Charles Hiley, a great great grandfather, was born in Walsden near Todmorden, once part of Lancashire but now in Yorkshire, in 1822. As soon as he was old enough he started working in the Cotton Mill. All the official records during his lifetime show him as a Power Loom Weaver apart from the 1861 census when he was listed as a Hair Cutter.
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| Alma Street in Walsden - where Charles lived at the end of his life |
Charles married Betty Harrison, the daughter of a Woodcutter, and between them they brought up 11 children.
Until his marriage Charles’s surname was always spelt Highley, but after that he was generally known as Hiley.
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| Lanebottom, Walsden. Wesleyan chapel and school |
Charles helped to found the local Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and served it as trustee, class leader and teacher.
He was a Radical and would walk for miles to listen to political agitators such as Feargus O’Connor, the Chartist leader.
No photo remains of Charles but there was a picture of him on the wall inside the Chapel, sadly lost when the Chapel was demolished in the 1960s.
Charles died in 1899 and is buried along with Betty and other family members in the graveyard at Mankinholes, a wild setting high up on the moors above the Calder valley. The Todmorden Advertiser remembered him as ‘one of those quiet, unostentatious men who are welcome in every community.’
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| The graveyard at Mankinholes |
(This article appeared in the 'Persons of Interest' series on the website of the Guild of One-Name Studies.)
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