Happy Birthday Grandpa
Oct. 19th, 2008 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceyI just spotted the date. One hundred and fifteen years ago today Thomas Bennett was born to Lilly and Fred Bennett in Barnsley.
Here's Tommy, aged about 21 or 22. I've not managed to trace the Bennett side back very far yet. My great great grandfather Matthew Bennett is as far back as I can go right now. he was born around 1854.
But I can go quite a bit further back for Lilly Bennett, born Lilly Kearsley in 1870 in Ickles, near Wickersley, Rotherham.
Lilly doesn't look like much of a charmer, does she? (Probably would have looked better with a full set of teeth.) But my mum says she was a sweet a gentle soul who was very hospitable and never had a bad word for anyone.
Anyhow, Lilly Kearsley is the daughter of Thomas Kearsley and Hannah Pashley. Thomas Kearsley is also a dead-end after another generation because he first pops up on the 1841 census as a 5 year old child living with his dad, William Kearsley, born 1816, but they are both living as lodgers in another household in Lowton Common in Lancashire and there's no sign of his mother Elizabeth. William eventually goes to work as 'railway servant' in Leeds, remarries and ends up in Sandal, Wakefield. (Isn't it amazing how things fold back in on themselves. I used to be the branch librarian at Sandal library barely half a mile from where they lived.)
Thomas however ends up in the Sheffield/Rotherham steel area (as a labourer) where he meets Hannah Pashley who is working (on the 1861 census) at the Duke of Wellington pub on Greasbrough Road, Thornhill, Rotherham - a house newly opened in 1856. (Remember a while ago I pointed out Transcription Error of The Month where some hapless scribe had read Greasbrough as Grassmangle?)
I have much more luck tracing Hannah's line. In fact I can go back another four generations, but not through the Pashley line, My research jinks off through the maternal line again. How come it's the women who end up on official records while the men keep their heads down when anyone comes close with a pen and paper? Hannah Pashley is the daughter of Thomas Pashley and Esther Whinfrey of Ickles, a tiny village near Wickersley, now a suburb on the Tinsley side of Rotherham in the valley where all the steelworks are. It can't have been a pleasant environment to grow up in, especially as her father died in 1849 when she was only five and her mother, with five children between the ages of five and twelve was declared a pauper. By the 1851 census Hannah is living with William and Eizabeth Whinfrey, her uncle and aunt. Her older sister, Martha, is already working for a living by the age of ten, listed as a nurse on the 1851 census, servant to Henry & Sarah Wadsworth of Wickersley, who have 3 children under 4 yrs old.
The Whinfreys seem to be a large and close family. There are lots of aunts and uncles and I suspect that Esther must have relied on them to help with the children after she was widowed. Esther's parents were John Whinfrey (1780) and Anne MacKintosh (1784) and John's parents were Thomas Whinfrey, born 1746 in Tickhill, Doncaster. His wife was another Esther but I have nothing on her except her name.
Of course, as to professions... labourers all the way, once again, at least as far back as the earliest census of 1841. I really doubt I shall find any long lost heirs to the throne or romantic aristocratic French emigres, just solid working classes (or shifty un-working classes maybe).
The search continues.
Here's Tommy, aged about 21 or 22. I've not managed to trace the Bennett side back very far yet. My great great grandfather Matthew Bennett is as far back as I can go right now. he was born around 1854.
But I can go quite a bit further back for Lilly Bennett, born Lilly Kearsley in 1870 in Ickles, near Wickersley, Rotherham.
Lilly doesn't look like much of a charmer, does she? (Probably would have looked better with a full set of teeth.) But my mum says she was a sweet a gentle soul who was very hospitable and never had a bad word for anyone.
Anyhow, Lilly Kearsley is the daughter of Thomas Kearsley and Hannah Pashley. Thomas Kearsley is also a dead-end after another generation because he first pops up on the 1841 census as a 5 year old child living with his dad, William Kearsley, born 1816, but they are both living as lodgers in another household in Lowton Common in Lancashire and there's no sign of his mother Elizabeth. William eventually goes to work as 'railway servant' in Leeds, remarries and ends up in Sandal, Wakefield. (Isn't it amazing how things fold back in on themselves. I used to be the branch librarian at Sandal library barely half a mile from where they lived.)
Thomas however ends up in the Sheffield/Rotherham steel area (as a labourer) where he meets Hannah Pashley who is working (on the 1861 census) at the Duke of Wellington pub on Greasbrough Road, Thornhill, Rotherham - a house newly opened in 1856. (Remember a while ago I pointed out Transcription Error of The Month where some hapless scribe had read Greasbrough as Grassmangle?)
I have much more luck tracing Hannah's line. In fact I can go back another four generations, but not through the Pashley line, My research jinks off through the maternal line again. How come it's the women who end up on official records while the men keep their heads down when anyone comes close with a pen and paper? Hannah Pashley is the daughter of Thomas Pashley and Esther Whinfrey of Ickles, a tiny village near Wickersley, now a suburb on the Tinsley side of Rotherham in the valley where all the steelworks are. It can't have been a pleasant environment to grow up in, especially as her father died in 1849 when she was only five and her mother, with five children between the ages of five and twelve was declared a pauper. By the 1851 census Hannah is living with William and Eizabeth Whinfrey, her uncle and aunt. Her older sister, Martha, is already working for a living by the age of ten, listed as a nurse on the 1851 census, servant to Henry & Sarah Wadsworth of Wickersley, who have 3 children under 4 yrs old.
The Whinfreys seem to be a large and close family. There are lots of aunts and uncles and I suspect that Esther must have relied on them to help with the children after she was widowed. Esther's parents were John Whinfrey (1780) and Anne MacKintosh (1784) and John's parents were Thomas Whinfrey, born 1746 in Tickhill, Doncaster. His wife was another Esther but I have nothing on her except her name.
Of course, as to professions... labourers all the way, once again, at least as far back as the earliest census of 1841. I really doubt I shall find any long lost heirs to the throne or romantic aristocratic French emigres, just solid working classes (or shifty un-working classes maybe).
The search continues.
