Walsden in 1851

Members of the Yorkshire Hileys moved west from Sowerby along the Calder Valley and settled in Todmorden and Walsden in the 1760s.

In the Census of 1851 there were 13 households containing Hiley/Highley families with a total of 58 Hiley/Highley individuals. The most common male name was John and the most common female name was Mary. Most of the adult men were employed in spinning and weaving mills.

The map (from Walsden - A Century of Change 1780-1880 by J Crowther) shows the locations of these families.

Tom Hiley

Tom Hiley was from Hunslet in Leeds. He married Edna Marsden, a widow (nee Earnshaw), in 1914. His daughter Irene was born on the day Tom was killed, 12th May 1917, aged about 28.

Tom was a Rifleman in the West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own) 2nd/7th Battalion, known as the Leeds Rifles. His name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial in northern France. Most of those commemorated were killed in the Battle of Arras which was fought between 9 April and 16 May 1917.

Arras Memorial

Tom Hiley's name on a wall in the Arras Memorial

Photos by Alexander Hiley

James Joseph Highley

Grave of James Joseph Highley

This is the grave of James Joseph Highley at Berles New Military Cemetery near Arras in northern France.

James Highley was born in Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His parents James J and Ann (nee Burke and born in Ireland) had married in 1875. In 1901 James, aged 16, was a Driver for a Gas Works, his father a General Labourer, and living with them in Halifax were three other children and Ann’s mother.

James married Margaret Ann Dawson on 25th June 1904 at St Bernard’s Church in Halifax, and a son John William was born on 4th November 1908. In 1911 James's occupation was a Cart Driver and the family lived at 8 Carleston Road, Halifax.

James enlisted in August 1915. He served with the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment), 1st/7th Battalion, and was killed in action on 19th January 1917, aged 32.

The village of Berles au Bois remained in British hands from the summer of 1915, when it was taken over from French troops, until the end of the War, but it suffered at times from severe shelling. There are 166 identified casualties buried at this cemetery.

The entrance to the cemetery

Berles New Military Cemetery

Photos by Alexander Hiley