Sunday, March 29, 2015

Walter Horatio Bentley (1876-1917)

Individual Summary29 March 2015
Name:Walter Horatio Bentley14
Sex:Male
Father:Alfred Pearson Bentley (1849-1922)
Mother:Annie Reed (1844-1899)
Individual Facts
BirthJan 1876Salford, Lancashire, England17
Residence1881 (about age 5)Relation to Head of House: Son; Salford, Lancashire, England2
Residence1891 (about age 15)Relation to Head of House: Son; Pendleton, Lancashire, England3
Residence1901 (about age 25)Relation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England4
Occupation1904 (about age 28)Hydraulic driver on docks (from Margaret Annie's baptism record); Salford, Lancashire, England
Residence2 Apr 1911 (about age 35)Marital Status: Widowed Relation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England1
DeathJun 1917 (about age 41)Salford, Lancashire, England5
Marriages/Children
1. Alice Hough (1879-1909) Married 5 Feb 1898
ChildrenWalter Horatio Bentley (1898-1978)
Alice Hannah Bentley (1901-1969)
Margaret Annie Bentley (1904-1994)
Harriet Ann Bentley (1906-1928)


Albert Bentley (1908-1915)
More about Walter Horatio Bentley:


Notes:
        1. 1911 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), Class: RG14; Piece: 23935.
        
        2. 1881 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG11; Piece: 3973; Folio: 48; Page: 41; GSU roll: 1341949.
        3. 1891 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG12; Piece: 3204; Folio: 121; Page: 21; GSU Roll: 6098314.
        4. 1901 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG13; Piece: 3718; Folio: 121; Page: 31.
        5. England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).
        6. FreeBMD, England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837-1915 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).
        7. Select Marriages, 1538–1973 (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.).

Alice Hough (1879-1909)

Individual Summary29 March 2015
Name:Alice Hough1
Sex:Female
Father:Albert (Alfred) Hough (1858-    )
Mother:Anna (Hannah) Holt (1859-1899)
Individual Facts
Birth10 May 1879Salford, Lancashire, England15
Baptism30 Dec 1885 (age 6)Pendleton, St Ambrose, Lancashire, England2
Residence1891 (about age 12)Relation to Head of House: Boarder; Pendleton, Lancashire, England5
Residence1901 (about age 22)Relation to Head of House: Wife; Pendleton, Lancashire, England1
DeathOct 1909 (about age 30)Salford, Lancashire3
Marriages/Children
1. Walter Horatio Bentley (1876-1917) Married 5 Feb 1898
ChildrenWalter Horatio Bentley (1898-1978)
Alice Hannah Bentley (1901-1969)
Margaret Annie Bentley (1904-1994)
Harriet Ann Bentley (1906-1928)
Albert Bentley (1908-1915)

More about Alice Hough:





Notes:

        1. 1901 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG13; Piece: 3718; Folio: 121; Page: 31.
        2. Manchester, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915 (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.).
        3. FreeBMD, England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index, 1837-1915 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).
        4. England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973 (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.).
        5. 1891 England Census , Class: RG12; Piece: 3204; Folio: 99; Page: 23; GSU Roll: 6098314.(Ancestry.com Operations Inc)

Sunday, March 1, 2015

A family of emigrants - William Heaps and his sons

The Neptune, a convict ship similar to
the one on which William was transported
While I was researching Matthew Cragg, I came across another migrant in the family, though not a willing one. William Heaps (born in Garstang in 1809), who was married to Matthew's oldest sister Mary, was transported to New South Wales in Australia in 1838 for stealing cheese.

There was perhaps more to it than just stealing a few slices of cheddar. An article in the Manchester Courier and General Advertiser, June 17 1837, listed a William Heaps of Garstang among several prisoners who had escaped from custody in Preston while awaiting trial. Then on August 2, 1837, the Blackburn Standard reported that William Heaps had been recaptured with another prisoner not far from Garstang. He had stolen goods (a few articles of clothing) in his possession. He was returned to the Preston House of Correction.

William was convicted in October 1837 and sentenced to 7 years transportation. He was sent to New SouthWales, Australia, on the convict ship Bengal Merchant, arriving in July 1838. He left behind his wife Mary and three children, Henry (born 1832), John (1836, died 1840) and Thomas (born 1837).

In 1844 he received his Certificate of Freedom, but as far as I can tell he never returned to England. Which is perhaps just as well, since his wife Mary had another child, Ellen, in 1840 and a son, Joseph, in 1843. They were both baptised with the surname Heaps but no father was listed. (Ellen died in 1843). Mary remarried in 1844, to a Joseph Spencer. Another son, Robert Spencer, was born 1848.

Since William Heaps was still alive, this marriage was technically bigamous. However, under English common law, ‘a person could be presumed dead, who had not been heard of for seven years by those who would be most likely to hear of them if they were alive.’ This was used both by the wives of men transported, and by the convicts themselves, as a justification for remarriage without falling foul of the bigamy laws.

Mary, her new husband and family moved to Swallowhill, near Darton, Yorkshire. Mary died there in 1853. It seems that three of her sons, Henry, Thomas and Joseph, converted to the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and with their families they migrated to Escalante in Utah, USA, where they were notable pioneers. Their history can be found in several places online, one with the charming but fanciful story that their father William Heaps fled England after killing one of the King's deer, and another that he was banished from England with a load of cheese for killing a chicken on the Sabbath. 




Matthew Cragg (1810-1878)

The Royal Oak and market cross, Garstang
Recently I took a break from researching my mother's side of the family and had another look at Matthew Cragg (1810 - 1878), my father's great grandfather and the husband of Esther Lambert. Apart from knowing that both his father and his grandfather were also named Matthew Cragg, I didn't know much about him.

Matthew was born in Kirkland, near Garstang, Lancashire, in 1810, the eldest son of Matthew Cragg and Mary Helm. His father's occupation is listed as "labourer" on his baptismal record. Matthew himself was a calico printer by trade, first in Radcliffe and then in Walton le Dale. I haven't found any mention of Matthew in the local newspapers of the time, which suggests that he was too poor to be noteworthy and stayed out of trouble with the law.

He married Esther Lambert in Preston in 1833. I've mentioned before that Esther and Matthew had two sons, Richard and William, who died within weeks of each other in 1847. It seems they also had another son, also named Richard, born in May 1837. He died before his first birthday, in March 1838. Only their daughter Mary Ann survived childhood.

Matthew's father, Matthew Cragg born in 1786, and his grandfather, Matthew Cragg born in 1745, were both associated with St Michael's on Wyre in the parish of Upper Rawcliffe. Several of the Cragg families in this area were Quakers, but I haven't been able to connect 'our' line to theirs. As we'll see in my next post, three of Matthew's nephews became Mormons. Matthew and Esther seem to have been solidly C of E all their lives.

Image © Alan Godfree under a CC license