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.