, pp.49-71, 'Welsh Community in Carlton and Smithies' by Melvyn Jones.  It is now almost contiguous with Athersley and Royston, the villages to either side as the green fields between have been filled up with housing estates and a big new school.

In my reading of the Royston book about the First World War, which I wrote about two days ago, I found a mention of a brother in law of the OH's great grandfather who lived in Carlton.  It seems to have been taken from the local newspapers so I have a note of the dates and will be looking that up on my next visit to Barnsley Archives!  Royston have their own War Memorial and I will be looking at my pictures of that next.

Step Migration - how one Jones family came to Carlton, Barnsley

Recently the Dialect Society held a talk in the new Experience Barnsley museum concerning the variations of dialect in Barnsley.  In the 19th century, as more and more coal mines  were sunk in the area, experienced miners moved to the Barnsley district from other parts of the country.  Their dialects of origin have had an effect on the development of local accents in villages like Royston, Carlton and Hemsworth.  My father in law could, apparently, tell which part of Barnsley a person was from just from the differences in their speech!

Carlton, Royston and Hemsworth in relation to Barnsley
(from National Library of Scotland)

The OH's 2x great grandmother, Annie Jones and her parents were some of these incomers, but they had followed a complicated migration route before settling in Carlton.  Given the complexity of their origins I wonder what accent they fetched to the mix?
 

Annie was born in Salford, Lancashire in 1871, after her parents Edward Jones and Martha Bailey had married in Pendlebury, Lancashire the previous year. Martha was a local girl, born in Pendlebury in 1843 but Edward, already an experienced coal miner, had arrived in the area sometime after 1861.  The census returns are invaluable sources for examining migration; they place people in firmly precise locations once every ten years, and by looking at the birthplaces of any children born to a couple between the censuses movements from place to place can be identified.

1871 census return for Engine Brow, Newtown, Worsley, Lancashire (from Ancestry)

The census snip above from 1871 gives just a snapshot of how people from many different places found themselves thrown together in Victorian England.  Engine Brow was a cluster of cottages built about 1850 near the cotton mill at the junction of Station Road and Bolton Road in Pendlebury.  By 1894, as the map snip below shows the cotton mill had gone but the cottages remained for a while longer vanishing along with the adjacent bleachworks in the 1930s.

1894 map snip of Newtown, Pendlebury (from Old Maps)

The head of this household in 1871 was Mary Bailey, aged 63, a widow, from Salford.  Mary and her by now deceased husband John had been recorded at Engine Brow in the two previous census returns, 1861 and 1851.  John had been a cotton dyer and his daughters had been employed as weavers and spinners in the mill.  By 1871 Edward Jones and his new wife Martha are living with her mother - at the bottom of the snip is little Annie aged just two months, yet Martha is still working in the mill as a weaver.  Her illegitimate daughter, Mary Ann Bailey, aged 7 is present too although the census listing is sufficiently vague that you might think Mary Ann was the Mary's daughter.  Intentional obtuseness when the enumerator asked his questions or just a confusion, who knows? Neither Edward nor Martha signed their names on their marriage certificate suggesting they were illiterate so they would not have filled out their own return.

Edward's place of birth is given as Staffordshire, although no town is specified.  The little cottage would have been very full, as living with the extended Bailey family are two boarders, the elderly Alice Rothwell, occupation 'Sick', who came from Bolton and Mary Hin from Ireland, a spinner, presumably at the cotton mill nearby.  Imagine the cacophony of accents in that household!

The 1881 census ten years later does identify Edward Jone's home town as Bilston in Staffordshire, so back tracking I was able to find his family in the 1861 and 1851 census returns.

1851 census for Fleet Street, Bilston, Staffordshire (from Ancestry)

Luckily Edward just appears on this 1851 census return at 8 months of age, for by the 1861 census his parents appear to have died and he and his brothers are living with his uncle.  However cross comparing the names of his siblings, and the maiden name of his mother gives me confidence that this is the correct family. 

The head of the household in 1851 is Charles Jones, aged 32 from Flint in North Wales, who married Elizabeth Maddox in Dudley, Staffordshire in 1842.  The three sons named in 1851, Thomas, Robert and Edward, plus additional siblings yet to be born Charles and Ann are living with Thomas Maddox, brother to Elizabeth in 1861.  As Ann is six years of age in 1861 their Welsh father Charles Jones must have lived long enough for the older boys to have absorbed some of his accent.  Moving to live with their uncle, a native of Bilston like their mother after their parents presumed deaths they might have lost this influence, but as Thomas's wife Rachel comes from Newport in Shropshire, yet another dialect thrown into the mix.

Edward and Martha visit Barnsley for long enough to have a son, Edward in Hoyle Mill in 1879, according to the 1881 census return - however on that return they are living in Stonebroom near Chesterfield in Derbyshire.  The family must return to Barnsley again in the next few years as Annie Jones marries Herbert Benson, himself an incomer from Thornhill in West Yorkshire, in Darton near Barnsley in 1890, however I can't find Edward and Martha in the 1891 census - are they in Barnsley or still in Derbyshire or somewhere else entirely? 

Annie's accent will have been a mixture of her mother's Mancunian, and her father's Welsh and Black Country - but she may well have felt right at home in Carlton, Barnsley as there was a large contingent of migrants from Wales, so much so that there was even a Welsh Chapel for many years.  Did this influence the settling of the family in Carlton?  We may never know, but that is where, after many years of travel Edward and Martha settled, having one last short lived son in 1901 and being buried together in nearby Royston cemetery.


Edward Jones's Gravestone in Royston Cemetery

Martha is sadly not remembered on Edward's stone, but their little son Albert is and a mysterious Thomas Cook James ... but that's a puzzle for another day!

The Mystery of the Missing Marriage - Matthew Bulmer and Harriett Glover

You would think that in these days of millions of genealogy records online, multiple transcriptions of the birth, marriage and death indexes and sprawling interconnecting global family trees that it would be fairly easy to find one marriage in Barnsley, especially when the time period in which it occurred is fairly narrow.  Well I can't, so the Bulmer/Glover marriage is another of my impenetrable brick walls.

Sometimes working these things out in a blog post has thrown up suggestions for further research, or pointed out irregularities in my previous logic, so Iet's give this brick wall a bashing and see what we get.

Matthew Bulmer (b.1822) was the OH's 3x great grandfather.  Like many of the OH's ancestors Matthew was an incomer to Barnsley in the early mid 19th century.  He was drawn to the town by the growing linen industry - an industry that many people underestimate for its influence on Barnsley's development.  It was huge ... Barnsley attracted thousands of workers leading to a massive explosion of housing in areas like Wilson's Piece on the southern edge of the town centre.  

1871 census for 30 Union Street, Barnsley (from Ancestry)

Matthew's birthplace, stated clearly on the census returns of 1851 to 1871, was Osmotherley in North Yorkshire, a place I had never heard of before seeing it on Matthew's census listings.  By 1871 Matthew was widowed and living at 30 Union Street, on the edge of the Wilson's Piece area, and he was still working as a Linen Hand Loom Weaver.  All his children were born in the Barnsley area, although as we can see from the census listing shown above the family did move around a little, two children were born in Gawber and one in Monk Bretton.  Three of his daughters are also working as Linen weavers and his son John is a Linen Warehouseman.  Of the working age children only Luke, aged 16 is working in another industry, he is a Colliery Labourer. 

Unfortunately for the family by 1871 hand loom weaving was not longer the prestigious trade it had been forty or fifty years previously.  Competition from mechanised looms in factories had driven down the value of the material produced by the weavers working in their own cellars and families found themselves reduced to hard times.  The best source I have found for detailed information on linen weaving in Barnsley is a thesis written by Kaijage (1975), see footnote.

However in the 1840s, when Matthew arrived in Barnsley, there was still a demand for the superior work of the handloom weavers, although it was beginning to decline.  It was normal for weavers to have other forms of support, such as a small plot of land for a farm.  This could be the reason that Matthew had tried living in Gawber and Monk Bretton.

1841 census for Back Lane, Osmotherley (from Ancestry)

We know Matthew had arrived in Barnsley before 1847 as his first daughter Elizabeth was born in Barnsley that year.  He is listed in the 1841 census still living in Back Lane, Osmotherley with his mother Mary, brother Luke and nephew Harry.  Matthew is listed as fifteen years old, however remember that in the 1841 census ages were rounded down to the nearest five years - Matthew was actually nineteen.  Both Matthew and his brother Luke are Linen Weavers.

Back Lane, Osmotherley - photo taken in 2005

We have visited Osmotherley several times, it is a pretty village, with a lot of original housing.  Walking through the village it is very easy to imagine it as it would have been 170 years ago.  The village website notes that a Linen Mill was built there at the end of the 18th century which led to its growth from a small farming community.  The buildings of Cote Ghyll mill are still standing and are now holiday accommodation.

Holiday Accommodation in an old linen mill (from the Cote Ghyll website)

It is seventy miles from Osmotherley to Barnsley, what made Matthew move, especially as he had employment locally?  His brother Luke is still working as a Hand Loom Linen Weaver in Osmotherley in the 1851 census.  Could it simply have been the prospect of becoming independent that drove Matthew to leave home, or was there a local downturn in trade?  Only further research will tell.  

1851 census for Nook, Barnsley (from Ancestry)

As I noted above Matthew's eldest daughter (that I know of) Elizabeth, was born in Barnsley in 1847.  Looking at the 1851 census return we see Matthew's wife is called Harriet and she was born in Barnsley too.  They have three children by 1851, Elizabeth, Mary and John.  I have been unable to find a marriage between a Matthew Bulmer and a Harriett in Barnsley. I have checked FreeBMD, Ancestry (in both the BMD indices and the West Yorkshire Parish records), Find My Past and Family Search. 

1853 birth certificate for Sarah Bulmer

Failing that I did send for Sarah Bulmer's birth certificate - Sarah is the OH's 2x great grandmother.  The certificate shows that Harriet's maiden name was Glover - but unfortunately this hasn't helped.  The same searches were carried out using Harriet's surname, just in case Bulmer had been transcribed incorrectly, but I still had no hits.



The FreeBMD entry showing two Bulmer births
(From FreeBMD)

The address of Sarah's birth is Nook, the same as the 1851 census - this was a small street in the town centre of Barnsley, later known as Gas Nook after a gasworks was built nearby. 
 The usual reason for showing a time on a birth certificate is to differentiate between twins and sure enough checking the Free BMD entry Jane Bulmer was listed on the same page as Sarah.

For some reason Matthew and Harriet did not have any of their children baptised until 1854, when they had five, Bessie (Elizabeth), Mary, John, Jane and Sarah done at the same time in St Mary's, Barnsley.

Because I can't find Matthew and Harriet's marriage, which would have given her father's name, I am also having trouble working out who Harriet's parents were.  The names of their children suggest her mother might have been an Elizabeth - but even this doesn't help as there are numerous Harriet's baptised in the Barnsley area between 1811 and 1831 ten years either side of her probable birth 1822 to 1824 (based on her ages in the 1851 and 1861 census returns) and several have a mother called Elizabeth.

Out of twelve children born to Matthew and Harriet, that I know of, only two die young - the others marry, although with most being girls the Bulmer name is not continued in Barnsley.

Harriet died in 1868 while the family were living in Union Street, where they still were in 1871 (see the first census return I have included above), Matthew died in 1879 and his address at burial was given as 34 Union Street.  They are interred in the same grave in Barnsley cemetery.  The family scatter after their parent's deaths.  John Bulmer goes to Bradford with his daughters and works in the worsted trade there.  Luke Bulmer has a short marriage in Barnsley but then moves away ending up in Hartlepool, Durham.

There is the possibility that Matthew and Harriet did not marry ... either of them may have married previously but unhappily, and thus could or would not marry each other bigamously.  Is the late batch baptism of their children a clue ... did they marry later due to some reason I have yet to discover and not baptise their children until afterwards? They may have married in a Non-Conformist chapel  (which seems unlikely given the baptism of the children in the Anglican church), but even then their marriage should have been entered into the Register Office records and made its way to the index.  There is a chance their marriage may turn up in the Barnsley Register Office, but without an entry in any of the indices I can't request it.  If the Barnsley Indexing Project resumes in the near future I could ask if anyone has seen it ...

Thank you for reading - I've spotted a bit of work I need to do with the baptisms and marriages of the Bulmer children, but I'm no nearer a solution to the missing marriage. 

Further Reading on the Linen Industry in Barnsley:

Kaijage, Fred J. (1975) Labouring Barnsley, 1816-1856 : a social and economic history. PhD thesis, University of Warwick. [online] Available at: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/34689/ [Accessed 7 Aug 2013]

Day's Croft, Monk Bretton, Barnsley - it's not there now, the ground's all flat ...

When I was little one of my favourite songs was the Hole in the Ground by Bernard Cribbins. Towards the very end of the song he sings, "Hole in the ground, so big and sort of round it was, it's not there now, the ground's all flat, and beneath it is the man in the bowler hat," which obviously as a bloodthirsty child I thought was justice for bothering a man in his gainful employment leaning on his shovel!

Day's Croft wasn't a big round hole, but it wasn't far away from one ... Monk Bretton Colliery, and neither it nor Day's Croft are there now!  There is a grassy expanse sloping down from Monk Bretton to Lundwood, with a few trees and scrubby bushes where dozens of miners and their families used to live.

1930s map of Day's Croft and Monk Bretton Colliery (from Old Maps)

From this map snip I don't think that you would guess there were nearly forty little houses in Day's Croft, yet in the 1911 census summary book I can find a listing for thirty-two properties and there are some gaps in the numbering.  Numbers 1-3 and 6-7 are not occupied or not identified by number anyway.  Interestingly number 30 was Mr Laycock's shop which suggests the street was probably quite self-sufficient.  The summary books are an easy way to see the numbers of people living in an area.  Hard to believe but one of these little houses contained thirteen people on census night and two others each held ten people, including the house of one of the OH's relatives.

The colliery was in existence in 1880 according to a list on Rootsweb, but in the earliest map available, from the 1850s, the canal bridge labelled Croft Bridge on the 1930s map above is adjacent to the Bleach Croft, no doubt where it got its name.  There is no colliery and no row of houses on the road between the Croft Bridge and the Bleachworks.

Monk Bretton and the area of the Bleachcroft nearby (from Old Maps)

Searching the burial records for Monk Bretton church I can find no burials from Day's Croft before 1886.  There are 112 burials between 1886 and 1948 (when the list I have ends) with an address in Day's Croft and nearly half of them (51) are children under five years old.  Given this frequency of children dying in the area it does suggest that this is evidence that the houses were built no earlier than 1885 or 1886. 


Sheffield Daily Telegraph Thursday 17 December 1903 (from Find My Past - Newspapers)

This newspaper cutting from 1903 states that George Wharam had worked at the colliery for fifteen years, so that takes us back to 1888, and that he occupied the house "under the colliery company".  So the houses were owned by the colliery ...

The earliest mention I have for the address in the OH's family tree is in 1900 when George Johnson jnr marries from his father George snr's home at 11 Day's Croft.  George marries Elizabeth Ann Jobling, the OH's half 3x great aunt and another Johnson, George's sister Ellen marries Elizabeth Ann's younger brother Richard Loveland Jobling six years later ... introduced through their siblings maybe?  There must have been a shortage of suitable houses in the area because in 1911 Richard Jobling, his wife and two children are living with George snr and six members of his family at 11 Day's Croft.  This is a total of ten people in a house, which according to the census, has five rooms (not counting the kitchen). 

The north east of Barnsley in 1924 showing Monk Bretton and Cudworth
(from the Bartholomew Half Inch Maps at the National Library of Scotland)

In 1891 George Johnson snr, occupation Coal Miner, and his family were living in Monk Bretton itself and eight or ten years prior to that, based on the birth places of the older children, they had lived in Cudworth.  It is less than a mile and a half from Cudworth to the colliery site, but I'm sure that the shorter walk from Day's Croft was welcomed.  On the small scale location map I have included above there isn't even a blip on the map for Day's Croft, however the Colliery is marked very near to Monk Bretton railway station.

What is even more interesting is that both George snr and his wife Ann Kitchen, who married in 1877 in Royston, are from the North West of England, the area which is now Cumbria.  George is from Penrith and Ann from Appleby which are no more than 14 miles distant from each other.  Did many families move from that area to Barnsley to work in the coal mines in the 1870s?  Did they socialise with each other because of their shared Cumberland/Westmoreland heritage?  The Kitchen family were still in Cumberland in 1861 but Ann's eldest sister, Alice, marries in the Barnsley district in 1869, so they have arrived in the area by then.  George Johnson appears to arrive between 1871 and 1877, alone.

As you can see on the 1930s map the new estates at Lundwood were appearing, semi detached houses, built no more than 12 to an acre in the Garden City style, each with its own garden on curving roads and cul-de-sacs.  I expect the families from Day's Croft watched over the fields as these houses were put up and hoped(?) they would be able to get one.  Certainly by the 1960s, judging by the maps again, there were no buildings of any kind left on the site of Day's Croft.

I can find no pictures of Day's Croft on the Barnsley Council's Yococo Image database online, and putting Day's Croft into the images search on Google brings back some of my own blog posts!

There may be more information in the Archives about Day's Croft, possibly in the records of the colliery ... or photographs that haven't made it to Yococo yet.  We can only hope.  It would be nice to see what these houses, which were home to some very large families in 1911, actually looked like.

Benjamin Bateman, a Bobbin Maker from Bradford (and Bitchburn) finds work in Philadelphia

I like writing my blog posts in the early hours, less disturbances, either when I can't get to sleep or if I wake up early.  This morning I decided to write about Benjamin Bateman and ended up researching bobbin making in Barnsley instead.  Background research of course!

None of the Google hits I had on bobbin mills returned Horton in Bradford or Philadelphia in America, places I know from the census returns that Benjamin lived.  There is a listed ex bobbin mill in Steeton, north of Keighley and a pub called the Bobbin Mill in Chorley on the far side of Manchester, and a preserved bobbin mill in Cumbria.  This suggests that where ever there were textile works there was an accompanying bobbin mill.  I suppose the mills got through thousands and thousands of bobbins in a year and needed a constant supply, that didn't have to travel far, maybe bobbin mills were very common indeed.

Benjamin Bateman was born in Bitchburn, Durham in 1841.  His parents James Bateman and Mary (maiden name Clough) had travelled to Durham from Thornton in Bradford - probably seeking work on the new railways.  I looked at their travels in an earlier blog post. 


1863 marriage certificate for Benjamin Bateman and Sarah Ann Ellis (from Ancestry)

When Benjamin marries in 1863 he states his occupation as Bobbin Turner and his residence as Bradford.  In the 1861 census return he had been living with his parents at 173 Westgate, Bradford and he was already a Bobbin Turner. 


1890s map of Bradford between Westgate and Thornton Road (from Digimaps)

In the above 1890s map of Bradford there is a bobbin mill right next door to Laycocks Mill, both on the Thornton Road.  Westgate just crosses the top right of the map.  It seems likely this was where Benjamin was working.  His younger brother Abel was also a bobbin turner and his father and another brother Daniel were machinists.  Laycocks Mill appears to have been a works that made looms, there is a reference to it in the catalogue to the Paris Exhibition of 1878.  This would fit with the occupations of James and Daniel Bateman.

There is an online family tree for this branch of the Batemans.  I have been in touch with the owner.  He has linked an 1866 passenger list from England to America to the family.


1866 passenger list for the City of Paris from Livepool to New York (from Ancestry)

The passenger list for the City of Paris from Liverpool to New York lists Benjamin and Sarah Bateman, both aged 24, James Bateman aged 54 and John Bateman aged 14.  This fits our Bateman family perfectly, however there is no corroborating evidence, no occupations or places of origin are given and there is no corresponding entry for the family returning from America.  Benjamin must have liked it though, even if Sarah didn't.

In 1871 Benjamin, Sarah Ann and their two daughters are living in Smith Street, Horton.  The stated birth place of their eldest child, Minnie, is Pennsylvania, USA, so the family must have stayed in America for a couple of years at least.  James and John Bateman are also back in Bradford re-united with the rest of the family. 

Smith Street appears to be to the south of Thornton Road, but no further from Laycocks Mill and the Bobbin Mill than Westgate, however there are many textile mills in Horton and there may be more Bobbin Mills!  So all that way to Pennsylvania and then back to Bradford.  Were they travelling on behalf of the firm James and Benjamin worked for?


A screen shot from the Yorkshire Industrial Heritage site

The Yorkshire Industrial Heritage website shows just how many textile mills there were in Bradford, Horton and Manningham, far to many to meaningfully fit on a map snip, so I've just shown you Horton in the snip above.  More than twenty in just a small area!  They would certainly have needed a large supply of bobbins.

1874 baptism entries for three Bateman daughters (from Ancestry)

Three of Benjamin and Sarah Ann's children, Ellen, Annie and Minnie, were baptised in All Saint's church in Bingley, near Keighley in 1874 - the third daughter Ellen does not appear in any subsequent census returns suggesting she died young.  The address given is Beckfoot, which we assume is near Bingley and Benjamin's occupation is still Bobbin Turner.  Looking on Digimaps I can only see a silk mill in Beckfoot in the 1890s and it is very rural.  I suppose silk mills need bobbins too!

In 1881 the family have moved to Thorp Street, back in Horton.  Benjamin and Sarah's fourth daughter Clara was born in Bradford in 1875.

Then something happens, Benjamin turns up in the census of 1900 in Philadelphia, USA by himself.  I can't find him in 1891 in England or 1890 in America, but the American census returns for that year are hit and miss due to the destruction of most of the records in a fire in 1921, and the remainder by government order in the 1930s, so that's not unusual.

1900 census for Kerns Street (name hard to read) in Philadelphia City, USA (from Ancestry)

Remember that Ancestry worldwide can be accessed in most public libraries in South Yorkshire - if you get a hit for an ancestor in another country don't give up - go to the library!

The above census return shows Benjamin Bateman aged 58, born in 1841, from England, a Bobbin Turner, who says he moved to the USA in 1880 (maybe he was rounding) as a boarder with the Hartley family who are also from England.  On the same page, in the house just next door are two Weavers in a Carpet factory.   I think this might be a clue.  I can't read his street name, but the next one down is Sergeant Street which I did find on a map.   The Wilde brothers started a carpet yarn mill in Philadelphia in 1882 which is still in business.  Was there a burgeoning weaving industry in Philadelphia?  Could they have advertised for skilled men from England to come and work for them?  Is that why James and Benjamin first went over there in 1866?  Remember that James appears to have made machines, maybe even looms, in Bradford.

A small section from the 1895 map of Philadelphia (from Greater Philadelphia Geo History)

On the 1895 map of Philadelphia (there are wonderful layered maps on the Greater Philadelphia Geo History Network) I can see several carpet factories and a worsted mill within a few streets of Benjamin's possible address.  Scanning around the area there are woollen factories and hosiery mills on nearly every street - it must have been a boom town for men who knew the job. 

Sadly Sarah Ann doesn't seem to have liked America.  In 1891 she is still in Bradford, with her two of her daughters (Minnie has married) and her father is living with her in Osbourne Street, Horton.  In 1901 she is living with just her daughter Clara in Villiers Street and in 1911 she and Clara are at Earl Street.  Both women work as weavers throughout this period, although by 1911 Clara seems to be supporting her elderly mother. 


1910 census for East Dakota Street, Philadelphia (from Ancestry)

In America in 1910 Benjamin is boarding with Marion Bibby at East Dakota Street, Philadelphia.  He now says he came to America in 1866, so this tallies with the passenger list found by my relative.  His occupation is Wood Turner and he is working in a Wood Turning Mill, so I suppose we can assume he is still making bobbins.  Naughtily he say's he's a widower, hmmm, Sarah is still alive in Bradford, but maybe he hadn't heard from her for a long time and it was just easier ...

Benjamin dies in Philadelphia in 1915, occupation Bobbin Turner - this information is also available on Ancestry world wide, but only as a transcription, not an original document image. 

Benjamin's father had travelled from Bradford to Durham looking for work when he was a young man, returned to Bradford and then visited America in his fifties.  Benjamin obviously got the travel bug from him.  After accompanying his father to America in 1866 possibly on some kind of business trip he stays in Pennsylvania for long enough for his young wife to have a child there, then the whole family return to Bradford. 

When he and Sarah part company in the 1880s Benjamin returns to Philadelphia alone and remains there until his death.  Had he really liked it on his first visit?  Had he proposed the entire family return but Sarah refused?  Was the money better in America than Bradford?  He has the same job - it wasn't a career move as far as I can see.  Maybe he sent money home to Sarah and his daughters ... he doesn't appear as a witness at his daughter's weddings - I wonder if they invited him?  And why does he say he's a widower in 1910?