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.

David Hiley 1700-1767 (Part 4 - Burial in Luddenden)

David's body was brought back from Morton Beck and buried at St Mary's Church in Luddenden with his wife Dorothy who had died 34 years earlier.

St Mary's Church, Luddenden

There is a record of the inscription on the gravestone of David and Dorothy:

Here lieth the Body

of Dorothy the wife

of David Hiley of

Warley who depart

ed this life the (13?)th

day of January Anno

Domini 1733 in the

51: year of her Age.

Also the abovesaid

David Highley who

departed this Life

the 4th Day of Au

gust 1767 in the 68th

Year of his Age.

The grave was in the yard south of the church but there is no sign of it today. We know that some gravestones have been moved and areas grassed over and some have simply been lost over the years. Some have been stolen and used for building purposes, and some have been broken or damaged and removed. It is thought that for most burials the flat slab was the usual graveyard monument.

There were many Hileys/Highleys buried at Luddenden but only a handful of their gravestones can now be seen. Although none of David and Dorothy's 3 children stayed in Warley a number of the descendants of their son David were buried at Luddenden. Many of those buried were descendants of James, son of Henry, who was born in 1694, and some were descendants of Michael, born in 1692. At the moment it is not possible to confirm the relationship between David, James and Michael.

David Hiley 1700-1767 (Part 3 - Morton Beck)

David Hiley (snr) was buried at St Mary's Church, Luddenden on 12th August 1767. The entry described him as a Weaver from Ovenden, and that

He was drowned in Martin Beck on Rumbles Moor the 4th Instant and found the 11th Instant

(drowned on 4th August and found on 11th August)

Martin Beck is now known as Morton Beck and Rumbles Moor as Rombalds Moor.

Morton Beck is formed by the merging of a number of streams and rivulets on Rombalds Moor. The beck has a huge catchment area and flows for about 6 km before joining the River Aire between Keighley and Bingley.

Rombalds Moor

Morton Beck

In August 1767 disaster struck West Yorkshire following what was described as the greatest flood in living memory.

Below are some excerpts from The Leeds Intelligencer on 11th August:

About three o'clock on Wednesday morning last (5th August), the inhabitants about the bridge in this town, were greatly alarm'd with a sudden and uncommon swell in the river, which rose upwards of two yards perpendicular, in the space of an hour.

The river Wharf was higher than has been known for near 20 years past.

One farmer at Leathley lost about 20 sheep, and two horses.

At Morton Banks near Keighley, part of a house with the furniture were swept away; and a great number of other persons in that neighbourhood are almost totally ruined.

Great numbers of oxen, horses, and sheep in the feeding pastures were taken away by the current, some 3 or 4 miles.

A man, who was bathing at Dewsbury, was so terrified with the lightening on Tuesday night, that he unfortunately got out of his depth, and was drown'd.

We will never know the circumstances of David's drowning or why he was in that area at the time of the great flood. There were a number of mills built on the banks of Morton Beck over the years so perhaps he had left Ovenden to find work as a weaver there, even though he was aged 67 at the time. There are no records of other members of David's family living in that area at the time so it seems unlikely that he was visiting his family. From Ovenden to Morton Beck is a distance of about 12 miles.

Next post: David's burial

David Hiley 1700-1767 (Part 2 - David's children and his Settlement)

The parish registers for St Mary's Church in Luddenden record these two baptisms:

Mark Hyley, son of David Hyley of Warley, on 11th September 1720 and David Hyley, son of David Hyley, on 16th January 1725.

David's wife Dorothy died in 1733.

In 1744 David obtained a 'Settlement Certificate' from the parish of Warley regarding his move to the parish of Ovenden.

The Settlement Certificate

At this time every parish was responsible for looking after its own poor. 'Overseers of the poor' were officers who could give out poor relief to those who were unable to support themselves. The money came from a rate which the overseers levied on the better off households in the parish.

In 1662 an Act of Settlement was passed to define which parish had responsibility for providing a poor person with relief. A person's parish of settlement was usually his or her birthplace, but married women took their husbands' settlements and children their fathers'. 

After 1697 the poor were allowed to enter a different parish in search of work, so long as they had a signed Settlement Certificate guaranteeing that their parish of settlement would be responsible for paying their poor relief and would take them back if necessary. Without one, a migrant was liable to be sent back to his or her parish of settlement. An examination could be made if the parish of settlement was uncertain or if the new parish felt that the person was likely to become chargeable to them.

David's certificate

Reproduced by courtesy of Halifax Antiquarian Society, West Yorkshire Archives, Calderdale, HAS:73(236)80

The certificate confirms that David and his children Mark, James and David, have their legal settlement in the township of Warley and that this township will provide for them if they become chargeable to the township of Ovenden. The map below shows that Warley and Ovenden were neighbouring townships.

We have no record of a baptism for James but the order in which the children are listed suggests that Mark was the eldest, David the youngest with James in the middle. So given that Mark was baptised in September 1720 and David in January 1725 it seems likely that James would have been born in about 1722 or 1723. 

At the time of the Settlement, the approximate ages of the 3 children would have been: Mark 23, James 21 and David 19. Mark and James subsequently made the journey west along the Calder valley to Todmorden and became the patriarchs of the Hiley/Highley families who became established in the Todmorden and Walsden areas. David remained in Ovenden and his descendants became one of the leading family lines in the Halifax area.

Next post : Part 3 (Morton Beck)

David Hiley 1700-1767 (Part 1 - David's baptism)

The next few posts will describe what we know about David Hiley who was married in 1720 and died in 1767. David was a 6 x Great Grandfather.

 

Marriages at Halifax Parish Church in June 1720
David and Dorothy were married on the 7th
(with the permission of West Yorkshire Archive Service)
www.wyjs.org.uk/archives

David married Dorothy Maud in Halifax Parish Church on 7th June 1720. The record of the marriage  shows that he was a weaver and Dorothy was a spinster from Warley.

There is no record of a baptism for David so we do not know when he was born or who his parents were. However the inscription on his gravestone said that he died on 4th August 1767 in the 68th year of his age. This means he was born between 5th August 1699 and 4th August 1700.

At this time there were a number of baptisms for children whose father was shown as Henry Hiley.  Because of the timings of the baptisms it is likely that these were children from two marriages - Henry Hiley who married Maria Whittaker on 2nd February 1685/86 and Henry Hiley who married Sarah  Cockcroft on 20th December 1691.

Sarah was buried on 19th January 1700/01 and there are no more baptisms after this date. There were gaps between the baptism dates of the children where David might have been baptised so it is possible that he was the son of Henry but we can't be sure who his mother was.

Anne Mealia, Genealogist at Evergreen Ancestry writes:

David may not have been baptised: although the majority of children were baptised a few were missed; he may have been baptised but the baptism was not noted in the register; again this was not unusual as clerygmen often noted baptisms on pieces of paper before writing them up and sometimes these pieces of paper were lost. This is often why parish registers and the copies sent to the Bishop each year differ in some of the entries. He may have been baptised in a Non-conformist chapel for which records no longer exist or he may have been baptised a Catholic and registers for Catholics do not survive for this area. He may have been born elsewhere and in a place for which registers do not survive. His name may have been wrongly recorded or he may have been baptised with a name but used either a different first name or a different surname. If his mother was unmarried when he was born and she later married he may have taken his stepfather's name.

Between 1695 and 1706 there was a tax on each baptism and some families decided not to baptise their children. Some children were then baptised later after the law was repealed but there is no record of a possible later baptism.

Next post: David's children and his Settlement

Richard William Hiley

Richard William Hiley was born in Leeds in 1824. He was the son of Richard Hiley and the brother of Alfred Hiley - see previous posts. 

He entered St Mary Hall in the University of Oxford and graduated with a B.A. in 1852 and an M.A. the following year. He taught at the Liverpool Collegiate Institute, was ordained Deacon and licenced to the curacy of St Luke's, and then ordained Priest in 1854.

In 1861 he bought Thorparch Grange, a school with 41 boys aged 10 to 17, from his father. Two years later he succeeded his father-in-law as Vicar of  the nearby village of Wighill, appointing his brother Alfred as curate. In 1885 he became a Doctor of Divinity and a Bachelor of Divinity. He retired from Thorparch in 1891 after 30 years as Principal, and retired as Vicar of Wighill in 1910 after 47 years in that post.

Richard William married Isabella Jessop in 1861 and the couple had 9 children. He died at Boston Spa in 1912 and was buried in the churchyard at Wighill. 

Like his father, Richard William wrote a number of books, including three volumes of  'A Year's Sermons', based upon some of the Scriptures for each Sunday morning, and an autobiography 'Memories of Half a Century'.

Obituary in The Birmingham Post

In his autobiography Richard William stated that his father's ancestors came from Poole in Dorset and that one of them entertained King Charles. Previous posts have featured the 'Poole Hileys' but there is still no confirmation as to where this connection lies.