Albert and Hannah Hough's puzzling family life

The spire, all that remains of
Stowell Memorial church where
Albert and Hannah married in 1878

I've written a little about Albert Hough and Hannah Holt before. Their daughter Alice was my mother's maternal grandmother. But there are several gaps and puzzling details in their story that I've yet to resolve.

Albert Hough and Hannah Holt married in Salford, Lancashire, in August 1878. At the time Albert was working as a brickmaker like his father William.  When they married they both gave their address as 51 Jane Street in Salford. For some reason Albert’s name was recorded as ‘Alfred Hough’, although his name was registered as Albert both when he was born and when he was baptised. He was also listed as Albert on his children's baptism records.

Their first child, Alice, was born in 1879. But when the census was taken in 1881, Hannah and little Alice were living with Albert’s brother John Hough and his family in Lynton Street in Salford. Albert wasn’t with them. I thought I’d found Albert/Alfred boarding with another family in Ardwick Street, not too far away. Now I'm not so sure. This man was listed as Alfred, and was described as a dyer, which would be quite a leap from being a brick maker. Albert’s occupation was listed as ‘labourer’ when his children were baptised. So far I haven't found any trace of him in 1881.

So why were Albert and Hannah not living together? The obvious explanation would be that as a young working-class couple they couldn’t afford to rent a place for themselves, and found lodging where they could. Little Alice and her brother Albert (born 1882) weren’t baptised until 1885, another hint that the family might have been hard up. Although, as we'll see, there may have been other reasons for the delay in baptising them.

Other possibilities come to mind. Was Albert working somewhere away from home for long periods? Was he perhaps in prison, or the workhouse? None of these ideas have produced any results so far.

Still missing, or missing again?

By the time of the 1891 census Hannah had four living children (another died in infancy) and she and the children were all boarding with a family in Siever Street in Pendleton, Salford. She was working as a charwoman. Again Albert is nowhere to be found. That’s not to say he wasn’t living somewhere in Salford or Manchester, but I haven’t been able to find him.

It seems strange that the couple should still be living apart. They had obviously spent some time together in the previous ten years to produce five children! The census is only a snapshot on a single night, so perhaps they had been living together for most of the intervening ten years.

Still, it would be interesting to find Albert’s whereabouts in 1881 and 1891. By 1901 Hannah had died and the widowed Albert was living with his eldest daughter Alice, her husband, their son and four of his own younger children – nine people in a four-roomed house. He was employed as a labourer.

Some unexplained baptism records

The Lancashire Online Parish Clerks site offers another strange puzzle related to this family. Most of Albert and Hannah’s children were baptised at St Ambrose church in Pendleton. Until 1902 this was a mission church of the parish of St Thomas, an Anglican (C of E) church. But James, born 26 June 1889, appears to have been baptised on 20 November at the Catholic Mother of God and St James church. There’s no photo of the record available, but the transcription reads:

Baptism: 20 Nov 1889
Mother of God and St James, Pendleton, Lancashire, England
Joannes Jacobus Hough - filius Alberti Hough & Hannae (formerly Holt)
Born: 26 Jun 1889
Abode: 40 Dawson St.
Godparents: Julia Anna Donovan
Baptised by: P. J. Markey
Source: Salford Diocesan Archives

(Catholic churches at the time recorded baptismal names in Latin).

Even more strange, Albert and Hannah’s next son John, born on 16 October 1892, was also baptised in the Mother of God and St James church in Pendleton on 1 November 1892. But then on 2 November 1892 he was apparently baptised again, this time at the Anglican church of St Ambrose in Pendleton.

Baptism: 1 Nov 1892 Mother of God and St James, Pendleton, Lancashire, England
Joannes Hoff - filius Alberti Hoff & Annae Rosae (formerly Holt)
Born: 16 Oct 1892
Godparents: Helena Bower
Baptised by: Henrico Van Wtberghe
Source: Salford Diocesan Archives

Baptism: 2 Nov 1892 St Ambrose, Pendleton, Lancashire, England
John Hough - [Child] of Albert Hough & Hannah
Born: 16 Oct 1892
Abode: 24 Buckingham St.
Occupation: Labourer
Baptised by: G. Morgan
Register: Baptisms 1881 - 1894, Page 175, Entry 1393
Source: Parish Register

The names are spelled a little differently, but it certainly looks like the same child. But why would he be baptised twice? As far as I’m aware, the Catholic and Anglican churches have always recognised baptisms carried out in each others’ churches as valid, so there would be no reason to have a child “done” in both churches, even if the parents were of different denominations. I've heard of baptism records being accidentally duplicated in the same church register, but not across two different churches. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Albert, the father, was baptised in St Phillip's Salford, an Anglican church. I haven’t found a baptism record for Hannah,  but her mother Elizabeth Hardman was Irish, so perhaps she was brought up Catholic. By the time Albert and Hannah's youngest child Elizabeth (a.k.a. Lily) was born they seem to have resolved the issue and she was baptised just once, at St Ambrose Anglican church.

The story of two John Alfreds, part 1

Nine Elms British Cemetery, Belgium

As I've mentioned before, my great great grandfather Alfred Pearson Bentley (b 1849) had two sons named John Alfred, one born to his wife Annie Reed in Salford in 1873 and the other born, through a bigamous marriage to Annie Jane Smith, in Boston in 1884. Despite sharing the same name and the same father, the two John Alfreds led rather different lives. In this post I'll tell the story of the older of the two half-brothers.

The first John was only four or five years old when his father left for America. He and his four siblings grew up in Salford, surviving on what their mother could earn from taking in laundry and renting out a room. When he was old enough to leave school he found work as a bricklayer's labourer and added his earnings to the family income.

In March 1897 John married Elizabeth Ann Brown, a girl from Stalybridge, a few miles east of Manchester. They were married in the Registry office in Salford. Their first child, Thomas, was born in August that same year while they were living at 20 Arthur St in Seedley, Manchester. 

St Ambrose Church, Salford,
where most of John and Elizabeth's children
were baptised.

Two years later, in August 1899, a daughter, Annie, arrived. By this time the family had moved to 49 Mayor St in Pendleton, and they remained at this address for several years, adding John Alfred (1902) Ernest (1905) and Elizabeth (1908) to their family. Two of the children, John Alfred and Elizabeth, died in infancy.

When the census was taken in  1911 John and Elizabeth had moved with their family to 11 Hodgson St. It was a four roomed house, but besides their family they had two single men from Stalybridge, both labourers, and apparently brothers, boarding with them. John was working as a contractors labourer.

John and Elizabeth's eldest son Thomas was 17 years old when the war began in August 1914. Like many young men, he enlisted as soon as he could, joining the 2/7th battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was given regimental number  281894, and after a long period of training was sent to Le Havre in France early in 1917.

This must have caused his parents some concern, but worse was to come. On 12 March 1917 John Bentley received a letter from the Borough Engineers Office in Salford. It didn't even address him by name, but read:

Dear Sir,  

Road Service in France 

I enclose a form from the War Department which you are requested to present to the recruiting officer at the Town Hall, Broad St, Pendleton on an early day between the hours of 9.00 am and 5.30 pm on Saturday between 9.30 am and 2.00 pm. 

Yours truly 

Ernest B Martin.

At the age of 43 John Alfred was being conscripted to build roads across other men's fields in France. Conscription had been introduced in 1916 and anyone under the age of 51 who was not a widow with children or a Minister of Religion could be called up. In reality, many of those called were rejected as unfit, or claimed exemption on the grounds that they were doing work of national importance or their absence would cause domestic hardship. However, like Thomas Henry Ward, John Bentley received no exemption.

He was enlisted on March 16 in the Royal Engineers, 338 RC (Road Construction) company as a "pioneer", regimental number 25500. He was later transferred to the 303 RC company. The army doctor who examined him noted two tattoos, one on his right arm saying "E A Brown", and the other a pair of butterflies on his left. After spending time at Salamanca Barracks in Aldershot, John was sent to France. 

With both her husband and a son on the front line, and a ten year old child, Ernest, to care for alone at home, Elizabeth must have been beside herself with worry. Her fears were not unfounded.

Street corner, Poelcappelle, Belgium 1918

Twenty year old Thomas was injured, probably at the Battle of Poelcappelle in Flanders on 9 October, and died of his wounds on 12 October 1917. He was buried at the Nine Elms British Cemetery in West Vlaanderen, Belgium. The cross on his grave bears only his name and regimental details. 

In his brief will, written on 8 April 1917 on a standard issue form provided by the army, he left all his possessions to his mother "Mrs E. Bentley of 5 Swan St, Pendleton." He apparently was aware of his father's enlistment.

John Alfred was admitted to hospital on 12 April 1918, for reasons unknown. He was discharged on  the 19 April. He arrived "TTBD" on 26 April and was released from "TTBD" on 6 May 1918. (The most likely explanation I can find of this abbreviation is "Temporary Transfer Base Depot" but if you can improve on that, let me know.) He was officially demobbed in 1919 while on home leave.

He returned home to Elizabeth on 26 December 1918. They were still living at 5 Swan St when their daughter Annie married the following year. When he died at the age of 59, in March 1933, he left an estate of £278 4s to his widow Elizabeth.

My next post will cover what I know of the younger John Alfred.

Annie Reed

Market place, Barnard Castle 
(cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Ben Gamble )

Now that I've traced back through Alfred Pearson Bentley's forebears, it's time to have a look at his wife Annie Reed. As I've mentioned before, Alfred and Annie were married in Dewsbury in Yorkshire in 1869, and moved to Salford in Lancashire before 1872. In 1879, soon after the birth of their fifth child, Alfred sailed to America, apparently promising to send for his family as soon as he was settled. Instead he entered into a bigamous marriage in Boston with another Annie (Anne Jane Smith from Cheshire in England) and poor Annie in Salford either believed, or made believe, that he had died in the USA.

The castle at Barnards Castle
photo by Francis Hannaway
via Wikimedia Commons

At first glance it's not clear how Alfred and Annie Reed could have met, since he was born in Hunslet, part of the city of Leeds in West Yorkshire and she grew up in Barnard Castle, a market town in Teesdale, County Durham. However, her father, Henry Reed (b 1804), a carpet weaver, originally came from Leeds, so perhaps Annie's childhood family maintained some connections with Henry's family in Yorkshire. Her older half-sister, Jane, also married in Dewsbury in Yorkshire in 1853 and went on to live there, providing another connection to that county.

Annie's childhood

Annie's mother, Margaret Waite, was Henry's second wife. His first wife, Elizabeth Stout, bore him at least six children, all girls, but only two, Sarah (b 1827) and Jane (1831), survived childhood. Elizabeth herself died soon after the birth of the last ill-fated child in 1834.

Annie was the youngest of Margaret's four children. Hannah (b 1838) and John (1841) were a part of her childhood, but Annis (1844) died soon after birth. Henry, Annie's father, died in 1859 when she was about 13 years old.

In the 1861 census she was the only child still living at home with Margaret. The financial hardship caused by the loss of Henry's income might have led to Annie being sent to her relatives in Yorkshire, or perhaps she found work as a servant there. Her mother continued to live in Barnards Castle until her death in 1875.

Marriage to Alfred Pearson Bentley

When Annie married Alfred at the age of 23, she most likely thought her chances of having a more comfortable life than her mother were fairly good. Living standards for the working class in England had been improving over the previous years, and Alfred's skills as an engraver gave him good prospects for employment. He may well have inherited his father Ben's ambitiousness.

Their first child, James Henry was born in Dewsbury in 1870, and they were still living there at the time of the 1871 census. By the time their second child, Margaret Ann, was born they had moved to Hollinwood St, in the Ordsell district of the city of Salford, Lancashire. Their neighbours in this area of booming population included a "gold beater" and a lithographic printer along with masons, bricklayers, shop keepers and mill hands.

Sadly little James died in 1873. The following year Annie gave birth to another son, John Alfred, then Walter Horatio in 1876 and Ernest Reed in 1878. It was then that Alfred senior decided to go to Boston.

"Widowed"

Perhaps he and Annie really believed that he was going to find a better life for his family in America and they would join him there, but then, somehow, he just got sidetracked from his plans after he arrived. Or perhaps the promise of a better life was just the story he told Annie, while secretly planning all along to meet up with Miss Annie Jane Smith in America. Or possibly his marriage with Annie had fallen apart and they tacitly agreed that, since they couldn't afford a divorce, he should conveniently disappear to America.

Whatever the case, Annie was still describing herself as 'married' on the 1881 census. By 1891 she had begun to call herself a widow. Whether she had received news that led her to believe this to be the case, or simply found it best to make this her story, she clearly didn't expect Alfred to return. Did she ever learn that he and his new wife and son had returned from America in the late 1880's and were living just across the county border in Cheshire? We'll probably never know.

Life must have been hard for Annie as a single mother with four children. In the 1881 census the family had an elderly woman, Jane Bastow, boarding with them, but she was on Parish relief, so she couldn't have provided much in the way of rent.

Arthur St, Pendleton (just north of Liverpool St)
from 1930 map of Manchester*
Click to enlarge.

By 1891 the family had moved to Arthur St in Pendleton, between Langworthy Park and the Salford cattle markets. Annie was taking in washing and ironing to make ends meet, and had another lodger staying with her. Any hope she might have had of her children having a better standard of living had gone west with Alfred. Nineteen year old Margaret had by now left home and was working as a servant, and the two older boys had jobs, John as a bricklayer's labourer and Walter as an office boy. A year later Margaret, still single, gave birth to a son, John Henry. She never married.

Annie died in 1899 at the age of 53. The doctor who wrote the death certificate gave "cirrhosis of the liver, ascites, syncope" as the cause of death. (Thanks to my cousin David for this information). It's impossible to know whether the cirrhosis and the associated ascites (fluid in the abdomen) were the result of alcohol abuse or some other cause, but her last few years must have been spent in very poor health. Neither the registrar nor the person providing the information were aware that Alfred was still alive and well. Annie was described on the death register as "widow of Alfred Pearson Bentley, an engraver journeyman".

*Map extracted from: 
http://www.artus-familyhistory.com/Manchester%201930/Main%20Map.html. 
The site has a wonderful collection of old maps from all over Britain.

Alice Hough - a hard life cut short

Salford Quays, (Manchester Dock no 9) in 1900

Alice Hough, my maternal great grandmother, was the fourth generation of her family to be born in Salford, Lancashire. Salford had changed drastically in those four generations. Alice, born in 1879, would have been in her teens when the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, leading to the development of the Salford docks. This major inland port would employ thousands of people, including her future husband, Walter.

Alice's father, Albert Hough, was a brickmaker, a trade that would have been much in demand as Salford and Manchester grew explosively. Despite that, brickmakers were not well paid nor much respected. Until the process was mechanised, brickmaking was seasonal work that often meant being itinerant.

Perhaps that's why Alice seems to have had such an unsettled childhood, from the little I can find out about her. Her parents Albert and Anna* were not living together when the census was taken in 1881. Whether for financial or other reasons, Anna and little Alice were boarding with her brother-in-law, John Hough and his family, while Albert seems to have been boarding with a family named Mcelory (sic).

Alice and her brother Albert (born 1882) were not baptised until December 1885 when she was 6 and he was 3 years old, again suggesting that the family might not have been very stable before then. Even in 1891 Anna, along with her children Alice, Albert, Harriet (born 1887) and James (1890) was boarding with a family named Lockett, while Albert senior's whereabouts are unknown.

However when Alice's brother John was born in 1892 he was baptised fairly promptly and the family's address was recorded as 24 Buckingham St, Pendleton. They had moved to 24 Hayfield St, Pendleton by the time the youngest child Elizabeth was baptised in 1895. Sadly Alice's sister Harriet had  died in the previous year, at the age of 6.

In February 1898, when she was 18 years old, Alice married Walter Horatio Bentley. Walter was a crane driver, who like Alice was born in Salford, though neither of his parents were local.

Their first son, Walter, was born in June of that year. Within 12 months Walter senior's mother Annie (aged 50) and Alice's mother Anna (40) both died. This left Alice's younger siblings without a mother.

It seems that the 19 year old Alice stepped in to fill the gap. In the 1901 census she and Walter had her father, Albert Hough, and her four siblings Albert (18), James (10) John (8) and Elizabeth (5) living with them. The siblings are described on the census as 'step brothers' and 'step sisters', but this is probably a mistake.

A second child, Alice Hannah, was born to Alice and Walter in July 1901, followed by Margaret Annie in April 1904, Harriet Ann in 1906 and Albert in December 1907. Alice's brothers and sister were still living with them, so the house must have been very overcrowded.

Like her mother Anna, the hard-working Alice did not live to see her children grow up. In November 1909, at the age of 30, she died. According to my cousin David, her death certificate gave the cause of death as "Acute dementia and exhaustion (after childbirth)".

The phrase "acute" dementia suggests that her illness may have been a complication of giving birth to another child in 1909, as Albert would already have been nearly 2 years old by then. However, I haven't been able to find any record of a such a child. Possibly Alice had a stillborn child who was never registered.

Another possibility is that the death certificate is describing what we would now call post-natal depression or psychosis  that began after Albert's birth. Many medical terms have changed their meaning over time and it's sometimes difficult to know what was meant.

Whatever the cause, Walter was left with five young children to care for. His father-in-law, Albert Hough, had died sometime earlier, (possibly in 1904 or 1905) but the 1911 census indicates that Alice's four siblings were still living with Walter in Penny St, Pendleton - a total of ten people in a three roomed house.

Alice's sister Elizabeth, known as Lily, seems to have taken over the care of the young ones. Walter never remarried.

Salford Quays 2006
(used under a CC license from wikimedia)

*Alice's mother, Anna Holt, married Albert Hough in Stowell Memorial church, Salford, in 1878. There is some uncertainty about what they should be called, since Albert's name was recorded as "Alfred Hough" on the church marriage register, while Anna also appears as 'Hannah' on the 1881 census and some of the children's baptism records. For consistency I will refer to them as Albert and Anna.

Walter Horatio Bentley (1876-1917)

Individual Summary

29 March 2015

Name:	Walter Horatio Bentley1–4
Sex:	Male
Father:	Alfred Pearson Bentley (1849-1922)
Mother:	Annie Reed (1844-1899)
Individual Facts
Birth	Jan 1876	Salford, Lancashire, England1–7
Residence	1881 (about age 5)	Relation to Head of House: Son; Salford, Lancashire, England2
Residence	1891 (about age 15)	Relation to Head of House: Son; Pendleton, Lancashire, England3
Residence	1901 (about age 25)	Relation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England4
Occupation	1904 (about age 28)	Hydraulic driver on docks (from Margaret Annie's baptism record); Salford, Lancashire, England
Residence	2 Apr 1911 (about age 35)	Marital Status: Widowed Relation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England1
Death	Jun 1917 (about age 41)	Salford, Lancashire, England5
Marriages/Children
1. Alice Hough (1879-1909) Married 5 Feb 1898
Children	Walter 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 Summary

29 March 2015

Name:	Alice Hough1
Sex:	Female
Father:	Albert (Alfred) Hough (1858-    )
Mother:	Anna (Hannah) Holt (1859-1899)
Individual Facts
Birth	10 May 1879	Salford, Lancashire, England1–5
Baptism	30 Dec 1885 (age 6)	Pendleton, St Ambrose, Lancashire, England2
Residence	1891 (about age 12)	Relation to Head of House: Boarder; Pendleton, Lancashire, England5
Residence	1901 (about age 22)	Relation to Head of House: Wife; Pendleton, Lancashire, England1
Death	Oct 1909 (about age 30)	Salford, Lancashire3
Marriages/Children
1. Walter Horatio Bentley (1876-1917) Married 5 Feb 1898
Children	Walter 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)

Sarah Jane St Leger

In my mother's family, Sarah Jane Orton (nee St Leger*) has an unhappy reputation. She was apparently a hard-hearted business woman, who turned her son's family into the street when he developed tuberculosis and was unable to work in the barber's shop attached to their accommodation in Hankinson Street, Pendleton (which Sarah Jane owned). While Albert was in a sanatorium being treated, his wife and four children (including my mother) were taken in by a kind neighbour or friend. Meanwhile Sarah Jane brought in another hairdresser to work in the shop.

We'll probably never know the full story, since no-one is alive who can still remember the details. Certainly I can't remember my Mum ever talking about her grandmother as someone she knew and loved. But what is known about Sarah Jane?

Sarah Jane St Leger was the youngest daughter of Samuel St Leger and Alice Dodd. Samuel and Alice had a rather unusual relationship. Five of Alice's children - Ralph (1841), an earlier Sarah Jane (1845, died 1848) Samuel (1848) Alice (1850) and William (1853) were born while Alice was still single, though Samuel seems to have been their father.

Sometime between the birth of William in 1853 and Mary Ann in 1857 they seem to have moved in together and Alice took on the name St Leger, though I can't find any record of a marriage.

Hebden Bridge

Sarah Jane was born in Salford, the dockland area south west of Manchester city, in November 1862. Sometime before she turned 6 years old the family moved to Hebden Bridge, near Todmorden in Yorkshire. (Her younger brother David was born there in 1868.) As I mentioned in my previous post, it's possible that the family were one of many who moved from Lancashire to Yorkshire seeking work during the Lancashire "cotton famine" of the 1860's.

The family were still in Hebden Bridge at the time of the 1881 census. Samuel senior died there in 1882. It seems that Alice and most of the children except Ralph moved back to Manchester, though not as a family. In the 1891 census Sarah Jane was boarding with a family named Stokes in Napier Street, Gorton (an area of Manchester) and she was working in a cotton mill.

Later that year she married Albert Edwin Orton (senior), a barber who lived at the time with his parents Thomas and Sarah Orton in Gorton. Albert's sister Augusta and brother Ernest were the witnesses.

Their first child Edith May was born in July 1893, when Sarah was 30 years old. Lillian (1894), Harold (1898), Frederick (1901) and Albert Edwin (1903) followed. Lillian and Frederick both died in infancy. The family lived at 28 Hankinson St, previously owned by Albert's brother Percy, for many years. Albert senior died in 1919 and Sarah seems to have inherited the property.

The notorious eviction of Albert junior's family seems to have happened in the mid to late 1930's, not long before Sarah Jane died in 1938. She would have been in her seventies at the time, and may well have been suffering from dementia. Her cause of death (provided by my cousin David) was myocarditis and senility.

*The name St Leger is not an easy one to research. It appears as St Leger, St Ledger, Ledger, StLedger and several other variants. Samuel and Alice seem to have changed the spelling to St Ledger as time went on, and sometimes they were recorded as plain Ledger.

Photo of Hebden Bridge By Leg1ndyoll at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Albert Edwin Orton (1867 - 1919)

Individual Summary

5 October 2014

Name:	Albert Edwin Orton1–4
Sex:	Male
Father:	Thomas Brown Orton (1842-1918)
Mother:	Sarah Gregory (1840-1923)
Individual Facts
Birth	Jan 1867	Leicester, Leicestershire1–8
Residence	1871 (about age 4)	Relation to Head of House: Son; Leicester St Mary, Leicestershire, England4
Residence	1881 (about age 14)	Relation to Head of House: Son; Pendlebury, Lancashire, England3
Residence	1891 (about age 24)	Relation to Head of House: Son; Gorton, Lancashire, England8
Occupation	1893 (about age 26)	Hair dresser,  confirmed by Edith May's baptism entry; 21 Hankinson St, Pendleton
Residence	1901 (about age 34)	Relation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England2
Occupation	1901 (about age 34)	Gentleman's hairdresser; Pendleton (near Salford), Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
Residence	2 Apr 1911 (about age 44)	Marital Status: MarriedRelation to Head of House: Head; Pendleton, Lancashire, England1
Death	Mar 1919 (about age 52)	Salford, Lancashire, England7
Marriages/Children
1. Sarah Jane St Leger (1862-1938)  Married 1891
Children	Edith May Orton (1893-1965)
	Lilian Orton (1894-1899)
	Harold Orton (1898-1946)
	Frederick Orton (1901-1901)
	Albert Edwin Orton (1903-1947)
Notes

        1. 1911 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), Class: RG14; Piece: 24037.

        2. 1901 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG13; Piece: 3713; Folio: 38; Page: 30.

        3. Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1881 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG11; Piece: 3949; Folio: 93; Page: 42; GSU roll: 1341943.

        4. 1871 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG10; Piece: 3286; Folio: 88; Page: 37; GSU roll: 839289.

        5. FreeBMD, England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837-1915 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).

        6. Manchester, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1930 (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.).

        7. England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).

        8. 1891 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG12; Piece: 3173; Folio: 6; Page: 6; GSU Roll: 6098283.

More about Albert Edwin Orton (1867):

Sarah Jane St Leger (or St Ledger) 1862-1938

Individual Summary

5 October 2014

Name:	Sarah Jane St Leger1–3
Sex:	Female
Father:	Samuel St Leger (1821-1882)
Mother:	Alice Dodd (1824-    )
Individual Facts
Birth	Oct 1862	Salford, Lancashire, England1–7
Residence	1871 (about age 9)	Relation to Head of House: Daughter; Wadsworth, Yorkshire, England7
Residence	1881 (about age 19)	Relation to Head of House: Daughter; Wadsworth, Yorkshire, England6
Residence	1891 (about age 29)	Relation to Head of House: Boarder; Gorton, Lancashire, England3
Residence	1901 (about age 39)	Relation to Head of House: Wife; Pendleton, Lancashire, England2
Residence	2 Apr 1911 (about age 48)	Marital Status: MarriedRelation to Head of House: Wife; Pendleton, Lancashire, England1
Death	Jun 1938 (about age 75)	Salford, Lancashire, England4
Marriages/Children
1. Albert Edwin Orton (1867-1919)
Children	Edith May Orton (1893-1965)
	Lilian Orton (1894-1899)
	Harold Orton (1898-1946)
	Frederick Orton (1901-1901)
	Albert Edwin Orton (1903-1947)
Notes

       1. 1911 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), Class: RG14; Piece: 24037.

       2. 1901 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG13; Piece: 3713; Folio: 38; Page: 30.

        3. 1891 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG12; Piece: 3175; Folio: 34; Page: 5; GSU Roll: 6098285.

        4. England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).

        5. FreeBMD, England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837-1915 (Ancestry.com Operations Inc).

        6. Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1881 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG11; Piece: 4354; Folio: 26; Page: 11; GSU roll: 1342040.

        7. 1871 England Census (Ancestry.com Operations Inc), Class: RG10; Piece: 4324; Folio: 6; Page: 5; GSU roll: 846983.

More about Sarah Jane St Leger:

From hellhole to Hebden Bridge Samuel St Leger and Alice Dodd
Sarah Jane St Leger

What about the clippers?

The 'clogs' of this blog's title refers to the three generations of cloggers and bootmakers on my father's side of the family - Thomas Henry Ward, John Ward and Richard Ward. I've written quite a bit about them. But what of the 'clippers', the gentlemen's hairdressers on my mother's side of the family? Who were they?

The first to take up hairdressing seems to have been my Grandfather's uncle, Percy Gregory Orton. Born in 1865 in Leicestershire, he was the eldest son of Thomas Brown Orton, a grocer, and Sarah Gregory, the daughter of an engine driver. Percy was listed as a hairdresser on the 1881 census, at the age of 16. Where and how he learned his trade isn't known. The Orton family moved to Manchester sometime between 1877 and 1881, so perhaps he did his apprenticeship in the Manchester area. 

Percy married Mary Jones in Salford in 1886 and by 1891 they were living at 28 Hankinson Street, Pendleton, a four roomed dwelling which was to remain in the family for some time. It had previously been used as a "refreshment house". When Percy and Mary lived there, one room on the ground floor was used as a  barber's shop. The other three were used to accommodate the family.

In the 1891 census Percy's 24 year old brother Albert Edwin also gave his occupation as "Barber, hair", although he was unemployed at the time of the census, so it seems he wasn't working with Percy. After his marriage to Sarah Jane St Ledger, Albert lived at 21 Hankinson Street for several years. 

Percy died late in 1891. His widow, Mary, continued living at 28 Hankinson Street and the address was listed as a hairdresser's business in her name in the 1895 Kelly's directory of Manchester. After Mary remarried and left Pendleton, Albert and Sarah Jane moved into number 28.

Albert was recorded as a hairdresser working 'on own account' in the 1911 census. He died in 1919. His property went to his widow, Sarah Jane. However his sons Harold (1898) and Albert Edwin (born 1903) carried on the hairdressing business. In the 1929 Kelly's directory of Manchester and Salford, Albert Orton, hairdresser is listed at both Hankinson Street, Pendleton and Kenyon Lane, Moston. For some reason, despite being the older of the two, Harold isn't mentioned, and I only have word-of-mouth evidence from family members that he was in fact a hairdresser.

I'm also told by family members that when Albert (junior) developed tuberculosis in the late 1930's and had to have treatment in a sanitorium, his mother Sarah Jane refused to let his wife and daughters stay on in the house in Hankinson Street. They moved into one room in the home of a friend nearby. Harold apparently refused to work in his mother's premises as a mark of solidarity, and the rift with Sarah was never mended.

Albert eventually recovered and he and his family moved to Yarborough Street. The outbreak of World War II resulted in the family being divided again as the younger children and their mother were evacuated to various places considered safer than Manchester. Eventually they all came together again in the village of Crawshawbooth, Lancashire. Albert died of cancer in 1946 and Harold in 1947, bringing to an end the hairdressing business.

Why Gentlemen's Hairdressers rather than Barbers?

When I was a child my mother always referred to her father as a barber. The term 'barber' was in general use then to describe someone who cut men's hair, while 'hairdresser' usually referred to someone who cut and styled women's hair (and the words are still used that way, though less so now.) However on the various records of their occupations, Percy and the two Alberts almost always referred to themselves as 'hairdresser' or 'gentlemans hairdresser'. Only once, in 1891, Albert senior referred to himself as 'barber, hair'.

The word 'barber' comes from the Latin word for 'beard' and traditionally barbers not only trimmed men's beards and hair, but also used their skills with the razor to act as surgeons and dentists. Over time the surgical side of their occupation disappeared as it was taken over by the medical profession. 

Albert Orton, my grandfather, certainly trimmed beards - my mother has childhood recollections of being asked to lather up men's faces in preparation for them being shaved, a job she didn't relish but she liked the few pennies she was paid for doing it. But perhaps Albert and his father and uncle preferred to emphasise a different aspect of their profession, one less associated with the cut-throat razor. 

On this day in 1914

This year I thought it would be good to write some posts about the other side of my family tree, the Ortons and the Bentleys. Not that I've said everything there is to say about the Wards and the Beales, and I will keep adding posts about them, but my original intention was to cover the history of all four of my grandparent's families.

So as a sort of segue from one side of the family to the other, I thought it would be interesting to imagine what each of my four grandparents might have been doing 100 years ago today, on 12 January, 1914. It was a Monday and bitterly cold. (I like to think it was cold - we're having a heatwave here at the moment.)

Model T Ford c 1910

The first commercial airline flight had just taken place in the USA, and Henry Ford was about to open the first assembly line for Model T Fords. In England the Liberals were in power and George V was on the throne. Trouble was brewing in the far-away Balkans, the Suffragettes were becoming more and more militant, and there was industrial unrest. But the war that some were predicting was still 6 months away and unimaginable to most people.

Annie Kenney and
Christabel Pankhurst

The oldest of my grandparents, Thomas Henry Ward, would have been 31 years old. He was living with his widowed mother and his sister Fanny in the village of Milnrow, Lancashire. Perhaps his mother still owned the shoe retailing business in which he worked as a boot repairer, although by now she was over 70 years old. Thomas Henry's brothers and sisters were all married now apart from Fanny, and all were still living in and around Milnrow.

The 18 year old Rose Beales was probably working as a domestic servant with the Orsborn family in Ipswich, as she had been when the census was taken in 1911. Work as a domestic servant was the most common occupation for unmarried women at the time. Like her parents, the Orsborns were members of the Salvation Army. Their first daughter, Maria Evelina, was born in Colchester in 1910 so the two families no doubt knew each other. According to my father, Rosina was very much appreciated by her employers.

For the 10 year old Albert Edwin Orton in Pendleton, near Manchester, it would likely have been a school day. His father would have been at work at his gentleman's hairdressing shop, his older sister Edith May was working in a cotton mill and his brother Harold, 15, had probably also started work. His mother Sarah Jane may have been at home, or she too might have been working.

Gazette du Bon Ton
fashion plate 1914

Meanwhile the youngest of my four grandparents, the 9 year old (Margaret) Annie Bentley, was probably also at school. Home for her must have been a crowded, bustling place. According to the 1911 census, the family lived in a 3 room house. Along with her father, Walter Bentley, lived his three brothers-in-law, Albert, James and John Hough, his sister-in-law Lily Elizabeth Hough, Annie's brothers Walter (14) and Albert Bentley (5), and her sisters Alice (11) and Harriet (5). Annie's mother had died in 1909 and Lily acted as mother to the younger children.

While some were predicting war ahead, no-one could have forseen how drastically the coming years would change the lives of these individuals and the society in which they lived.

Happy and sad family events in Littleborough

Holy Trinity in the snow
© Copyright SMJ 
licensed for reuse under this CC Licence 

Many years ago my husband and I were temporarily part of the congregation at Holy Trinity in Littleborough, Lancashire, and our first child was baptised there. So when I came across the parish records for Holy Trinity online recently, I was delighted to discover that my grandfather, Thomas Henry Ward, was also baptised there, on 9 January 1883. His sister Mary Ann was baptised at Holy Trinity on 20 August 1877, Fanny was baptised 24 January 1880, and Henrietta 26 September 1886.

Thomas' baptism is recorded as a private baptism, and John Ward, Mary Ann Ward and Thomas Howarth were his godparents.

Another happy event happened at Holy Trinity in February 1886 when John Ward's widowed brother Richard married one of John and Mary Ann's neighbours, Elizabeth Clarkson. (Elizabeth was also Fanny's godmother.) They moved to Pendleton, but eventually moved back to Littleborough when Richard retired from his job as a railway worker.

On a much sadder note, the local parish registers also record the burials of two of John and Mary Ann's children, Richard and little Mary Ann, within four days of each other in April 1879. They were buried at St James churchyard, Calderbrook, just above Littleborough.  Richard was 7 years old, and Mary Ann was about 20 months. The register doesn't record the cause of death, but some sort of infectious disease seems most likely.

It must have been a terrible time for their parents, and especially for their mother Mary Ann, who would have been pregnant with Fanny at the time. As I mentioned in a previous post, Mary Ann’s two brothers, William and Richard Cragg, both died in the same week when she was 3 years old, so the deaths of Richard and Mary Ann must have brought back sad memories for her, and also for her mother, Esther Cragg, who was still alive in Walton le Dale at this time.

The Ward family continued living in Littleborough until sometime after Henrietta's birth in 1886, and then for reasons that are unclear they moved to Rastrick in Yorkshire.

Margaret Annie Bentley

Name:	Margaret Annie "Annie" BENTLEY
Sex:	Female
Father:	Walter Horatio BENTLEY (1876-1916)
Mother:	Alice HOUGH (1879-1909)
Individual Facts
Birth	27 Apr 1904	Salford
Death	24 Jul 1994 (age 90)	Craven Arms
Burial		Goodshaw church
Misc		Brought up by Auntie Lily Booth (relationship?)
Marriages/Children
1. Albert Edwin ORTON (1903-1947)
Children  6

Albert Edwin Orton

Individual Summary

18 April 2012

Name:	Albert Edwin ORTON
Sex:	Male
Father:	Albert Edwin ORTON (1867-1919)
Mother:	Sarah Jane ST. LEDGER (1862-1938)
Individual Facts
Birth	17 Jun 1903	28 Hankinson St, Pendleton
Death	6 Feb 1947 (age 43)	Died of cancer; Crawshawbooth
Burial	13 Feb 1947 (age 43)	Buried at Goodshaw church
Occupation		Gentleman's hairdresser
Marriages/Children
1. Margaret Annie "Annie" BENTLEY (1904-1994)
Children  6