Law Marshall and Ellen Priestley

Law Marshall was my maternal great-great grandfather and his occupation, for most of his life, was mill engineer. On July 11th 1863 he married Ellen Priestley at St Paul's, Denholmegate in the county of Yorkshire. They were both of full age, bachelor and spinster. His occupation at that time was weaver; his father James Marshall, labourer. Ellen's father was George Priestley, engineer. The witnesses were John Feather and Sarah Hainsworth (her mark). Ellen also made her mark.

They had seven children that I know of, of whom two died in infancy. They were (all boys):  John, born 1864 Bingley, Yorkshire; James Walter, born 1865, Wilsden, Yorkshire; Moses, born 1866, Walsden; Fairbank, born 1869, died in 1873 aged four, Todmorden; Frank, born 1871 in Todmorden, and died in the September quarter of that year; Fairbank, born 1874, Bacup, Lancashire; George, born 1878, Bacup, Lancashire.

In the 1871 and 1881 censuses they lived in Bacup (see Moses Marshall's entry for details).
In 1891 after Law died, Ellen was recorded as living at 2 George St, Bacup. The entry was: Elllen 48, born Yorkshire, widow; John M [W sic] (26, born Wilsden), cotton mule spinner; Fairbank (17, born Bacup), cotton card room hand; George (14, born Bacup) cotton throstle room hand; and in the same household her eldest son, now married: John (27, born Eastbridge), moulder in the iron trade, married to Clara (27, born Neals?, Norfolk), daughter-in-law; and their children: James L[aw] (2, born Bacup) and Elizabeth J (1, born Bacup).
In the 1901 census is the following: address: 9 East St, Littleborough, Lancashire, Ellen (59, born [Ripon]sic, Yorkshire), retired weaver, living with her son George (23, born Bacup), bleacher's labourer at a print works. 
There are also three boarders at the address: 
John Hardman (34, born Todmorden), fireman at velvet dye works; 
David Butterworth (52, born Littleborough), coal agent and
Alice Scott (26, born Rochdale), cotton winder.


Law died in a tragic accident on the 17th September 1889. His death certificate records that he died in Manchester Royal Infirmary  because: "He, whilst trespassing  on a tramway line at a quarry, was accidentally knocked down and run over by an empty wagon that was being drawn up an incline & died from the injuries". He was 47 years of age. Certficate received from Sidney Smelt, Deputy Coroner, Manchester. Inquest held 18th September. His address was 2 George Street, Bacup. A newspaper article from the time gives greater detail and tells that it was his son who worked at the quarry and whom he had gone to see. His leg was fractured by the wagon which also caused "contusions on either side". The quarry in question was Leewood Quarry owned by Thomas Peel.

This extract is from the local paper

I have not yet been able to find a death record for Ellen, but in 1902 George married Jane Anne Hartley. In the 1911 census they have four children and live at 4 Kitter Street, Rochdale but Ellen is not listed.

Moses Marshall and Mary Fort

My maternal great grandfather, Moses Marshall, worked for most of his life as a mill engineer. He married Mary Fort, daughter of Thomas Fort (deceased cotton weaver) on the 9th November 1887. They married at Irwell Terrace Baptist Chapel, Bacup and their witnesses were John and Alice Ashworth. They were both recorded as being 21 years of age. 

At the time of his marriage Moses lived at 2 George Street, Bacup with his parents and brother and is described as a quarryman, but it may be that he was tending the stationary engine there (see below). In the 1881 census he was described as a cotton doffer and in that of 1891 he was a stoker at a cotton mill.  In the 1901 census he was a cotton mill engineer. 

When my grandmother was born in 1893 he was listed on her birth certificate as a stone quarrier; when her youngest sister, May, was born in 1910 he was also listed on her birth certficate as a stone quarrier. When his first child, Sarah Ellen got married for the second time in 1918 he was described as an engine tenter at a cotton mill. When his wife Mary died in 1919 she was described on her death certificate as widow of  ... engine tenter at a  stone quarry. In 1920 when his son John was married he was described as an engineer on the marriage certificate. In 1935 when his daughter, Martha, married he was described as a fire beater at a cotton mill (deceased).

 It would seem that even when he worked in the stone quarry he tended the stationary engine, possibly on the incline rail that hauled the trucks up out of the quarry. 

Mary and Moses had eight children, five girls and three boys. They were: Sarah Ellen (born 1888); John James (born 1891); Grace (born 1893); Law (born 1898); Mary and Martha (twins born 1900; [James] Walter (born 1909) and May (born 1910). They were all born in Bacup.

Moses was born on the 6th December 1866 at Inchfield Mill, Walsden which is just over the border in Yorkshire. The birth was registered at Todmorden, which is in both Yorkshire and Lancashire. His father was Law Marshall, engine tenter at a corn mill. His mother was Ellen Marshall, formerly Priestley. The birth was registered by the father. 

In the 1871 census the family's address was Green End Street, Bacup and they were listed as follows: Law (29, born Todmorden, Yorkshire), engineer; his wife Ellen (28, born Todmorden, Yorkshire); their children: John (7); Walter or Walton (6); Moses (4); Fairbank (2); Frank (3 weeks); all born Todmorden, Yorkshire.

In the1881 census their address was 8 Temple Court, Newchurch, Bacup. Listed at the address were: Law (39, b Todmorden), mill engineer; his wife Ellen (38, b Ribenden, Yorkshire). Their children were: John (17, born Bingley, Yorkshire), cotton doffer; J Walton (16, born Wilsden, Yorkshire), cotton checker;  Moses (14, born Walsden, Lancashire), cotton doffer; Fairbank (7 [12?] and George (3 ), both born in Bacup, both scholars.
[I think that the last two boys in the 1871 census may have died as infants which would explain the difference in the ages for Fairbank - perhaps the next child was christened Fairbank after the child's death]

Moses' father, Law, died in Manchester Royal Infirmary caused by a tragic accident at the Lee Wood stone quarry in 1889.

As far as Moses is concerned, from the marriage certificates of his children, it would seem that he died between September 1934 and January 1935, but a death record for him does not appear in the online GRO death indexes and a burial record has not come to light yet either.. 

My Marshall Ancestors: Grandmother Grace 

On my mother's side of the family, my grandmother was born Grace Marshall. 

My grandmother, Grace Marshall,  was born on the 26th June 1893 in the Union Workhouse, Dearnley in the Rochdale district of Wuerdle and Wardle. Her mother Mary Marshall, formerly Fort, registered the birth and signed with her mark being unable to write. Her father was Moses Marshall, quarry man. Their home address was Farholme, near Bacup.

In the 1901 census Grace (aged 8), her parents and siblings lived at 47 Acre Mill Road, Bacup. Her father, Moses, was a cotton mill engineer. Her brothers and sisters were: Sarah Ellen (aged 12), John Jas [sic] (aged 11), Law (aged 3) and twins Mary and Martha (aged 3). 

All the children were born in Bacup.


It is likely that Moses worked at Farholme Mill.

Acre Mill Road was not far from Farholme Lane as can be seen from the map below.

 On the www.bacuptimes.co.uk website we can read about this part of Bacup as it was then.

"Up the lane past Acre Mill Sunday School was a farm  known as Huttock End Farm eventually this farm was demolished to make way for the houses that now make up Hammond Avenue, Osbourne and Hill Crest estates. ....Huttock End Lane  was popular with many of the Irish families that had moved into the area to find work in the quarries and on the railway. A newspaper report of 1869 paints a very bad picture of Stacksteads describing it as "not a very safe or pleasant place to live and that the well disposed inhabitants of Stacksteads were in fear of their lives”. At this time the population of Stacksteads was made up mainly of what at the time were called “low Irish families" who were described as far from peace-loving and law-abiding." 

Above Farholme Mill in the distance

Above Acre Mill Road

In the 1911 census the family lived at 150 Newchurch Rd, Bacup, Mary and the children were listed  but not Moses. Mary stated that she had been married for 23 years and had given birth to 7 children, all still living. Living at home still were: John James (aged 20); throstle hand in cotton mill, Grace (aged 17), same occupation; Law (aged 13), cotton doffer; Mary and Martha, aged 11; Walter (aged 2) and May (aged 10 months). I found Moses, I think the right one, lodging at Turney Crook, Colne, Burnley (aged 36 - he should have been 43 by then), occupation stationary engine driver at a cotton mill. His place of birth was recorded as Bradford. Despite the discrepancies in the entry I think that this was Grace's father having found work away from home. 

Newchurch Rd was the main road through Bacup and Stacksteads, just round the corner from Farholme Lane, so they could still have worked at Farholme Mill. A throstle frame was a type of spinning machine for, in this case, cotton, which continuously would draw, wind and twist the thread. They got their name from the low humming which sounded like a throstle thrush. The doffer took off the full bobbins and replenished them with empty ones. 

Mary Marshall, Grace's mother died in 1919 on the 3rd May from acute gastritis and exhaustion. She was 51 years old and living at 22 Ernest St, Britannia, Bacup. The death was reported by L Marshall, presumably her son Law. She is described as the wife of Moses Marshall, not his widow, so he was presumably still living but perhaps not at home.

By the time Mary died her eldest daughter had been married twice but did live in the same street at number 26. Grace, my grandmother had been married for a couple of years and had her first child. The eldest boys, John and Law married the following year in 1920, but the youngest in 1919 - May - was only eight. 

Ernest Street is now a short street of only half a dozen houses with an open aspect to the fields and farm behind behind. It was quite a way from their home in Newchurch Rd and the other side of Bacup. Sarah Ellen moved to Britannia when she first married, so Mary could have moved herself and her family there to be closer. There is no further mention of Moses in the paper records but from recollections of family descendants he was still around in the early 1920s and at home often enough to fall out with daughter May when she was a teenager. I have not found a death record for him or a burial.

Grace married Alfred Staples on the 19th August 1915 at the Register Office in Haslingden. From their marriage certificate, Alfred was at that time a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers (no 5248), previously a labourer in a waste bleach works. Alfred lived at 9 Bank Cottages at the time of the marriage and his father was Herbert Staples, a railway carrier's carter. Grace lived at 9 Random Row in Stacksteads, a cotton spinner, and her father was Moses Marshall, a cotton mill engine tenter. The witnesses to the wedding were Joseph Rose and Sarah Ellen Bell (her older sister).

According to Alfred's war records he enlisted on the 7th September 1914 and was posted 12 days later. In 1916 he was in the Battle of the Somme and was shot in the hand which resulted in a fracture. After this, on the 9th October 1917 he was discharged as not fit for active service.
  

They had four children during and after the war: Harold, born May 1917; Frank born 1921; Doris (my mother), born October 1925 and Nellie, born 1929. The children went to school at St Mary's in Rawtenstall, then Harold, Doris and Frank went on to secondary school at Alder Grange and Nellie went to Lea Bank. Doris and Nellie left school at 14 and started work in Greenbridge Slipper Works - the building which is now Lamberts Mill on Fallbarn Road - trade name Osbornia Footwear, part of the Lambert Howarth Group. The firm was founded in Rawtenstall in 1885 and the mill was originally known as Hall Carr Mill. It is now a Grade II listed building (postcode BB4 7NX). There is a Rossendale Footwear Heritage Museum which is part of the current Factory Shop

Initially the family lived in a house behind some steps on a landing up Bury Road, known as "The Estate", they then moved to 57 Hardman Avenue from where Frank and Harold married, then to a smaller house at 70 or 71 Fallbarn Crescent from where Doris and Nellie married. After that Grace and Alfred moved to a new council bungalow, number 36 Cherry Crescent. All these houses were council houses. 

Before the war Alfred worked in a felt works when he still lived with his parents and siblings at 9 Bank Cottages, Rawtenstall. After the war he was a corporation labourer for a while but returned to the felt works, probably Longholme Felt Mill in Rawtenstall, owned during the war years by Richard Ashworth. I believe that the firm was later known as MASCO (Mitchell, Ashworth & Stansfield) a conglomeration of local mills. Longholme Mill was demolished and is currently the site of a  supermarket.

Grace and Alfred's children

Harold: Contribution by my cousin Anne who lives in Lancashire:

Dad was born on 8th May 1917

He went to St Marys School Rawtenstall. He was in the 2nd World War and enlisted in the Queens 16 Lancers Household Cavalry. He was in the tank regiment and served most of his time in North Africa. A matter of weeks away from the end of the war dad was blown up in his tank and very badly injured. Back on civvy street dad did various jobs labourer, gravedigger and eventually getting his own lorry and working for himself as a building contractor and stone mason. Dad met and married mum (Edna Haworth} in June 1945 at Trinity Baptist Church Haslingden. Dad's interests were breeding Game birds which he showed and occasionally won!! at the New Years Day Game Show held in Ramsbottom.

Sadly dad passed away 2nd November 2001 and was laid to rest at Grane cemetery Haslingden.

 

Frank: Contribution by my cousin Brenda who lives in Canada:
"Dad came to Canada in 1954,a year before Mom, Derek and I came. He was married in 1945 and lived in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, England. He was a joiner (carpenter), as we call it, by trade and built coffins in England. He worked at a lumber yard first when he came to Canada and then went on to start his own carpenter business. When work was getting hard to find and keep the family, he went to work at General Electric Company and worked in the carpentary department. He was there until he had 2 strokes and had to retire. His hobbies, of course, were woodworking. He built furniture for our house and other people who wanted custom work done. He was very good at it in his day. He was also in the RCAF when he met mom and married her in 1945 ( I think). I came along in 1947. He died in 2001 and is buried at rosemount memorial gardens in our town of Peterborough,Ontario"