Mankinholes Chapel (Part 5)

This is the final post in the series about the graveyard at Mankinholes, and looks at the remaining graves of Hileys or those with Hiley connections.

The post of 7th December 2021 told the story of John (Jack) Highley and his family. John, his wife Mary, and daughter Clara are buried at Mankinholes. Also named on their gravestone is their grandson Clifford Hall, who was killed when the bomber he was flying crashed in mountains in France in 1919.

Betsy Hannah was one of Charles and Betty's daughters - see Part 4 of this series. She married Frank Morris, a Picker Maker, in 1888. Pickers were strong leather attachments fitted to each side of a weaving loom to drive the shuttle across the loom.

Betsy and Frank had 3 children, Sam who died as a little boy, Aquilla, and Edgar. Edgar joined the Lancashire Fusiliers and served as a cook in the sergeant’s mess. He married Martha Williams while on leave in 1916 but died of pneumonia shortly afterwards. He was assistant organist at the Wesleyan Methodist church in Walsden.

Sarah and Clara were two more of Charles and Betty’s daughters. They both married but had no children.

Sarah married Fred Crabtree, a Picker Maker, and they lived on Hollins Road. Fred was Secretary of the Walsden Wesleyan Methodist church.

Clara married James Greenwood Stansfield. Clara and James were both Cotton Weavers in Walsden. Henry Hiley remembers ‘Aunt Clara’ occupying one of the single room dwellings in the Top o’ th’ Hill property for a time after James’s death.

The burial records show that all four were buried in the grave shown below but only the Crabtree names appear on the gravestone.