The Life of Henry Hiley Part 14 - Littleborough Central School

Today's post returns to the memoirs of Henry Hiley.

It’s time that I went back to school. That school, it had the baby class, that was called Class 3. Mrs Allerby looked after us there and then we went up to Class 2, Class 1 and then into, you might call it the big school, starting with Standard 1. And that went on, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 until Standard 6, maybe even Standard 7 and Standard 8.

I can’t remember an awful lot about the classroom work. I can remember my first reading lessons, I told you that, c in cat, d in dog and suchlike. But I do remember that we were given a little but not much homework, very seldom did we get homework, but once or twice we were expected to learn a psalm - Psalm 23, the first psalm of all. Well, when we got back to school the following morning the girls had usually learned them and I was about the only boy. I had great difficulty in getting them off by heart and I used to sit in the shop near to that big coke oven. I was at least warm and I struggled, I struggled, to commit anything to memory.

I was more interested in cricket. We used to play plenty of cricket on the street. We used to go on to the Rec. That was a big open space but there were great areas there where the grass was worn away. When we were playing amongst ourselves if any boy managed to score as many as 50 he was expected to declare. I very seldom did that. We didn’t play many outside schools. We played the Parish Church school in Littleborough. We played Dearnley Central School.

I stayed in that Elementary School as far as Standard 6. The school leaving age was 14. But the school also had a higher grade department. We called it the Science. My sister Mary went into the Science department. Agnes didn’t, she left school very early. She was poorly and what would have been her last school years were spent in a Sanatorium. Edith won the Junior Scholarship. She went off to Rochdale to the Secondary School in 1925 and about the time that I was being put in for the Junior Scholarship exam Barbara went into the Science department.

Henry - top row, furthest right

Henry - top row, 3rd from the right

Barbara Kershaw - 2nd row, 3rd from the right

Henry - 1st row, 3rd from the left

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley (Part 11 - John and Mary)

This is the final post in this series about John and Mary Highley and their family.

John died in 1929 at the age of 76. He had worked as a Cotton Weaver all his life. The last record we have of him is the 1921 Census where he is shown at age 68 working at Hollins Mill in Walsden for the Cotton Manufacturer Caleb Hoyle. 

Hollins Mill, Walsden in 2018

Mary carried on living at 106 Summit, Littleborough with Thomas Arthur and his family. The 1939 Register shows her occupation as ‘Retired. Unpaid Domestic Duties’. She died 2 years later at the age of 88. At the time, she was living with her daughter Mary Hannah in Todmorden. 

Entry in the Todmorden & District News 5th December 1941

John and Mary were buried at Calderbrook church in Littleborough.

Calderbrook church. View from John and Mary's grave

John and Mary's grave

Mary had lost 5 of her children in infancy and had lost 3 in the First World War. At the time of her death 4 of them were still living with their families. She had 20 grandchildren. She had survived her husband by 12 years.

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley (Part 10 - Thomas Arthur and Richard)

Thomas Arthur’s first wife Ann Selina died in 1923 and he remarried two years later Elizabeth Ann Threlfall. He worked as a Cotton Weaver for Fothergill & Harvey and lived at 106 Summit, just outside Littleborough. He died in 1952. 

106 Summit, Littleborough
(behind the maroon car)

Richard married Alice Hartley soon after the War ended. The couple had a daughter Phyllis who sadly died after only 2 days. In the 1939 Register Richard is shown as being divorced, working as a Cotton Weaver, and living with his sister Beatrice Annie and her family at 1 Sourhall Road in Todmorden. He died the year after Thomas Arthur.

1 Sourhall Road, Todmorden
(first house on left)

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley and their family (Part 9 - after the War)

In this post we look at the the fortunes of the families of John Henry, Ernest Jackson and Charles William after the War.

Grace
On 13 May 1921 Grace, John Henry's widow, together with Herbert (aged 12) and Jack (aged 7), left Liverpool for a new life aboard SS Melita bound for Quebec in Canada. 

SS Melita leaving Liverpool

This is Grace’s passenger declaration form for her arrival in Canada:

 

The family settled in London, Ontario. Grace married again in 1929.

Harriet Ann

Ernest Jackson and his wife Harriet Anne had had 4 children by the time Ernest Jackson was killed. Harriet Ann never remarried and lived to the grand old age of 92. She was the last of the various Highley families to live in the block of terrace houses originally known as Throstle Terrace in Walsden. She was living at 12 Throstle Street in 1932 - the 3rd house from the right hand end of the block.

Throstle Street in 2025

Mary 

This is a photograph of Charles William’s widow Mary and their daughter Miriam, taken in about 1930. Miriam had just turned one when her father was killed.

Miriam died in 1942 and is buried at Calderbrook church in Littleborough, although there is no gravestone there to remember her. Mary died in 1972 but there is no record of her burial.

The Hiley Y-DNA surname project newsletter

Today's post features the latest edition of the Hiley Y-DNA surname project newsletter.

If you have any queries, comments or suggestions then I would be very pleased to hear from you. You can contact me directly at christopherhiley@hotmail.com or you can post a comment at the bottom of the page. You are welcome to forward the newsletter to anyone you know who might have an interest in the project.

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley and their family (Part 8 - Mary Hannah and Beatrice Annie)

Two girls in the family, Mary Hannah and Beatrice Annie, lived into adulthood. They both outlived all their brothers.

They each married local Walsden men, who were both called John and worked as Picker Makers at Stoneswood Picker Works.

Picker Makers at Stoneswood Picker Works
(Photo shown with permission of Pennine Horizons Digital Archive)

A picker was a strong leather attachment used in weaving looms to move the shuttle back and forth. These were essential items for the weaving process in the textile industry. Picker makers made them from Buffalo hide and the photo shows men at Stoneswood with their buffalo hides. Todmorden was one of the most important areas for its production in England.

Mary Hannah and her husband John Stansfield had 3 boys and a girl. They lived on Bacup Road near the Picker Works at Stoneswood. Beatrice Annie and her husband John Fielden Barnes had 1 boy. They lived on Sourhall Road off  Bacup Road.

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley and their family (Part 7 - Thomas Arthur)

Thomas Arthur was the oldest of the 12 children. He married Ann Selina Lobb in 1899 and the couple lived next door to his parents John and Mary in Throstle Street, Walsden before moving to Littleborough. The couple had 6 children before war broke out.

Thomas Arthur was a very late entry into the War. This entry appeared in the Rochdale Observer on 22nd June 1918.

Grade 2 was a common designation for men who passed the medical examination but were not deemed fully fit for front-line duties. We don’t know why Thomas Arthur enlisted at such a late stage of the War but he joined the RAF on 13th August 1918.

His enlistment document tells us quite a lot about Thomas Arthur, including some physical details which aren't available for his four brothers.

Thomas Arthur was attached to the RAF Reserve Depot which was a key unit for training and managing personnel. He worked in the Heaton Park Dispersal Unit in Manchester. This had the capacity for demobilising up to 3000 men per day.

He enlisted in August 1918, the war ended in November that year, he was transferred to the RAF reserve in February 1919, and finally discharged in April 1920.

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley and their family (Part 6 - Richard)

Richard was the youngest boy in the family. This is the record of his baptism in Inchfield Bottom Methodist Chapel in Walsden, like his older brothers and sisters.

 

The diagram below shows the service periods of the 5 brothers involved in the War. Although he was much younger Richard went to the Front before both Charles William and Ernest Jackson. The diagram shows the short length of time each of the other 4 brothers spent fighting. Richard’s service was about twice the total length of time served by all his brothers together.

Richard joined the same regiment, the Devonshires, as his brother Ernest Jackson, but he was in a different battalion, the 1sts. He is referred to in a number of newspaper reports, shown below.

The top one was part of the report shown in the last post about Charles William applying for an exemption. In fact the information about Richard having gone through the Dardanelles campaign is wrong because the 1st Devonshires weren’t involved in that part of the world.

The 2nd one is part of the report of Ernest Jackson’s death in July 1916, and shows Richard back in England at that time.

And finally a year later, in the report about Charles William’s death, we learn that Richard is still serving, and attempts were being made to release him from duties.

It appears that those attempts were not successful because Richard saw out the War. Although he had lost 3 brothers it was obviously felt that the British Army couldn’t manage without him. Richard’s medal card showed that he was entitled to the Victory medal, the British War medal and the 1915 Star. In the remarks it stated that he was placed in the Z reserve. After World War I, the Class Z Army Reserve was a temporary measure to hold discharged soldiers who were not yet eligible for full demobilization. They were required to return if called upon, but were otherwise free to return to civilian life. It was abolished the following year.

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley and their family (Part 5 - Charles William)

Today's post tells the story of Charles William, the third of the brothers to lose his life in WW1.

Charles William Highley

When Charles William was born in 1889, Ernest Jackson was 10 and John Henry was 12. Before the War his life followed a similar pattern to his older brothers – working in the Cotton Mill as soon as he was old enough, then marrying a local girl and starting a family. The article in The Todmorden Advertiser above says that he was well-known in the district. He married Mary Carr on 20th March 1915 and their daughter Miriam was born in May the following year. Shortly after this Ernest Jackson was killed so Charles William had lost both his two older brothers who had gone to fight in the War.

In September 1916 Charles William applied for an exemption to being called up. A separation allowance was a payment to soldiers who were separated from their family due to serving in the war. He was given an exemption until 30th November that year. The other brother mentioned is Richard who survived the war and is the subject of the next post.

The following January Charles William enlisted in Todmorden with the 15th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, known as the 1st Salford Pals.

When Charles William joined the Battalion in France they were fighting in the Somme region, but at the beginning of June they travelled by train to the extreme northern end of the Western Front, on the Belgian coastline at Nieuport. In a book on the Salford Pals the author Michael Stedman said that ‘the area provided the best opportunity for personal cleanliness that anyone could remember. At rest, behind the lines, a brief stroll took the men to the seaside, fishing, bathing and taking the sun.’

But away from the seaside in the frontline trenches there was heavy fighting and Charles William was killed in action on 22nd June.

Charles William was initially buried in a French Military Cemetery but after the war a number of graves were brought in from the battlefield and nearby smaller cemeteries and he was reburied at Ramscappelle Road Cemetery.

The burial return shows that he was identified by a piece of his boot which was stamped with his service no. 27557.

Ramscappelle Road Cemetery, Nieuport

Charles William's gravestone

Charles William was the last of the 3 Highley brothers to die. No two of them served at the same time in France or Belgium and the total time spent abroad between the three of them was only about 11 months.

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley and their family (Part 4 - Ernest Jackson)

Ernest Jackson, born in 1879, was two years younger than John Henry.

He worked at Friths Mill in Todmorden. At different times he is described as a Cotton Mill Hand, a Cotton Mill Labourer, a Cotton Warehouseman, and a Cotton Weaver. At one time there were well over 50 mills in Todmorden and Walsden. Most of the big industrial chimneys have now gone and the mills have been demolished, or stand abandoned, or have been converted for other purposes.

Ernest Jackson married Harriet Ann Helliwell in 1907. They had 4 children – Florence, Edith, Frank and Mary. Mary was born in May 1915 and in July that year Edward Jackson enlisted in Halifax with the 8th Battalion Devonshire Regiment. His brother John Henry had died 8 months previously and his parents must have had misgivings about another son going off to fight.

The 8th Battalion had been formed soon after the start of War in August 1914. They embarked for France in July the following year just as Ernest Jackson started his training in Exeter. The Battalion was immediately involved in fighting on the Western Front.

In October Ernest Jackson had 8 days leave away from Exeter and then sailed for France on 15th December 1915. He spent 2 months in hospital suffering from strain but was discharged in February 1916 and sent back to the Firing Line. At this time the Battalion were situated in a village near Albert in the Somme region.

Ernest Jackson had been back with his battalion for only about 4 months when he was killed in action on 1st July 1916. This day was the 1st day of the Battle of the Somme. There were over 57000 British casualties with over 19000 soldiers killed.

The 8th and 9th Devonshires had the task of attacking German trenches below the fortified village of Mametz. They left their assembly trench and reached an area between Mansel Copse and the main road but the Germans had placed a machine gun in the cemetery in Mametz, a place called ‘The Shrine’. The Devonshires were exposed and caught by the machine gun fire and suffered heavy casualties. Ernest Jackson’s battalion suffered 2 officers killed and 47 other ranks killed or missing plus 7 officers and 151 other ranks wounded.

On 4th July surviving comrades of those killed returned to the trench where so many soldiers had been cut down and created an original war cemetery. 163 officers and men from both the 9th and 8th battalions were buried there.

Despite the losses the attack was successful and Mametz was captured.

Ernest Jackson's gravestone

Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley (Part 3 - John Henry)

John Henry was born in 1877, the second of John and Mary's children. By the age of 14 he was working as a Cotton Weaver in a mill in Walsden.

John Henry married Grace Speak in April 1900. A son Jesse was born later that year but died of measles at only 8 months old. They had 2 more sons, Herbert in 1909 and Jack in 1913.

It appears that John Henry and Grace had a stormy relationship, at least early on in their marriage. In December 1900, under a heading of ‘An Ill Matched Walsden Couple’, The Todmorden District News reported on a case where John Henry was summoned for assaulting his wife. Grace had gone to the Conservative Club where John Henry was playing billiards in order to fetch him home. She claimed that her husband had hit her outside the club and then again when they got home, all of which John Henry denied. He claimed that Grace had got her mother, brother and sisters to come and take all their wedding presents away to her mother’s house. The case was dismissed and the Mayor said that they must go home and live together again.

John Henry also appeared in the local paper in connection with cricket. He played for Knowlwood in the Calder Valley League, opening the bowling and batting at no. 3.

John Henry was already a reservist in Walsden with the 1st Battalion East Lancashire Regiment so when war was declared in 1914 he was ready to serve straightaway. The regiment was part of the 11th Brigade in the 4th Division. They sailed to France on 22nd August. His battalion was involved in the Battle of the Aisne and the Battle of the Marne and then moved north to Flanders in the sector on the French/Belgian border north-east of Armentières. The Battalion was heavily involved in the Battle of Armentieres at the end of October. This action was part of the fighting called ‘The Race to the Sea’ where the Allies fought to prevent the Germans breaking through to the Channel ports.

John Henry died at the 10th Field Ambulance at Le Romarin on 1st November 1914 of wounds received in action. He had been in France for only 2 months.

He was initially buried in a little cemetery at Fortrie Farm in Neuve-Eglise and then reburied after the war at the Trois Arbres Cemetery at Steenwerck.

John Henry's gravestone

Trosi Arbres Cemetery, Steenwerck

                           

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley (Part 2 - the children)

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley had 12 children:

Thomas Arthur 1875 - 1952
John Henry 1877 - 1914
Ernest Jackson 1879 - 1916
James Edward 1882 - 1887
Mary Hannah 1885 - 1964
Sarah Alice 1887 - 1890

Charles William 1889 - 1917

Fred 1892 - 1892

Martha 1892 - 1892

Richard 1893 - 1953

Beatrice Annie 1896 - 1974

The 1911 census showed that John and Mary had had 12 children born alive of whom 5 had died. James Edward died at age 5, Sarah Alice at age 3, and the twins Fred and Martha were born prematurely and died after a few hours. There is no record that tells us more about their 12th child.

Nine of the children were baptised in the Inchfield Bottom Methodist Chapel in Walsden. The Chapel closed to worshippers in 2010.

Inchfield Bottom Chapel, Walsden

Three of the boys were killed in the First World War - John Henry, Ernest Jackson and Charles William. The next few posts will look at their lives before the War, where they fought and where they are commemorated, and what happened to their families afterwards.

Two boys, Richard and Thomas Arthur, took part in the War and survived. They both married and had children. Mary Hannah and Beatrice Annie both lived into adulthood, married and brought up families.

At the time of his marriage to Mary Ann Bray in 1874 John was living at Throstle Terrace in Walsden. His parents Thomas and Sarah had moved there at some time before the 1871 census was taken. From that time until about 1932, a period of over 60 years, there were various members of this Highley family living at Throstle Terrace.

The photo below shows Throstle Terrace and the Lanebottom Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and Sunday School.

The houses on the roadside were 935 - 945 Rochdale Road. At the back was Throstle Street (numbered 8 to 18). The whole block was known as Throstle Terrace.

935 - 945 Rochdale Road

Throstle Street. No. 8 at the end

John and Mary Ann Bray Highley and their family (Part 1 - John and Mary)

This is the first of a series of posts telling the story of a Walsden family of Highleys broken apart by the First World War.

John Highley was born in 1852 and was a direct descendant of David Hiley born in Warley in 1700. His parents were Thomas and Sarah (nee Jackson). The census of 1851 shows the family living on Todmorden Road, Bottoms, Walsden, with Thomas working as a Steam Loom Weaver (Cotton). 

John was one of 7 children. By 1861 the family had moved to Victoria Terrace in Todmorden and John, just aged 9, was already working as a Cotton Throstle Spinner. In 1871 they were back in Walsden, at 2 Throstle Terrace. John was a CottonWeaver.

Mary Ann Bray Wills was born in Cornwall in 1853 and was the oldest of 10 children. Her family, looking for work, made the epic journey to Todmorden at some point between 1871 and 1874. On 17th May 1871 this entry appeared in The Cornish Telegraph:

John married Mary Ann Bray on 4th April 1874 at Cross Lanes Chapel between Hebden Bridge and Heptonstall.

Marriage Certificate of John and Mary Ann Bray

Cross Lanes Chapel
From the Alice Longstaff Collection

Between 1875 and 1896 the couple had 12 children.

Next post - John and Mary's children

The Life of Henry Hiley Part 13 - Family illness, trips to Greenodd, and brother Sam

Today we revisit two previous posts from the Blog.

 

The first one is John Hiley's article "From satanic mills to the roots of heaven" which recounts tuberculosis striking the family and holidays in the Lake District.

The second one is of some of Henry's memories of his older brother Sam, who died in 1929.

Click on the link below:

Hiley Family History Blog: April 2021

The Life of Henry Hiley Part 12 - Henry's stepmother Grace Annie

Today we return to the memoirs of Henry Hiley.

His mother Ethel (nee Heap) died in March 1923 when Henry was 4 years old. His father Harold then married Grace Annie Heyworth in December 1925 when Henry was nearly 7.

Father married again, I think that was in 1926. How on earth he persuaded any woman to take on a husband, five children, do the housework, and help with making the pies, I shall never know. Anyway she did, we all liked her. Perhaps it was better than being what you might call a war widow because so many women who should have got married - there were no men for them. Over a million British men had lost their lives in the 1914-1918 war. Father engaged Mrs Sutcliffe. She lived on the opposite side of the street, and she came in to help with washing up and a little bit of cleaning.

Henry with Grace Annie

Grace Annie, Harold and Henry

Harold and Grace Annie