by Gilly Scott (Australia) August 2012
My interest in the family history began quite late and ten thousand miles away from home. It was prompted by a request from my eldest nephew and his wife for ‘the family history’ as their birthday present but regrettably they didn’t get very much that first year. All I really knew about the Hildreds – my mother’s family – was that my grandfather Harold Hildred had been born at Manningham, North Bierley on 6 January 1877 and that there was a strong Yorkshire tradition. When I began the family history for Nigel and Narelle my mother was 95 and, despite severe arthritis and a few other health problems, had a brain like a steel trap and a wonderful memory. She died at the age of 98. She and I began to put together all the information she could recall for both sides of the family which formed the basis of the ‘first instalment’ for the birthday present and I have been expanding it ever since.
Access to source material is, through the tyranny of distance, very difficult in Australia and to begin with all I used was the International Genealogical Index (IGI) through the Church of Latter Day Saints website which offered free access. While the information on this site can, I’m told, be less than accurate it did provide a number of clues, but not enough, so I joined Ancestry.com and later Find My Past (FMP). The latter I found to be the easier site to use and it is the main source of the information I have. It was through the Census returns on FMP that the place name of Husthwaite began to appear and a Google search soon brought me into contact with the Husthwaite History Society and Angela Ovenston. Angela’s tireless efforts have filled out many of the gaps in the family line and have clarified pieces of information that didn’t seem to fit. The end result is what follows.
My Hildred file begins with two odd bits of information collected while ‘Hildred’ searching which may eventually fit into my line but which might also be of use or interest to another researcher. First of all I have a record of a Richard Hildreth/Hildred, b. about 1579, d. about 1629, married to an Elizabeth ??? in Silton, Northallerton District, Yorkshire about 1600/1604. I then have William Hildreth/Hildred married to Margret/Margaret Pearson at Easingwold 13 September 1637. [Note - The name Hildreth(Hildred) also appeared in an early record of a court case in the Leake and the Silton villages near Northallerton in 1591/2– the following were included in the list of witnesses – Roger Hildreth aged 37 from Leake, Richard Hildreth aged 64 and Robert Hildreth aged 55 both from Over Silton.
The first of my Hildred ancestors that I am fairly certain of is William, a tailor, who died Husthwaite 1735 and was buried there on 6 September. According to parish records it seems likely that William was married twice, first to Ursula who was buried Husthwaite 14 November 1714 and then to Elizabeth who died in 1731. William is given as the father of Elizabeth (b. 1703), Sarah (b. 1706) and William (b. 1709- d. 1792) then Anne (b. 1718), John (b. 1723) and George (b. 1726). William is next in my line.
He was a tailor and married 8 November 1739 at Kilburn, Yorkshire, Mary Raper of Oldstead who was buried Husthwaite 17 June 1767. A child (William) born to Mary in the same year as her marriage may well have been William’s son and almost certainly took the Hildred name (this information in the Kilburn parish records). I believe this may be the William Hildred who was buried at Husthwaite 24 November 1759. The marriage of Mary and William produced four children Ursula (b. 1740), John (b. 1743), George (b. 1747) and Mary (b. 1753). John is next in my line.
John (1743-1799) was a cordwainer – what a wonderful word that is for a shoemaker – it apparently stems from Cordovan or Cordoba (in Spain) since that’s where the fine leather they used in their trade came from. He later became a tailor – a profession nearly all the Yorkshire Hildreds seem to have been engaged in. He married Jane Staveley 20 December 1770 and they had four children: John (b. 1773), George (b. 1776), William (b. 1778) and James (b. 1781). In the wonderful article Husthwaite House Plots researched and compiled by Stuart Marriott*, one particular plot (103), the house now named Ashmount seems to have been an important part of John’s family over a period of years. In 1741 William is given as ‘the sitting tenant’. In 1782 John is given as mortgaging the property to John Warin of Woolpotts for £31. John inherits the property in 1793 and it is ‘held by successive members of the family’ until in 1811 John makes a formal arrangement for his brother William to occupy part of the house. In 1812, William pays off the mortgage on the property and buys the house from his brother. In 1841 William apparently divides the property and its adjoining garden and orchard, occupying one part together with ‘two others’ while the other part was occupied by Peter Ward and his family. These details were obtained through the Hearth Tax Assessments, a seemingly unlikely source of genealogical information and one I would never have thought of consulting. William is next in my line.
From this point onwards I have been able to confirm most of the family details in the Census returns but some information is still speculative. William (1709-1792), a tailor, in 1736 was living at Cleveland House (plot 41) and listed as ‘occupier’. This property later became a blacksmith’s shop operated by Jeffrey Smith, grandson of the owner of the property Sarah Mosey. William married Ann Kemp 17 August 1802 at Husthwaite With Carlton and they had nine children: John (1803-1813), Jane (b. 1805), Thomas (b. 1808-1894), William (1810-1889), Ann (1812-1868), Mary (1815-1849), Elizabeth (b. 1817), Ursula (1819-1889), Jane (1827-1893). It was not uncommon to use the same Christian name if the first child with the name died young. The burial registers show that the first named Jane died at the age of 16 and was buried in 1822. Apart from the first three children I have fairly complete family details. Mary never married but had a child, George Hildred b. 1840, father unknown who at 18 months old appears to have been raised by his Hildred grandfather and his aunt Jane. George died aged 4 and was buried in Husthwaite on 4 April 1844. In 1841 Mary was working as a farm servant at Peep O’day, Husthwaite, the same place where William Gale, who later married Mary’s sister Jane Hildred, was also working. Ursula married John Scriven, a farm labourer born at Branton Green who later became a grocer and they had four children. Jane had a child b. 1855 baptised Joseph at St Nicholas, Husthwaite, father unknown. She later married the widower William Gale in June 1860 and shortly produced a child William. The 1861 Census apparently includes her previous son, now listed as George Hildred, as a ‘son’ of William's household, the name now being given as George rather than Joseph (as above, the name George is the same name as a previous child in the family who had died and the use of a different name from that given at baptism is also not uncommon). George, a farm labourer, married Mary Ann Blades in Spilsby in 1886 and they had two girls. Jane and William’s marriage produced two more children (Ann and Matthew). William had four children (Jane, John, George and Mary) from his previous marriage to Elizabeth who died young in 1854. William and Elizabeth share a gravestone in the churchyard. William Hildred (b. 1810) is next in my line.
William (1810-1889) married Martha Curtis in Bradford on 5 July 1835. William was a tailor and woollen draper like his father and is mentioned in White’s Directory of Professions and Trades in 1840. In 1851 William and Martha were living in Barnsley and they had seven children: Sarah (b. 1837), Mary (b. 1839), Jane (b. 1843), Thomas (b. 1845), Samuel (b. 1848), William (b. 1851), and George (b. 1853). I have family details for all of them, they were born in Bradford and Barnsley, so it is with this family that my Hildreds left Husthwaite.
Thomas (1845-1881) born in Barnsley, was my great grandfather. He married Ann Ford and they had two children: Harold, my grandfather known to us as Bebe (1877-1952) and Bertrand Thomas (1880-?). Bebe’s little brother was a bit of a mystery to begin with. He was always known as Thomas in the family and it was not until his birth details were confirmed that the ‘Bertrand’ came to light. Like a great many people he preferred to use his second name – often a stumbling block when trying to track them down. Thomas and Ann ran the Post Office at Low Moor and Ann continued to do so after Thomas’ death and her second marriage to Moses Seaton. Thomas (Bertrand) enlisted in the York and Lancaster Regiment and served in France at Arras, Ypres and Messines and in the Advance of 1918. He married Sarah A. Ford at Bradford in 1916 and according to my mother they owned and operated a youth hostel on the moors which featured in the James Herriot books. I can find no record of any children. My grandfather began his working life as a postal clerk, and retired as a divisional manager with the Pearl Assurance Company. He has the distinction of being the only male member of the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS). He was a Grand Master in the Masons, a ‘special constable’ during the war and had a life-long involvement with brass and silver bands, joining the Wyke Temperance Brass Band as a young man, a band with a great reputation and many awards. Later in life he became an accomplished violinist. His first marriage was to Elizabeth Hornby in Middlesbrough in 1899. Lizzie, as she was known, was a wonderful soprano singer and was very well known in the district for her performances and often written about in the local newspapers. She died from Tuberculosis in 1905 at the age of 28. They had two children: John Arthur Hornby b. North Bierley 1900 and Effie Ethelwynne b. North Bierley 1901, d. Bradford 1983. I believe John married Vera P. Bennett in 1941 and had one child, John J. Hildred (known as Jack) b. in Goole 1941. Not much is known about Jack but an old press clipping I have gives the following information: ‘Corporal, York and Lancaster Regiment. Served in Royal Artillery and went to Malaya with West Yorkshire Regiment and later with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment to Germany. He is said to be the best full-back in the Rhine Army rugby team’. Effie Ethelwynne married Arthur Shutt who together became very accomplished ballroom dancers winning many prizes in local and district competitions. Like my mother and many other Hildred women Effie was a wonderful needlewoman, making all the glorious dresses she wore for dancing. There were no children from this marriage. Needlework and dressmaking are skills I too have inherited and still enjoy so the ‘tailoring’ genes continue down the line.
My grandfather’s second marriage was to Elizabeth Gooden, nee Shepherd whom he met when they were both violinists in a local orchestra. Nampy, as she was known in the family, had four children from her marriage to Charles Gooden who died (like Lizzie) from tuberculosis aged 39: Amy, Charles, Ivy and Bertie. Together they had Harold Thomas Foley b. 1909 (known as Ben because was fed on Bengers Food as a baby) and Doris Elizabeth Maria b. 1911. Family members were generally identified as His, Hers or Theirs.
I guess most family history researchers hope to find someone or something ‘special’ in the pedigree. These days most Australians are delighted to discover a convict ancestor – none of those in my line, we have a missionary instead. Joseph Nettleton, my grandfather’s great uncle, was a Methodist Missionary in Fiji who took part in preparing the first Bible for the Fijians and in old age apparently translated The Pilgrim’s Progress into Fijian.
I have lived in Australia for forty-two years, forty-three this December, and Nigel and Narelle are surprised at the information I have been able to pass along to them for both sides of my family but there is still a great deal to do and there are many gaps which will only be resolved by checking the original registers and records. A trip to the UK is at the top of my list of ‘things to do’ and hopefully will eventuate in May of 2013.
* With grateful thanks to Prof. Stuart Marriott for information about occupancy of the plots at Ashmount from Houses of Husthwaite (Village dwelling sites from the early Seventeenth Century to 1841) downloaded from www.husthwaitehistory.co.uk.