William and Eliza Newell nee Simpson. c1830 and c1825

My maternal third great grandparents

Gold is for the mistress silver for the maid

Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade

“Good” said the Baron, sitting in his hall,

But Iron, cold iron is master of them all”

So wrote Rudyard Kipling some 80 years after the birth of my third great grandfather and Blacksmith William Newell.

The village of Binsted in Hampshire was in 1830 the birthplace of William who was also husband to Eliza and parents of both Frances and James the latter of who would follow his father into the same trade. Located four miles east of Alton and two miles south of Bentley the probable birthplace of Eliza his wife, the churchyard of the parish church of the Holy Cross in Binsted, was to contain many years later the grave of Bernard Law Montgomery, 1^st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein who spent his retirement in Alton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have no record as yet of his birth or that of his wife and for the moment can only use the census for 1851 as a guide which brings William into the world in the year 1830 and his wife in the year of 1825. As for the date of any marriage this also has to be guided and by the age of their eldest child James who at five years may have taken place in 1845 when William would have not have been of age so on this further research is needed in order to qualify.

As for the census itself for 1851 this clearly shows William along with his wife and two small children lodged along with a 15 year old house servant Martha Holloway at the home of his father and mother in-law James and Judith Simpson my maternal fourth great grandparents both of whom are shown as grocers.  This was more than probably the family home for Eliza as we have her recorded with her parents and without siblings in 1841 at the age of 15 years where James is listed as a labourer and just Judith as a grocer.

For the moment and in the absence of one for 1861 we have to skip forward 20 years to the census for 1871 which shows the family still in Shaldon but without Eliza. Recorded are William, his son James now 25 and also a blacksmith, his daughter Eliza Francis, another son George aged 19 and another blacksmith but with the surname of Simpson for some reason, a daughter who seems to be named Clemensia aged five and a granddaughter by the name of Mary Ann Newell the illegitimate child of Eliza Frances and my future maternal great grandmother. Given the times and dangers of giving birth we may easily assume for the moment and given the age of William’s youngest daughter, that his wife Elizabeth may well have passed away in childbirth at the age of around 42 in 1867. Whatever the circumstances it must have been some household and some business with three blacksmiths and two small children.

With Shaldon on the edge and the railways on the rise, just how long William survived his wife, his trade as a blacksmith or even where he is laid to rest we have yet to discover along with just who his parents were. We already have noted the futures of his daughter Eliza and his granddaughter Mary Ann so perhaps our next view through the thinning of history should be of the parents of his late wife, James and Judith Simpson.

Eliza Frances Newell 1849 – 1919

My maternal second great grandmother

The first record we have for Eliza Frances is in 1851 where she is noted as Frances Newell, the two year old daughter of William and Elizabeth Newell nee Simpson and living with her grandparents James and Judith Simpson nee Benham in the village of Shalden in Hampshire.  This enables us to give the year of her birth as 1849.

Rolling forward the years to 1861 we next find Eliza Francis at the age of 12 registered as a visitor with her maternal Grandmother, now an elderly lady of some 76 years in Alton.  By the time she was 16 and through circumstance and father unknown she would conceive of her first child and my great grandmother Mary Ann Newell in the year 1867 and return with child as housekeeper to her own father William Newell in 1871 where by now her own mother had passed away leaving a widowed father to grant a roof over her head in return perhaps for his own domestic care along with that of his own five year old daughter Clementia, his older son and her brother James, as well as her own illegitimate daughter.

Time and events move quickly on for Eliza Francis as by 1872 she is married to a Harry Andrew going on to have several more children. Whether her first child Mary Ann was part of this new arrangement we do not know, knowing only that at the age of 14 in the year 1881 she is to be found working as a servant at the Queens Arms in Basingstoke and going on of course to be the second wife of Harry Albert Streeter and mother to my own grandfather Harry William Streeter.

Records not to hand but recorded by another researcher would suggest that Eliza Francis passed from this life in 1919 but again and as always, further verification and details wait to be discovered,

Thomas Allenby 1785 -1835

My Fourth paternal great grandfather

Without verification at this stage another researcher has recorded the baptism of a Thomas Allenby as the 27 May 1785 at St Mary’s Church in Tadcaster and as the son of a Thomas and Elizabeth Allenby nee Ward. Additional records would seem to show that in 1811 at the age of 26 he married a Mary Hollings and on the 2 July 1831 he was again married to an Elizabeth Dixon followed by the baptism just 5 months later of their daughter Mary Allenby on the 13 November 1831.

Again without verification at this stage,Thomas was the son of a Corn Miller Thomas and Elizabeth Allenby nee Ward alongside siblings who went on to inherit the business and continue form their own dynasty as wealthy landowners, military officers and such like all of which would be an area of research in its own right.

From his last Will and Testament we know that Thomas was the father of John Thompson son of Hannah Thompson of Tadcaster. We also know from records that he was the proprietor of the  Elephant and Castle which was on Commercial Street in Tadcaster East and that in the 1797 survey is this referred to as ‘Newly erected brick and tiled house used as a public house called The Elephant and Castle. Occupier John Raper. It was part of the estate of the Lord of the Manor and was let to Thomas Allenby, brother of Richard Allenby who ran the mill at Tadcaster. In Thomas Allenby’s will of 1799 he left to his widow ‘my leasehold messuage in the possession of my tenant John Raper, now used as a public house’   Thomas envisaged that his son would work for the family’s farm and saw the public house as a living for his widow. However, his son, also Thomas, became host of the ‘Elephant and Castle’ for most of his life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Elephant and Castle

Corner of Wighill Lane and Commercial Street c1965

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corner of Wighill Lane and Commercial Street c2011

A map of the same period shows the property on the north side of Commercial Streeter near its junction with Wignall Lane. It appears that the licence was later transferred from the ‘brick and tiled house’ to the stone building on the actual corner of Wighill Lane. In 1857 it was occupied by William Lancaster but is not referred to again after that date. The stone building which in later years was used for residential purposes as seen above was demolished in 1970.

Hannah Thompson 1777 –

My paternal fourth great grandmother

Hanna is the fork in the road for the Thompson Trail as from here the name splits from the paternal line to the maternal and carried across to her own father

From Dades records held in Leeds Central Library in Yorkshire, we know that Hannah Thompson was born on Sunday the 25 May 1777 and, maybe because she was not expected to survive, was baptised the same day.  Because these particular records were so well kept by order, we also know that she was the daughter of a Thomas Thompson a Blacksmith and a Francis Powell who in turn was the daughter of a John Powell, a Labourer from Collingham.

To add to both history and confusion the father of Thomas Thompson was also a Thomas Thompson, a Labourer of Seacroft in Leeds and whose wife was a Maria Pearson all of which takes us to the level of a sixth great grandparent.

A good run for the Thompson name, but the wrong side of the paternal line we first set out to follow but one that we will return to at a later date.

John and Mary Ann Hallaway nee Clark

My paternal fourth great grandparents

1796 as the birth of John Hallaway, Argricultural Labourer and his wife Mary, makes this a difficult one to follow.

Starting with John and his birth place, this is shown on the 1851 census as being the ancient village of Marton cum Grafton in Yorkshire which is just to the east of Arkendale where he is recorded for the 1841 census. It is this second census that we use as our citation for his birth and our first note of his daughter Mary aged 12 and my third great grandmother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marton cum Grafton c1850

By kind permission of martoncumgraftonhistory.com

As to when John left his birth place we do know, neither at this time do we know who his parents were, and neither is the Hallaway name noted in records for Marton Church. The first written record as already mentioned is the 1841 census for nearby Arkendale from where he no doubt continued to earn his living as an agricultural labourer well into his fifties as noted on later records.

Although no citation has been found to date John has been noted by others as being married to a Mary Ann Clark on the 27 November 1813 and both at the middle age of 45 years.  The marriage is shown to have taken place in Allerton Mauleverer which was likely to have been Mary’s own village and the seat of the Mauleverer family.

The town is host to the fine neo Norman church of St Martins where Mary may well have been baptised but given John’s Methodism, a marriage there seems unlikely.

John and Mary looked to have continued their way together to the ages of 69 finding themselves in Wiggington in 1861 and John as ‘Methodist Free Church Preacher, once Agricultural Labourer’. By 1867 Mary must have passed away as John has been shown to marry again and at the ripe old age of 75 to an Elizabeth Fredkwell on the 16 July.

As said at the outset this was going to be a difficult line to follow, and with Mary passing away  before John we only have a note of his own demise in Haxby on the river Foss just north of York in 1881.

Mary Ann Boldison nee Hallaway 1829 -

My paternal third great grandmother

Named after her mother, Mary looks to have been born in the year or 1829 to John and Mary Hallaway in the village of Arkendale which is just north of Knaresborough in North Yorkshire.  Even by today’s standards she was born late to her parents both of who were 35 years old and went on to have another two children.

It is likely that even though her father John became a Methodist minister later in life that Mary would have been baptised in the St Bartholomew’s Church that predates the one in Arkendale today as that one was not built until 1836.

 

 

 

 

 

Aerial view of Arkendale c1982

The following information was kindly supplied by the Arkendale parish community;

‘The first definite mention of a chapel at Arkendale is in 1393 in Richard 1I’s reign. By 1550 Richard Longfelley or Langfell was priest of “Arkindaill chapel”

As marriages and burials took place at Knaresborough, Arkendale only had a baptismal register, which had been started in 1780, and this was then kept at the Parish Church in Knaresborough.

 John Cookson became curate from November 1801. When John Cookson actually came to live in Arkendale is not clear, but in 1811 he is recorded as living in rented accommodation in the village, by which time he had resigned his other living. The records also show that in 1811 there were some fifteen Methodists in the village who did not have their own meeting house and generally attended St. Bartholomew’s.  He died in 1823

It is not certain when the Chapel standing at this time was erected; it may have been the 1393 building; there is no evidence of any other major construction work. The Chapel had last been substantially repaired in 1812, the money having been raised by rate’.

In 1841 a 12 year old Mary is shown living with her parents along with two younger siblings by the names of Jabez and Joseph thus firming up John’s desire for names biblical and a reflection of his own Methodist leanings.

In the summer of 1847 and at the tender age of 18, Mary Hallaway’s marriage to Joseph Boldison is registered in Knarsebourough and which in all probability took place in one of its Methodist Chapels – assuming of course there was one built at this time. From marriage and with their new child William, by 1851 Mary is next seen in Wilsden, west of the industrial revolution boomtown of Bradford and as far a cry from their home town as can be imagined. Two more children were born to the family and one soon left bereft no doubt at the death of a husband and father in 1857.

Had they moved back north to Middlesbrough before their loss? We cannot be sure but John Boldison was certainly recorded as being laid to rest there and in 1861 Mary is also shown to be back living alongside the home of her parents John and Mary there with two of her children with the eldest William, lodged out as a servant at the age of just 10 years old.  Of Mary herself, she looks to be of independent means and working as a Char Woman (from Chore Woman) a term in common usage at the time and one that would disappear as the century turned.

At just 32 Mary may have lived on for many more years but here we must leave her as no records have been found that record her passing other than from another researcher who gives the year of 1884 – but this same researcher also gives a second marriage, but with a different birthplace, and differently named children.

Hopefully she did go on to marry and have a full life but the records and citations by others are not convincing enough.

Joseph Boldison 1821 – 1861

My paternal third great grandfather

Out of chance, the name Joseph skips down two generations, then two more and over two hundred years to my own grandson.  This one was born around 1820 and probably in Knaresborough, an old and historic market town now part of Harrogate to the west.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knaresborough Castle, Yorkshire c1840

Our first sight of Joseph is on the 1841 census as a 20 year old Joiner living with his parents Mark, another Joiner, and Mary Boldison nee Coates along with four siblings the names of who are a bit of a puzzle as there are two Josephs recorded; one aged 20, and other aged 4.

Our next sight of Joseph is in 1847 and he is still in Knaresborough – but now being married to Mary Elizabeth Hallaway my paternal third great grandmother.  Where the marriage took place we cannot be sure but given that Mary’s father John was later to become a Methodist preacher, along with their propensity for record keeping as shown below, the Park Grove Methodist Church seems the most likely.

 

 

 

Marriage record for Joseph Boldison index xx111 298

 

 

Marriage record for Mary Halliway index xx111 298

From marriage Joseph arrives at Wilsden west of Bradford, and is shown to be living on Main Street with his wife Mary Elizabeth and William, my second great grandfather on this paternal line at just 5 months old.

We know that life’s book closes early for Joseph, as he passes away at just 36 years old – but not before becoming father to two more children, a son Mark and a daughter Jane. Whether his death was by accident or from illness we do not know, but we do know however that he was laid to rest on the 8 May 1857 at Ayresome Cemetery in Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and some 50 mile north of his birthplace.