By Ian Hildred August 2012
I’ve been interested in my family history for some time, like many I have active and dormant periods. The BBC programmes ‘Who do you think you are?’ and the growth in access to internet resources in the last few years have both incentivised and made it much easier to pick up the threads after periods of no activity. Actually visiting areas and going to the relevant record offices are more dependent on your geographical location. I now find myself in the lovely South West, in Somerset, but a long way from my Yorkshire roots. This makes it a challenge to get to the sources of evidence that can help me progress my ‘Tree’ and add ‘flesh’ to the names.
It was whilst ‘surfing’ the internet that I arrived at the ‘Husthwaite Local History society’ website and the real treasure trove of information that you only usually hear of others finding. Looking through the ‘Houses of Husthwaite’ compiled by Stuart Marriot resulted in my finding references to WILLIAM HILDRED (1709-1792). Initially this was at Cleveland House in 1736 and subsequently at Ashmount, where later generations of the HILDRED family are recorded from 1741 to 1841. It was at this point that I decided this was somewhere I wanted to visit and made contact through the site with Angela Ovenston. Again fortune was on my side. Angela has worked so hard to help me with my research and because she had done a tremendous amount already on the HILDRED family in Husthwaite for another researcher; Gilly Scott, there was a great deal relevant to my own investigation. Gilly turns out to be a distant relative! Her article, ‘Some Hildreds of Husthwaite’ gives the background to our shared descendants up to William and Ann Hildred, whose gravestone can be found on the right hand side of the cemetery close to the church doors as you walk towards the road.
My visit, with my wife Liz, focused on visiting the church and cemetery in which WILLIAM and ANN (nee KEMP) HILDRED are buried with their daughter ANN, and making face to face contact with Angela. We had a wonderful full day with Angela and her husband; John in July of this year. With their help we began to further the Hildred family trail from which I am linked into the area around Crayke.
As Gilly’s article shows, William and Ann had a large family, at least by the standards of today, with ten children. Gilly descends from another WILLIAM HILDRED (1810-1889) while I now follow THOMAS HILDRED (1808-1894), the two being brothers. While born and baptised in Husthwaite, Thomas is recorded in successive census returns from 1841 to 1881 as an agricultural labourer in Crayke. Strangely, in the 1851 census he is recorded as William! He is also mentioned as a witness in a will dispute in 1841 in the ‘Cause Papers’ held at the Borthwick Institute. Thomas seems to have turned his back on the trade of ‘Tailor’ and presumably sought farm labouring work through the hiring fairs as described in ‘WILLIAM METCALFE-HIS BOOK’ a dairy of a North Yorkshire Farmer and Banker. He marries MARY BARKER (1811-1849) (no details of the marriage at this point) and she has eight children, being named on the birth certificate for my next family member; JOHN HILDRED (1845-1921).
Crayke is an interesting area as for many years it was administered as part of the county of Durham and it was not until 1844 that this responsibility was transferred back to the North Riding of Yorkshire. Consequently my research for information has to include the county of Durham, for somewhere in Yorkshire!
Early census records for John (1861) show that he was a plough boy for one RICHARD ELLIS of Cromwell House Farm; with Angela’s help we believe this to be current day Mount Pleasant farm. On our visit, Liz and I were able to walk the permissive footpath that skirts the farm and see the current site. John marries ANN HODGSON in York 1866 and by the 1871 census has moved away from North Yorkshire and to the area I come from - Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. More specifically this move seems to have happened between 1868 and 1869. The birth dates of their 8 children would support this. Indeed it is the first born in the Huddersfield area, THOMAS HILDRED (1869-1953) who represents my next generation link. His birth certificate shows that his father John is a servant of the vicarage in Almondbury, Huddersfield, acting as a groom. As to why they move from Crayke to Huddersfield at this stage I can only speculate. The fact that John begins life in the Huddersfield area linked to the church makes me wonder if there is some link between the two. Or perhaps at this is an example of migration to industrial areas where greater work opportunities existed.
Census returns for John show him as a coachman, gardener and farm labourer. The British Newspaper Archive contains The Huddersfield Chronicle which has several articles that give further glimpses into his time. In 1874 John’s eldest daughter MARY (Polly) HILDRED is involved in an accident at a mill resulting in serious injury, both legs being broken and head severely bruised. She is later (1882) accused and found guilty of ‘theft of patterns’ where the ‘18 months in an infirmary’ spent as a result of the accident, along with doctors stating that ‘injuries to her head she would suffer from derangement of the brain’. Since she had a ‘respectable father’ she was treated leniently and only fined her £1 with expenses! John next enters the court pages regularly in the early 1880s as a ‘neglectful parent’ a term for parents whose children are not attending school regularly! This is in response to the 1880 Elementary education Act which makes school attendance for children up to the age of 10 compulsory. In 1895 John again hits the news through the reporting of court cases in dispute with ROBERT STEWART a wholesale and retail fruitier and greengrocer over the accounts for a lame horse that John was looking after at his Padan Aram Farm. These extracts allow researchers a wonderful insight into the lives of generations long lost to us.
Of John and Ann’s 10 children, it is with THOMAS HILDRED that my tree continues. He represents the first generation for whom I am able to get an account from a living relative - Thomas being my father’s grandfather. He is also the earliest HILDRED for whom I have a photograph. Early census returns show Thomas was involved as a cover maker for wagons and later worked as a show room attendant for Ripons car dealers in Huddersfield, who dealt for Rolls Royce in the area. On retirement he was presented with an engraved gold watch, this has subsequently been passed down the youngest male member of the family and currently resides with me. Thomas married ELIZABETH ANN CARR (1868-1913) and had 6 children according to the 1911 census, of which 5 were still living. Elizabeth died in 1913, with Thomas re marrying in 1916, to FLORENCE ANNIE BURGON. Thomas and Elizabeth’s youngest son; THOMAS HILDRED (1897-1972), my grandfather, is the first person I can personally recollect.
I have a number of books that were awarded to Thomas for his excellent attendance and achievement at school, quite a change in two generations! Thomas worked mainly in the textile industry as a clothe finisher. He fought in World War 1, but unfortunately his service record is unavailable and appears to be part of the ‘burnt series’ destroyed by bombing during World War 2. I have been able to piece together a broad outline of his service through his service number, medal records and regimental records held for The Duke of Wellington regiment at ‘The Bankfield Museum’ in Halifax. More background has been provided through purchasing ‘The History of the 1/4th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s (W.R.) Regiment’. During the conflict he was wounded and was sent to Shropshire to recuperate. He was nursed by AMY COTTON (1898-1985) whom he later married and had three children. DAVID ALAN HILDRED being the youngest of the three and is my father.
Like many in my HILDRED family he is known by his middle name Alan. This use of middle names can make research a little more challenging at times as one or other forename gets used. My ‘dad’ worked as a draughtsman for a number of engineering firms, initially in Huddersfield but also abroad in South Africa. In his youth he was quite the sportsman, playing football for Huddersfield Town Boys and later Bradford Park Avenue. He played against the two Charlton brothers in this time. In retirement he has returned to another of his childhood hobbies - singing. He was a member of ‘The Johannesburg male voice choir’ in South Africa and is now an active member of the church choir in Somerset.
I have lived down in Somerset since 1987, apart from a 3 year period spent in South Africa. Both my wife Liz and I are secondary school teachers. Initially I was a teacher of P.E. but now spend my time teaching mathematics, while my wife Liz teaches Sciences. You may well see why I am so interested in how education has impacted on the HILDRED line. As I moved ever onwards with my research in to the HILDRED name, I have a number of ‘goals’; I would like to add more ‘flesh’ to the bones of each generation beyond simple dates of bmds. It would be nice to extend the tree further back beyond ‘The Commonwealth’ period of the Civil War. My study of the HILDRED line also has meant less time has been spent on the maternal lines and this is something I intend to address.
* With grateful thanks to Prof. Stuart Marriott for information about occupancy of the plots at Cleveland House and Ashmount from Houses of Husthwaite (Village dwelling sites from the early Seventeenth Century to 1841) downloaded from www.husthwaitehistory.co.uk.