A family history trip to Calderdale - 7 Christ Church, Mount Pellon

 This is the last post in this series. 

There are 11 separate references to Highley families in the burial records for Mount Pellon Church. Of these 2 are shown as 'empty plots', 3 are 'unmarked graves', 4 have readable gravestones, 1 has an unreadable gravestone, and 1 shows the names of two Highleys on a WW2 memorial inside the church.

Buried in this grave are Betty Highley and her children James and Ellen.

Betty and her husband John lived in New Pellon and had eight children altogether.

All the family were employed in the weaving industry. The 1861 Census shows that John, Betty and their daughter Mary were all Worsted Weavers, James was a Cotton Piecer, and their sons John and Thomas were Worsted Spinners. In the 1851 Census the older children Elizabeth and Hannah were Mule Operatives and Ann was a Handloom Weaver. Ellen died in 1856, aged 10.

  

In 1931 William Highley married Elizabeth Sutcliffe (nee Tidswell). Elizabeth had previously been married to Fred Sutcliffe who died in 1918.

William first married Mary Tattersall in 1879 and the couple had three children - Frank, Annie and Olive. Mary died in 1930.

In the 1939 Register William and Elizabeth were living at 11 Woodhead Street, close to the church at Mount Pellon. William was described as a Retired Carpet Layer. Elizabeth died in 1941 and William in 1947.

On 1st August 1898 in Halifax Parish Church, Fred Highley, aged 24, a Labourer of Sky Alley, Halifax, married Leah Jowett, aged 25, of Bank Bottom, Southowram. The couple had three children, Annie, Vincent and Ernest. In 1921, Fred, Annie and Vincent were all working for Patons & Baldwins Ltd, Hosiery Manufacturers in Halifax.

The post of 23rd February 2019 was about Horace Highley who was killed fighting in Belgium in WW1. Horace is commemorated on the family gravestone at Mount Pellon.

Also named on the stone are his father Joseph, his mother Lilly (Charlotte Elizabeth, nee Thomas), his sister Clara, and his brother George Thomas.

George Thomas was killed in a railway accident which became the subject of a court case. His story will be told in a future post.

Inside the church, near the altar, is a memorial to the men of the parish who gave their lives in WW2. Amongst the list of names are Fred Highley and Robert Highley. The lives of these two soldiers will be covered in a future post.