A Century of Families Together - Sepia Saturday

My cousin's Great Grandparents -  Joseph  & Mary Oldham and Family. c.1908

Here are Joseph Prince Oldham (left) and his wife Mary Alice Knowles (right) with their son and heir John William Oldham,  and three daughters - Edith (standing), young Beatrice (holding the dog lead),  and seated  Sarah Alice.

The Oldham family of Blackpool, Lancashire were carters and coal merchants for three generations.  The business was founded around 1890, steadily became prosperous and in 1905 moved to near North Station, Blackpool in a house with a large yard, hay loft, tack room. and stabling for around seven horses. An accident at the coal sidings in the railway station resulted in Joseph being blinded and he died in 1921, with his will, signed with his "mark". 

Joseph's son  John William took over the business.  Five  years earlier, John had married my grandfather's cousin Mary Jane Bailey.  

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Weddings of course are a great occasion  for family group photographs - as seen here: 

 A magnificent array of hats (and buttonholes)  in this wedding group at the marriage in 1910  of  Wilfred Hyde and Annie Coombes, relations of Stuart's wife.

 

 Another Coombs wedding -  Albert Leslie Williams & Hilda Florence Coombs in London  in 1931. 

  
At this time, hats in the  Dutch style were obviously in fashion across the country  for bridesmaids - below at the wedding in 1929 at Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire  of my great aunt Jennie Danson to Beadnell  (Bill) Stemp.  

 

 Jennie was the last child and only daughter out of a large family  of sons, born to James Danson and Maria Rawcliffe.  At her wedding she was given away by her eldest brother  Robert Danson (on the left),  The little bridesmaid on the left was  my aunt Peggy Danson, with the matron  of honour on the right, Jennie's niece Annie who had married a year earlier.

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 TTree generations of the New Zealand branch of the Oldham family, c.1927 

The little girl, Edith Nancy stands between her grandmother Sarah Oldham, ee Cross and her father and mother seated  - James William Oldham and Edith Keyner.  Arthur Oldham,  Standing are young Dorothy Lilla and grandfather Arthur Oldham.   

Alfred and Sarah Oldham emigrated to  New Zealand in 1906, where they ran a wholesale tobacconists and stationery business on Karangahape Road,  Auckland.   

 

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Onto 1938 and a post-wedding photograph.   This is the only photograph I have,   where I can identify my  paternal grandfather.  It was taken in the garden of my mother's home,  after my parent's wedding  with Mum's  parents (William and Alice Danson) on the left,  and my father's parents on the right (Mary and Albert Weston)

 

 

 

 

 

A wartime picture of my grandmother, Alice Danson, nee English, with her youngest daughter Peggy (the tiny bridesmaid above)  who served in the  WAAF on a barrage balloon station, Alice's  son-in-law,  my father, serving in the RAF Code & Ciphers Division   and,  Alice's youngest son Billy, ith his Italian born wife.  

And to bring us more up to date to a typical 1950's family - my parents with myself and brother Christopher - probably taken by my aunt who often joined us on outings. By today's standards, we are very formally dressed for a picnic, with my father wearing a jacket, collar & tie and my mother a stylish dress and necklace.   I am in my school blazer and note my  Clark sandals that all little girls seemed to wear then.  

 

 

 

 

 Three generations - myself, my mother and my daughter, 1981. 

 

Nearly 30 years later -  I am the granny, with daughter and granddaughter, 

With thanks  to my cousin Stuart's collection for his contribution towards my theme this week of  of "Families Together". 

 

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SSepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories  through photographs.

                              

Click HERE to see what other Sepia Saturday bloggers 
have come up with this week. 

 

 

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Great Grandmother's Eleven Sisters: Sepia Saturday

My great grandmother Maria Rawcliffe (left)  0f Hambleton , Lancashire  was one of eight sisters,  two half-sisters and two step-sisters -  twelve in all.  

 

Maria’s was a story of  eight daughters, born to my great great grandparents,  the early death of their mother;   a stepmother  who came to the marriage with two illegitimate daughters, and subsequently bore two half sisters.   

 

The life of the Rawcliffe  family illustrated the vicissitudes of Victorian society   with infant deaths, illegitimacy, early widowhood, remarriages, plus the discovery  of my first emigrant ancestor seeking a new life in the  USA.

My great great grandfather  Robert Rawcliffe lived 1821-1904, dying at the age of 83. He married Jane Carr in 1846, withe birth of Maria's sisters as follows:

1.  Anne (1847-1928) - was  the  first first of eight daughter. named after her paternal grandmother.  In the 1861 census  she was living   away from home as a 13 year old servant.   Aged about 25 she had an illegitimate daughter  Jane Alice,  and a year later married  gamekeeper Robert Roskell.  One of her three daughters was named Maria,  after her aunt. ). But burial records revealed early deaths in the family - infant twin son Matthew died at three weeks old in 1882 and eldest daughter Jane died in 1887, aged only fourteen;   with husband  Robert dying in 1894 at the young age of 42. 

 

By the time of  the 1901 Census, Anne, was  a grocer/shopkeeper  and had  moved from a small rural village of Thistleton  to the town of Fleetwood,  where she married her second husband John Jenkinson. She died   4 April 1928 and was buried, not in Fleetwood, but beside her first husband and young children at St. Anne's Church, Singleton.(right)   Her age on her gravestone was given as 79. 

2.  Jane (1850-1926) - was the second daughter, named after her mother and paternal grandmother.  She married Thomas Riley in 1873.  The photograph below came from an internet contact descendant and shows four generations of their  family. 

 Jane Riley, nee Rawcliffe with her son George (left) grandson (Jack) and Jack's baby son George Robert who did not survive infancy.

3.  Margaret (1852-1852)  -  third daughter was born 11th November 1852, but only lived for  three weeks, buried 4th December 1882. 

4. Alice (1853-1930)  - the fourth daughter was christened Alice Margaret, perhaps   in remembrance of the baby sister who had died a year earlier. In the 1871 census she was a domestic servant, and two years later married John Mason, a general labourer. Six children were born and then In 1886-87 they  took the momentous decision to leave the fishing port of Fleetwood for the teeming tenements of Brooklyn, New York. where they had a further five children.  Alice is my blog success story, as my third cousin, a descendant of Alice's youngest daughter Florence, found my blog and gave me a wonderful collection  of stories and photographs.  

 

 Alice (centre) with her husband John Mason, and their eight surviving children.  

5.  Jennet (1856-1902)  - in 1873 she was a witness at the marriage of her sister Jane to Thomas Riley, with the other witness Thomas's brother Richard.  Five years later, Jennet and Richard married.  But happiness was short lived for Richard died in 1891 aged just 33.  The census of that year saw Jennet a widow with son Thomas 9 years old. Daughter Jane was traced to the home of Jennet's sister.  Jennet remarried a seaman Edward Alexander Braham.  But again their marriage was cut short with the death of Jennet in 1902, aged 45 - the first of the five surviving Rawcliffe sisters to die.  

 

6.  (The birth of my grandmother - Maria (1859-1919). 

7.  Peggy (1861-1861)  - was the last of the Rawcliffe sisters to be traced. Her short life lasted only sixteen days. 

8. Martha (1863-1863) - the baptism entry for Martha was a puzzle, for she was given the middle name "Septima" meaning seventh daughter, - yet she was the eighth.  Also how did her parents, with Robert an agricultural labourer, and with Jane making their mark on their marriage certificate,  know about the Latin inspired name?  The third puzzle - why did my great grandmother Maria adopt the name Martha Maria for many official records, including her marriage certificate?  Maria could hardly have remembered her baby sister.     

So  Robert's wife, Jane, gave birth to eight  children in a sixteen year period.    Jane was aged 44 at the birth of her youngest daughter Martha and died two years later, buried on 4^th May 1865, leaving her five  young daughters motherless at the ages of 6, 8, 11, 14 and 17.  Jane and her baby daughters were all buried at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hambleton.  Unfortunately there are no gravestones, and no listings.

 

In 1875 Robert married his second wife Elizabeth Brekall, twenty years his junior and they had four children in six years, including two daughters - half sisters to my great grandmother.

9. Grace (1876-?) - perhaps named after Robert's sister,  Grace.  In the 1891 census she was a domestic servant in Wardley’s, a pub on the banks of the River Wyre , near Hambleton.

10,   Margaret (1881-?)  No baptism records were traced for this second group of Rawcliffe children and more research  needs to be done into their lives. 

But there was a second dimension to Robert's second marriage.  For  Elizabeth Brekall came to the marriage with three children of her own, ia son and two daughters:

10. Dorothy, born in 1861 in Stalmine, Lancashire. More research need here.  

11. Mary Ellen,  born in 1869 in Stalmine Lancashire.  By  the time of the 1901 census, she was married to John Walmsley Raby  and had two daughters.  Also with with the family was Mary's mother Elizabeth Rawcliffe, nee Brekall.  Was she just visiting on census  night, because her husband Robert did not die until 1904?   Elizabeth was still with the Raby family in the 1911 census.      

  

So at the age of 16, Maria acquired two new step sisters. I naturally assumed they were children of Elizabeth's first husband  - the  classic family history mistake  - do not assume!  For her wedding certificate to Robert identified Elizabeth as a spinster.  

One cannot help speculate on the circumstances that led Elizabeth to bear three illegitimate children over a thirteen year span. The children were all baptised,  but no father named on their record. The earlier census returns showed that Elizabeth and her children were living with her parents, with her father an agricultural labourer, so times must have been hard.  

The 1881 census showed a crowded Rawcliffe household with father Robert 61, a farmer of three acres,   Elizabeth 41 and  six children, ranging from two  months old to eleven years .  

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Maria (1859-1919)
Perhaps not surprisingly,  my great grandmother Maria  appears to have left home not long after her father's second marriage.   She married James Danson in 1877 at the age of 18, with the address on her marriage certificate that of her eldest married sister Anne.   

The sisters remained close, judging by the tradition of naming their daughters after their sisters, with Anne, Jane and Jennet all ending their lives in the town of Fleetwood. 

Maria is at the heart of my family history research and writing, featuring regularly on my blog. Ironically, as one of so many sisters, she went on to have ten sons (eight surviving infancy), and finally her only daughter Jennie. 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history

 

 

 

 Click HERE to read posts from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

 

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Fun on Horseback - Sepia Saturday

A happy holiday snapshot is this week's Sepia Saturday  prompt photograph, with a baby boy perched at the seaside on the back of a donkey.

Not the real thing, but here is my family having fun on horseback. - a fitting link with the fact this post marks my my 1200th contribution to my Family History Fun blog.  

I wanted to convey the enjoyment  and enthusiasm  blogging has given me in sharing my stories of my ancestral trail, past and present.  

 

 My daughter celebrating her 1st birthday with  a present  from her Nana and Grandad  - this  present of "Donkey" remained a favourite.   

"Donkey"had an extended holiday up in the loft before coming  down again, with a new saddle cloth,  for granddaughter.   

 

 

I showed this on  my blog very recently but it is such a good link to the prompt image, so here it is again.  Daughter is the middle rider on an empty Blackpool beach, in Lancashire, taken on a October half term holiday.  

Daughter and granddaughter continued to have fun on horseback.

 

Daughter in the 1980s  

 

Granddaughter c. 2014  

 

Another little one perched this time on  a cart horse - my cousin Gloria at the the family business of carters & coalmen in Blackpool, Lancashire, c.1940

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Onto a bit of local history:    

We live in the Scottish Borders,  in the town of Hawick and later the village of Earlston -  a region often called "Scotland's Horse Country", where riding is in the blood.   

In the summer the towns celebrate their history and heritage with the annual Common Ridings - with  cavalcades of riders re-enacting  the age old ritual of  "riding the marches", made in the past to safeguard common land and burgh rights.

In Hawick the event is also a commemoration of the "callants", young lads of Hawick, who in 1514, raided a body of English troops  and captured their flag - the "banner blue".  This skirmish followed the  the ill-fated Battle of Flodden in 1513,  when  King James IV and much of the "Flower of Scotland" were killed.  

The 1514 Monument below, unveiled in June 1914 in the town centre  and known locally as "The Horse",  commemorates this event.  

  

Each year, a young man is chosen to be the the key figure, called a Cornet,   and leads his followers on ride outs.  

 In the main ceremony  on a local holiday,  the Cornet proudly carries the town's "banner blue".   

 It is a time for   local pride and passion,  when exiles return to their home town to renew friendships and join in the celebrations - in ceremonies and processions,  picnics and horse-racing, and  in ,usic, songs,and ballads  such as this one below - one of my favourites.

"Where Slitrig dances doon the dell

To join the Teviot Water

There dwells auld Hawick's honest men

and Hawick's bright-eyed daughters."

 The Slitrig and Teviot  are two rivers that meet in Hawick. 

 

 Photographs by Lesley Fraser, www.ilfimaging.co.uk 

 

Over the centuries all of the towns and villages  in the Borders have come to celebrate their own special week of events, but each one with its own unique community spirit and specific traditions.

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history

  

Round by the Railings & Benches - Sepia Saturday

"Round by  the Railings & Benches"    is my  response to this week's Sepia  Saturday prompt picture which shows a happy group (well wrapped up)  on a bench seat with railings in the background.  To me,  the  setting looks very like being on a seaside pier.  

 

          

      

                                         

Myself., husband and daughter posing on Blackpool pier, with the famous Blackpool Tower in the background  Taken  in an October half term - hence us looking rather wintry, c.1980.

I was born in Blackpool with facts about the Tower drummed into us at school  -   built in 1894, modelled on the Eiffel Tower. it  rises to 520 feet  and you can take a lift to the top to get marvellous views of the coastline.  

What struck me about these photos is how formallyt and court shoes, husband in his overcoat.    Times have changed to a much more casual look today for all ages.     

                                     

 In September 1966,  I was returning home from a year's working in the USA, travelling aboard the Cunard liner "Sylvania" from New York, calling at Boston and Cobh, Ireland,  before reaching Liverpool.  T

The ship, small by today's cruise ship standards, was very quiet and I was lucky to get a cramped 4 berth cabin all to myself.  Goodness knows how four adults could have managed in the space, without someone being perched on top of their bunk.  

Commercial jet planes services  were hitting the transatlantic  scheduled shipping and the Liverpool-New York sailings were axed in November after my return.  

 Onto more summery climes: 

 

1971 and my mini skirted days in St. James Park, London.   

           

  

                    

 Enjoying the boat  ride on the lake WolfgangaSee in Austria. The occasion our ruby wedding anniversary.  

 

 

Back to the early 1930s  -  My mother with her younger sister, plus a friend posing at the South Shore Open Air Swimming Pool in Blackpool .

Swimming took off as a popular leisure activity in the 1920's  as part of the interest in  improving health and fitness.  The seaside resort of Blackpool, like with so many initiatives, was one of the first to jump on this bandwagon for building lidos, with the Open Air Baths at South Shore  opening to  visitors in 1923.  

At the time, it was  the largest in the world. and its statistics are staggering.  It cost £75,000 - equivalent to £2,248,000 in today's money.  Built in a classical style with pillars and colonnades, (you can just make these out in the photographs.  It  could accommodate 8000 spectators/sunbathers,  and 1500 swimmers.   

 The dimensions met Olympic standards for competitions with a  100-metre length down one side of the pool,  and a 16 feet diving pit with boards graded to 10 metres (from where you could see the mountains and hills of the Lake District).  There were areas for little ones, fountains and slides,  bars and cafes - so  something for everyone.  

n that 1950's and 60's, the Open Air Pool became  popular venue for international and national beauty contests and the location for celebrity photographs. 

I remember Mum taking my brother and I there for a swim - unfortunately there are no photographs of the day.   As it involved a bus and a tram journey to get there, I can't ever remember going again.

But, you needed to be hardy in all but the best of weathers, as the water was notoriously cold.  From the 1950's   holidaymakers were heading abroad and becoming used to the waters of warmer climes.  Use dropped and the Baths  became a big white elephant. 

The  South Shore Open Air Baths were demolished in 1983  to make way for the Sandcastle indoor water complex.  

Railings on Bridges   

                         

The foot  bridge over trhe River Teviot   in a flooded Wilton Lodge Park in Hawick in the Scottish Borders. 

 

A further flooded scene in Hawick, with  the  River Teviot almost reaching the bridge railings.  What struck me now about this photo   forty years on, is how   the landscape has changed.  The mill chimney and mill buildings have since been demolished - a sign of how Hawick's once proud textile industry, home of Pringle and Lyle & Scott  and many more firms,  has diminished. 

 

Not forgetting "On the Bench" on the prompt image. 

 

 A photograph from the collection of my great aunt Jennie Danson.  Unfortunately it is not identified, but seems to date by the fashions to the late 1920s.  But why do they all look so glum?  

  

A photograph from my local heritage group Auld Earlston in the Scottish Borders - here an early image of Earlston Bowling Club founded in 1882 - and still gong strong today. 

 

Another Auld Earlston photograph, here  of the Wallace Family.

The heavily bearded tall figure  on the back row was Isaac Wallace (1841-1921) who,  in 1859,  emigrated to Australia and called his new home "Earlston". He  set up a butter factory, and involved himself in community affair.  He made a return visit to Earlston in 1907 when this photograph was taken of him with his brothers and sister Isabella. 

 

                          

 This photo was was taken in 1961 of my mother (second left) out with a group  of friends on an outing.  My mother would be in her 50s but the clothes now seem so old fashioned with three of the women wearing hats and clutching  their handbags - again a far cry from today's casual style for  all ages.

 

And Finally - one of my favourite photographs. 

 

I bought this postcard online  years ago   I was drawn by the attractive pose and by the realisation that the girl’s sailor  hat and the lifebelt  both stated  “HMS Pinafore” – the name of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta and I am a great G & S fan.  

 The postcard is franked 1906.   HMS Pinafore or “The Lass who loved a Sailor” opened in 1878 at the Opera Comique in London and ran for 571 performances  - the second longest run of any musical theatre event at the time.  It poked good natured humour at the British class system, love between members of different social status, patriotism and the Royal Navy. 

A happy memory of when I sang in the operetta many years ago! 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history.

 

 

  

Click HERE to read posts from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

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