DEATH BY CHAMBER POT 1898 Can a tale be harrowing and comical at the same time? Is this story a candidate for the Darwin awards? The newspaper heading had it all: ‘The Blackshaw Mystery – Threat with a loaded gun – Disgraceful and sickening behaviour.’ At the age of 71 Ezra Butterworth was found by […]
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I discovered this startling fact just a few weeks ago, and despite my life being filled with coincidences this one took my by surprise. OK, OK. I haven’t told you the full story – not quite. What happened was this: I discovered that one of my ancestors was named George Frederic Handel Halstead and he […]
Edgar’s sister ,Mary Harwood, married Mortimer Moss, a fustian manufacturer who lived at Nutclough House. How interconnected all these prominent families of Hebden Bridge were. Indeed. Only 2 months after Ada’s tragic death Edgar’s niece Bertha Moss, Mortimer’s daughter, married Claude Redman eldest son of Richard Redman The English Fustian Manufacturing Company had been founded […]
At his baptism on March 18, 1865, Ezra and Mary’s son was given the name Gibson, the surname of his mother. The church of St James, in Hebden Bridge must have been crowded since Gibson was one of 11 children baptised that day by Rev George Sowden. In 1900, at the age of 36 Gibson […]
So two of Joshua Gibson’s sons had taken their own lives. But what was happening to Joshua Gibson’s daughters? Out of his nine children three were girls. Mary married a railway contractor, Ezra Butterworth who ultimately came to his own sticky end. Hannah and Sarah Ann both married innkeepers, thereby keeping up the family business. […]
Day 1, Scarborough I’m sitting in the restaurant of The Grand Hotel, Scarborough, with a perfect view out to sea with Scarborough castle perched on the cliff top beyond the harbour. At least the trains were on time today AND the taxi turned up so I arrived in Scarborough on time, right at 2 p.m. […]
Yesterday I met up with 4 people, who, like me, are descendants of Stansfield Gibson. They and their spouses had lunch, chatted, shared books of photographs and family tree charts and generally had an amazing time, all in the Moorcock pub that had been operated by Stansfield’s son Herbert in 1901. Before lunch I had […]
On the last day of March 2021 I had made my first exploration of the hillside between Blackshaw head and the Upper Colden valley and a week later I had the opportunity to revisit the area – with a friend – with a car. I wasn’t sure of the terrain and whether the paths would […]
CHARLES CRABTREE – manufacturer – and his son, Walter of Stansfield Hall There are certain family names in the Calder Valley that are so ubiquitous that people researching their family history pray that they won’t find them in their family tree. Greenwood is one. Sutcliffe is another. A third is Crabtree, so it was with […]
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