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.

Mankinholes Chapel (Part 4)

Charles and Betty Hiley were the parents of Samuel (see Part 3), the grandparents of Harold and the great grandparents of Agnes (see Part 2). With them in their grave at Mankinholes are their children John, Sarah Ann, Grace and Charles Harrison, and also their grandson Percy. Charles and Betty had 11 children of whom 8 are buried at Mankinholes.

This Blog already contains a number of posts which mention Charles. Type Charles Hiley into the search box to see them, but be aware that other Charles Hileys will appear amongst the results.

Charles died in 1899, well before Henry Hiley was born. But Henry recalls:

In the Wesleyan Chapel in Walsden there was a ‘rogues gallery’ of worthy founders of the Chapel. One of the pictures was of Charles. 

Either Samuel or Charles changed the (Highley) name to Hiley. I have always believed it was Charles who was born in 1822 and married Betty Harrison. I never knew them but their graves were at Mankinholes. I read the inscriptions on the headstones and have never until recently known that I had any connection with any Harrison.

At the base of the gravestone:

THEY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS
PERCY, THEIR GRAND-SON,
AGED 5 MONTHS
C. HILEY. WALSDEN

Mankinholes Chapel (Part 3)

This post looks at another of the Hiley family graves at Mankinholes.

Samuel and Elizabeth were Henry Hiley’s grandparents. Samuel started his working life as a Cotton Weaver but later became Manager of the Co-operative Store in Walsden. Elizabeth, the daughter of a Cordwainer (Shoemaker), was born in Bradford. They lived at various addresses in Walsden, including, at the end of their lives, part of the property at the junction of Hollins Road and Top o’ th’ Hill Road which Samuel had bought in about 1923.

Henry recalls his grandmother's death in 1931.

.......... Shortly afterwards it was obvious that Grandma was very, very ill because her jaw dropped, her false teeth were sagging and we did what we always did in a crisis, we went next door. Mrs Hoyle would come in, she saw what was going on. Grandma had had a stroke. We sent for the doctor. We children were all ushered out of the house, we went next door to Mrs Hoyle's. I don't know how we got word to Father and Mother, and I don't know how Father managed to get in touch with the Semon's home at Ilkley. Maybe he went to the police station and the police got in contact but Grandfather Hiley came back. Grandmother was already dead and that was it. I remember the funeral tea that time. We went to a little cafe over the Co-op in Walsden and Grandmother's funeral was at Mankinholes again.

Henry’s grandfather, Samuel, died in 1939.

........... I didn't go to that funeral. The War had broken out and I was in two minds whether or not to go back up to Oxford for the Michaelmas term. That would have been my third year but I had already registered. I was 20 years old obviously and I was expecting to go into the Royal Navy, into the Fleet Air Arm, and the Government hadn't made up its mind whether or not men in their last year at university would be allowed to continue their studies and take their degrees, or not. I was liable for a quick call-up. I was of the age, so I cycled to Oxford. I spent a night in college. We decided that I wouldn't start the Michaelmas term and cycled back home. And I think it was in those 2 or 3 days that Grandfather was buried at Mankinholes.

Grave of Samuel and Elizabeth. Agnes, their 3rd child, died in infancy

Henry remembers Samuel:

Grandfather Hiley, living as he did on Hollins Road, only a cock stride away from the pub and bowling green, could be found up there most afternoons and evenings in summer, smoking his pipe and watching the bowlers. He had the whole of one side to himself, nobody else would sit close enough to smell his vile tobacco smoke. For stinginess, he always mixed his thick twist, a poisonous smelling tobacco, with herbs from the chemist's shop to reduce the cost of his smoking.

Mankinholes Chapel (Part 2)

This post looks at one of the Hiley gravestones at Mankinholes.

Ethel was Henry Hiley’s mother and the daughter of Henry and Martha (nee Parsons) Heap. The Heaps lived in Cornholme, a small village on the Burnley road going out of Todmorden. Henry Heap was a partner with James Ashworth in the firm Heap & Ashworth Cotton Manufacturers and they owned the Frostholme Mill in Cornholme.

Sam was the first child of Ethel and Harold. He was born in Walsden but moved with his parents to Victoria Street, Littleborough before the second child Edith was born.

Henry mentions Mankinholes in the very first chapter of his memoirs 'HH remembers', recalling his mother’s death in 1923 when he was just 4 years old.

………. I remember the day that she was buried at Mankinholes. The coffin was standing in our tiny living room and the relatives were standing round. I noticed grown men and women crying and I wondered how it could be that adults could cry. I thought crying was only for children. However I now realise why they were crying. It had been a bad, bad blow for the family.

Then Henry recalls the death of older brother Sam in 1929 when he was 10.

………..It was a great sadness to us when Sam had to go into hospital. He'd not been well but he was diagnosed with what I remember was called Gastric Flu. He went into the Infirmary at Rochdale. He was only in hospital a few days and, a calamity for the family, he died at the age of 21. Useless to speculate but I wonder what would have happened to the business if Sam had lived. He was an enterprising man. I can remember that funeral very well. Off again to Mankinholes, and I think I cried as never before.

Also buried in the grave of Ethel and Sam are Henry and Sam's sister Agnes and Agnes's granddaughter Caroline Emily.

Mankinholes Chapel (Part 1)

There are several generations of Hileys buried in the graveyard of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel at Mankinholes, high on the moors above the Calder valley.

The next few posts will look at the history of the chapel, the Hileys who are buried there and Henry Hiley's memories of burials at the chapel.

From Calderdale Council Lumbutts & Mankinholes Conservation Area Character Appraisal 2008:

There is a long-established and strong tradition of non-conformism in the Upper Calder Valley - people in the area had always fought against outside authority and whilst their faith was very important to them, the community had largely dissented from the established church. A strong core of Quakers, formed in 1653, would meet illegally in each other's houses. Many local people were prosecuted for holding these illegal meetings, and for not paying their church levies. Pilkington Farm on Mankinholes Bank was well known at the time as a Quaker meeting house and was also used as a burial ground.

Other religious dissenters in the area included early Methodists, some of whom were known to and admired by John Wesley. Wesley himself visited Mankinholes in 1755, with the Wesleyan Methodists establishing a congregation there in 1814. A chapel was built to serve the communities of Mankinholes and Lumbutts as well as the surrounding area of Langfield, and a Sunday school was added in 1833. By 1836 the members of the congregation were at odds with each other and an eventual split occurred with a break-away group establishing their own chapel at Lumbutts in 1837.

The original Mankinholes chapel with the Sunday School building on the right
1905-1910
Included with the permission of Daniel Birch

The original Mankinholes chapel was entirely re-built in 1911, leaving the Sunday school as it was. When another chapel closed down in 1954 its stained glass windows were transferred to Mankinholes. The congregation continued to flourish, but the building declined with structural decay and dry rot leading to its demolition in 1979, with the stained glass being moved to the rival chapel at Lumbutts. The burial ground remains together with the Sunday school building which was sold off as a private residence.

Inscription on the old Sunday School building

Many of the Hileys who lived in Walsden in the 1800s and early 1900s were active in the Methodist Church. Henry Hiley wrote 'We were Wesleyan Methodists. My great grandfather, Charles, had helped to start a chapel in Walsden, my grandfather, Samuel, was a big worker there, my Uncle Frank as well.'

The graveyard at Mankinholes

There are 7 graves at Mankinholes with a total of 27 Hileys (or people with Hiley connections) buried in them.

The 1838 Anti Poor Law petition

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 required all townships to join together and form a Union. Todmorden and Walsden were to join with Stansfield, Langfield, Heptonstall, Wadsworth and Erringden to form the Todmorden Union run by a Board of Guardians. The Board were to build a workhouse and stop the system of 'out relief' currently in operation.

In 1837 representatives from Todmorden and Walsden refused to comply with the law and refused to elect members to the Board. They said they would have nothing to do with the Union, raise their own taxes as before, and look after their own poor. Local people objected to Government interference and saw workhouses as prisons and degrading to the poor. They wanted the Act repealed and held public meetings and demonstrations.

The Overseers of Todmorden and Walsden were determined not to comply with the orders of the new Poor Law Commissioners and refused to pay their demand for money.

In November 1838 a petition was signed by over 1000 inhabitants of Todmorden and Walsden in support of the Overseers' refusal to implement the new Poor Laws.

There were 7 Highleys who signed the petition. The table shows the information provided on the document and some additional details about each person.

Highleys who signed the petition

James, John (Ramsden Wood), Samuel and William were all children of John and Grace Highley. John (Horsepasture) and Reuben were children of Thomas and Sally Highley. All 6 men were grandchildren or great grandchildren of James and Martha Highley.

Late in November 1838 riots broke out and mobs attacked houses in Mankinholes (a small hamlet high on the moors above Todmorden), breaking windows, doors and furniture. Special constables were sworn in, and soldiers, both on horse and foot, were quartered in Todmorden. Opposition in this neighbourhood was more persistent than in any other part of England and in 1844 the Union was given leave to abandon the requirement to build a workhouse, and allowed to continue with the old system of poor relief.

Todmorden and Walsden still refused to join the Union and only after 40 years did this opposition cease. A workhouse was built at Beggarington near Mankinholes and opened in 1879. The blogpost of 26th March 2019 includes a photo of the old workhouse.

(with thanks to Linda Briggs for the transcription of the petition and for her notes on the poor law opposition in Todmorden)

Charles Hiley

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.

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. 

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.’

The graveyard at Mankinholes

Written at the bottom of the gravestone are the words ‘They Rest From Their Labours’.

(This article appeared in the 'Persons of Interest' series on the website of the Guild of One-Name Studies.)