Bancrofts from Yorkshire

The Bancroft Brush Makers of Halifax

2012-01-31T14:50:00.000Z

Society of Brushmaker's Coat of Arms

There was a Bancroft family of three brothers, who were involvedin Brush Manufacture in Halifax, West Yorkshire, during the 19^th century, whichat one point must have been a sizable business.

Frederick Bancroft seems to have started the business, and was born at Highroad Well in Halifax in 27^th November 1843, the son of John Bancroft [1806-1858] and MaryLees.His father John had started his working life as a weaver, later becoming a ‘Victuallar’ andprobably the licensee of the Queens Hotel in Halifax between 1845-1850.

Their son, Frederick, married Emma Morrisin 1874 at Halifax,and they went on to have seven children, four sons and 3 daughters.

Frederick servedhis apprenticeship as a brushmaker under a man called Mr. Sutcliffe, and the Brushmaker’sSociety have a record of this dated 1865. As with all crafts at the time, the training of apprenticeswas given great importance and seven years was served in learning the trade.The Brushmaker’s Society took interest in the well-being of these apprenticesand controlled the amount of apprentices a Master could take on. The apprentices looked on membership of the Society as a goal to be strivenfor. The lads finished their apprenticeship at twelve noon exactly with much noisycelebration. That afternoon, or the next Saturday a great deal of "healthdrinking" went on. They received their indenture which showed they hadserved their master. Later they were taken to a more solemn evening ceremony at a local Tavern which served as a meeting house forthe local branch. If the apprentice was of the required standard he would pay his entry fee to the society andbe given his certificate.

The Brushmaker’s Society is an ancient organisation which came about becauseBrushmakers were always very aware of how precarious their job could be, asmany of the earlier ones were basically journeymen, who moved from one brushmaking establishment, called a ' Panshop' to another, and could easily be out of work. A means was needed to ensure that themembers of the trade did not suffer due to illness, unemployment and old age,so, in 1747 (or probably earlier), the Brushmakers Society was formed. The Society was in effect a Trade Union but could not be called such as todo so would then have been illegal. Dues were paid weekly by all working members, and were held by the local Branchfor distribution as agreed by the members. The term 'Journeyman' is taken from the French word 'journee' which referred to the way they were paid, rather than the fact that they travelled around looking for work. Journeymen tended to be paid by the day, whereas Brushmakers were paid by the piece, and it was considered a serious misdemeanour for a Brushmaker to leave an employer with unfinished work, which would then have to be finished off by someone else.

Around 1866 Frederick commencedbusiness on his own as a brushmaker at Bull Close Lane in Halifax, where he soon went into partnershipwith a Frederick Fawthrop. The business went through several changes of addressfrom Ann Street,to Stannary Streetand ultimately to Raglan Street,which was a sizable factory as the following drawing shows, and was known as 'The Halifax Brush Works'

Brush Factory at Raglan Street Halifax

In 1869 the Brushmaker’s Society records 'Messrs Bancroft and Fawthorp' asan employer. This meant they had their own workshop and were probably taking on transient journeymen to make up thecustomary teams of four that each brush shop used. They also had an apprentice,Charles Hanson, who would have been used as the fourth man as his experiencegrew. As firms prospered, more men would be taken on for different processes,with specialisation for each process becoming more common.

Brushmaking methods were unchanged until the early 20th century. Thebrushmaker's "shop," consisted of four panhands who worked around apanframe. This was a strong table with a central hole in which stood a charcoal stove. On this stood a pan of hot, but never boiling pitch. The stocks of the brushes and brooms were drilled to receive their bristles ona hand lathe worked by treadle. Every hole had to be hand-drilled at a slightly different angle. The stock was then held on the panframe and the bristles in use were held on adrawboard. The panhand then drew a bundle of bristles and parted them toprevent their natural curvature allowing them to bend too much in onedirection. The root end was dipped in the pitch and tied with twine. The knot, as the bundle was known, was then dipped again and inserted in thestock. The knot had to be correctly positioned in that split second whilst thepitch was still warm. A good broom would have ninety knots and each had to beinserted with the panhand keeping the natural bend of the bristles running theright way at each different part of the broom head. This was known as 'gettingthe bend'. When a good brushmaker had finished a broom the pile of the bristles would havea feel like velvet. For most of the l9th century the rate of pay for 20 knots was Fourpence-halfpenny per "good" broom. There were twelve sizes of broom down to the poorest quality, which would only have thirty six knots. These were not apopular item with the craftsmen!

Brushmaking workshop- Bernardo boys in London

The 1861 census listed Frederick Bancroft as a ‘BrushMaker’ whilst still a single man, living with his brother William Henry and hisfamily. At that time William Henry was listed as a ‘Stone Dresser’, but by thetime of the next census of 1871 William Henry was listed as a ‘Brush Maker’ aswell, presumably working just as an employee of Frederick's at this time.

Frederick, by 1871 was now describing himself as a ‘BrushManufacturer employing 3 men, 3 boys and 7 girls’ and the business must haveobviously flourished because 10 years later in the 1881 census, he was now listed as employing23 men, 7 boys and 19 women.

When Frederick's partner, Mr. Forthrop, died in 1884, he then took his brother, William Henry, on as a partner and this partnership continued until 1891, when William Henry died.

Their other brother George, was also involved inthe same business, because his occupation on the 1881 census was listed as a ‘Commercial Traveller in Brushes’. In fact it may have been George who was responsible for starting hisbrother Frederick in the business in the first place, because as early as 1851, George is listed in the Brushmaker’sSociety records as a 'Brushmaker’s Apprentice' to a Mr Shellsher in Halifax, who was originally from Walworth in London, and who was listed as a 'Master Brushmaker' employing 3 men and an apprentice. George may have later become what the Brushmakers Society describe as 'a journeyman', which was basically a man who, having acquired the skills of brushmaking through an apprenticeship, would then just travelled around from town to town, living an itinerant existence, looking for work with any local brushmaker. My theory, although I have no hard evidence to support this, is that his wife, Emily Ann, was born in Minehead, Somerset, and his daughter, also called Emily, was born in Ireland, which suggests that George travelled about quite a lot.

Frederick must have become quite prosperous from the brushmaking business, because he had been able to moved a few miles out of Halifax and purchase a house called‘Newlands’, which was a large residence surrounded by countryside in the nearby village of Warley. He died in 1895 at a relatively young age of 53 years, after only recently having been elected a local Councillor. It was reported that he had been suffered indifferenthealth for some considerable time, and being confined to the house with dropsyfor the previous two months. His son George William, who was by then theBrushworks Manager, was granted probate in his will of 1895.

'Newlands' at Warley.

The local newspaper, when announcing his death, wrote a longobituary, and said the following about him:

“As an employee oflabour, Councillor Bancroft maintained the best relationship with his workpeople, amongst whom he was exceedingly popular. He was of a kindlydisposition, and in the west portion of the town especially he had a host offriends. In politics he was a staunch Liberal. Up to October 1894 he had littleinterest in public affairs. He was then however prevailed upon to stand as acandidate for municipal honours in the West Ward, and was elected on the 1^stNovember after a contest. Mr Bancroft’s ill health unfortunately prevented himgiving that attention to Corporation affairs that he had desired. He was 53years of age, and leaves a widow, four sons and three daughters to mourn hisloss. The wide sympathy felt for the relatives of the late Councillor Bancroftin their bereavement was manifested in a marked manner on Wednesday at the internment,the attendance being remarkable considering the violent character of theweather.”

However things started to go downhill with the brushmaking business after Frederick’s death, because within a fewyears, the firm had gone bankrupt, due to stiff competition from Germanbrush manufacturers, if family folk-lore is to be believed. Otherreasons for the demise of their business could have been because of a problemwith supplies of bristles, which had been traditionally imported from EasternEurope and Russia, or if the Bancroftswere specialising in a particular product, they may have been unable to adapt to changingdemands, as the main problem for many traditionalbrushmakers was that they could not afford the new more efficient machines, that could produce hundreds of brushes in aday.

The demise of the business led Frederick's son, George William, to seek a new life in abroad, and so he emigrated to Saskatchewan,Canadain 1899. He lived there alone for four years, initially working in alumber camp at Moose Mountain Park before being joined out there by his future wife Lucy Wormald, who also grew up in Halifax. She came to Canada in 1903, and they were married in Winnipeg, before homesteading in southeast Saskatchewan and then living in Regina from 1913, where they brought up their family.

Frederick's widow, Emma, died on 3rd February 1918, and although still residing at 'Newlands', died at 14 Hyde Park, Halifax. She was 65 years of age. Both Emma and Frederick were buried at Christ Church, Mount Pellon, Halifax.

I am grateful to the following people for their help inproducing this article:

Mike Bancroft from Canada,a descendant of Frederick

Steve Pick from Texas, USA

Malcolm Bull and his Calderdale Companion site:

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~calderdalecompanion/b.html

Ken Doughty and his Society of Brushmakers site:
http://www.brushmakers.com/index.html

The Closure of Keighley Magistrates Court

2011-12-30T18:01:00.000Z

I seldom write articles involving myself, because the purpose of this blog is to write material about Bancrofts who have lived in the past, with details of how they lead their lives, but recently I was involved in an event which I consider will be an important moment in future local history, and so the details of the event should be recorded for future generations of researchers.

I have been a magistrate on the Keighley Bench since 1988, and Chairman of the Bench for the last 3 years. As part of that duty, I have had to be involved recently with the closure of the Keighley Magistrates Court, situated in Bingley, and the merger of our bench with the larger one in Bradford, to form a new Bench called "The Bradford and Keighley Bench"

The closure of our courthouse took place on 23rd December 2011, and here is part of the speech I made at the Closing Ceremony:

"Today is an important day inlocal history…..the closure of the Keighley Magistrates court, sitting here inBingley.

Justice was administered inboth towns going back hundreds of years. In Keighley initially on one day amonth by the Town's Court Barons at the Devonshire Arms Inn, before moving tothe first courthouse on North Street in 1831. The formation of the KeighleyBorough Magistrates, is recorded in a book on display here today, havingtaken place in 1899 when the prominent people of the town at that time werebrought together to form the first bench of Keighley magistrates."

Minutes of the first meeting of the Keighley Borough Bench

"Bingley’s justice can betraced back to the 16^th century when part of the Old White Horse Innwas used as a court, with the cellar used as a prison cell and the stocks in use inthe Inn’s courtyard….indeed the stocks still have pride of place just down theroad from here in the town centre.

This is a sad day… sad forlocal people and sad for local justice. Ask any magistrate or solicitor in thiscourt today, what is one of the most important things about dealing with justice, and theywill tell you that it should be local justice, by local people, for local people.There are many benefits to magistrates being seen to be from the local communityand administering justice with a local knowledge of the problems within the areain which they live, and of the people within that area. With this latest roundof closures, not only will defendants have to now make their way to Bradford in future,but also victims and witnesses of crime as well, and I am sure some of them will nowdecide that it is just not worth the inconvenience….and justice will therefore be moredifficult to administer because of these changes.

Over a year ago, consultationstarted on court closures and despite good support from our local MP’s and a campaign by theKeighley News to keep our court open, the decision was made to close our court together with 92 other magistrate courts and merge the work with the adjoining areas….93Magistrate's Courts is almost a third of the total in England and Wales so you can imaginethe size of such a reorganisation. As well as Magistrate's Courts, a large number of County Courts are also to be closed at the same time. I feel we are witnessing the biggest changesin the structure and management of our legal system, certainly in my time onthe bench, and I suspect that much more is to come with the recent announcementthat there is now to be a review of the management structure of the courtsservice throughout the country.

We have always had court closures and area mergers…. When I was appointed in the 1980’s there were over600 magistrates courts in England and Wales….indeed our own bench came about bythe merger of the Keighley & Bingley areas in the 1970’s, but we have neverseen anything on this scale before. When this latest round of closures iscomplete we will be left with only about 240 magistrates courts in the whole of England and Wales.

I think everyone accepts thatchanges had to occur due to the big reduction in work that every court in thecountry is facing, and also because of the large budget cuts that the Ministryof Justice has to make, due to the state of the country’s finances. We also nowlive in times when we are expected to get more out of less, but our court hadone of the highest levels of utilisation in the area, so it is a great pitythat it chosen for closure.

As well as difficulties forfuture defendants, victims and witnesses, it is also going to mean difficulttime for our magistrates, with nearly 100 of us now has to make our way to Bradford regularly to sit in court. We should alwaysremember that magistrates are volunteers, giving their time for no financialreward, but who are just trying to be good citizens, and who want to put something backinto society and make our area a better place for everyone to live in.

Politicians of today talkabout the “Big Society”…which means people giving up some of their time to do voluntarywork for the benefit of others in their community…well magistrates are a perfect exampleof this….our magistrates sat here collectively for the equivalent of over 2000full days in the last 12 months….a fact that I think is not always fullyunderstood by some of the people at the top making these decisions.
Dealingwith justice in this country would be unmanageable without magistrates, givingtheir time freely, to deal with over 90% of all the court work in this country.

However we now need to lookto the future… the decision to merge has been made to merge, and we are where we are, sowe need to move on. Many hours of meetings have taken place to make sure thatthe new Bradford and Keighley Bench incorporates the best practises of both benches…it’sa new beginning and I am sure that our group of nearly 100 magistrates togetherwith the 200 plus Bradford Magistrates will do their very best to make sure things run smoothly.

With any merger, change andcompromise is inevitable, not just for Keighley Magistrates but for the Bradford ones as well, who have also seen big changes inthe way they operate from next year. Magistrates are used to change…..it seemsthat we are continually having to deal with new legislation, which involveschanges and retraining, so I am confident we can cope with this change.

They will be challengingtimes ahead….…it’s a new beginning but I am sure that our group of magistratestogether the Bradford ones will do their verybest to make sure it is a success.
And so I have one last duty to perform as Chairman of Bench, and it is to announce with a heavy heart that.....The Keighley Magistrate's Court is now closed."

And here's a nice letter I received recently from The Rt.Hon. Lord Justice Goldring, Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales.

Here is what the local newspaper had to say about all this:

Present at the ceremony was the High Sheriff West Yorkshire, Mr Anthony Grant OBE, and the Deputy Mayor of Bradford, Mrs Valerie Slater

Anthony Grant OBE

Mrs Valerie Slater

The Bench recently presented me with this gavel to be used at this closing ceremony, which is an item I shall always treasure. The inscription on the box says:

"Presented to Jarlath Bancroft J.P.

The last Chairman of the Keighley Bench

2009-2011

In appreciation"

Hand Loom Weaving in Yorkshire

2011-12-01T21:27:00.000Z

A Hand-Loom Weaver

There are many examples of 18th and 19th Century Bancroft families earning aliving from hand loom weaving in their homes, before the invention of machinery, whichmade production on a large scale possible in the mills, and spelt the demise of this cottageindustry.

My G/G/G Grandfather Joseph Bancroft [1755-1838] was a hand loom weaver all his life. He had 4 children with his first wife, Judith Smith, who died at the early age of only 34 years, and then went on to have a further 11 children with his second wife Ellen [Nelly] Bradley. Even at the time of his death at the grand old age of 82 years was still listed as a weaver. [An interesting fact on his burial record at Haworth, is the signature of Patrick Bronte, the famous vicar at Haworth at the time.] You will notice his cause of death on the death certificate was given as 'Old Age' which I guess is understandable, bearing in mind that there cannot have been many people who reached the age of eighty-two and three-quarters in 1838 !

Many Bancroft families, who were involved with farming, also had a hand loom in the house to supplementtheir income, particularly in the winter months, when there was a large familyto feed and cloth. I wrote an article some time ago called ‘Auction at Fairplace Farm’ which describes the contents ofan Isaac Bancroft’s farm, called Fairplace near Cowling. When the contents of his farm was auctioned off in 1841, as well as all the usualfarming implements he also had three looms!....which shows how the family all helped out to bring a bit more money into the household.

In 1909, one individual, who had made a living from farming as well as hand loomweaving, looked back at his childhood, growing up on the Wadsworth hillside near Halifax in the 1830s, and wrote thisromantic account about his earlier way of living, and then the sadness, long after it had disappeared to make way for a life working in a mill:

“The weavers as a class were poor, but they had their good times. Thedwellings being on rising ground where they got the early sunshine in its splendourand where the atmosphere was not fouled by the smoke of the factory. There wasno bell to ring them up at four or five o’clock in the morning nor again atnoon, nor were they bound to stay late at night; there was freedom to start andstay away as they cared.
The later years of the forties [1840's] were a very acute time for hand-loomweavers. Our house was on the spur of the hill, and towards the south, from itwe could see the whole countryside and the village of Heptonstall to the west,the farmsteads and cottages about them to the north - west with here and therean occasional row of cottages. The summer’s sun would shed its genial rays on my patches of corn fields, nearly all oats. The same sun in winter just beforesetting, shone over the snow and the wide expanse. Then there was the clearcold frost clear from the fog of the valleys, and the reflection from thewindows of the weavers’ cottages were much brighter than the brightest electriclight in our large towns nowadays, but it was a time to make the flesh tingleand hunger to feel all the keener. The same windows which used to be lightedafter dark from within were now in darkness, and many of the houses unoccupied,the hand wool comber and the hand loom weaver are not there. In the walks thatone might take in the lanes and footpaths, old faces are not to be met. The oldfamilies are not known, nor have been for some time. The sound of song and theshuttle is departed.”

A Weaver's Cottage

The arrival of power looms appears to have been relatively slow because by 1838, Yorkshire had only 688 power looms for woollen weaving. One of the reasons for this is that it was hard to adapt cotton powerlooms to woollens due to the fact that the loose spin on the wool yarn, made it liable to break moreeasily. The weaver had to retie the threads by hand and the power loom couldnot work any faster than a hand loom weaver if the threads broke often.Initially, it was felt that the labour saving aspects of a power loom forwoollens was not worth the expense of the new machinery.
However, because the area grew so rapidly inwoollen and worsted manufacturing it eventually became the place in which toinvest in the new Mills and machinery . Although the industrialisation of the woollen industry in Yorkshire came more slowlythan in the cotton industry in Lancashire, itdid eventually come. When industrialisation arrived in Yorkshirethere was an additional advantage. Yorkshirehad and abundance of both coal and water power which were needed to run the newfactories.

The immediate effect of the industrial revolution on hand loom weavers was beneficial because the increase outputof yarn from the introduction of new spinning machines meant that the weaver had more raw materialsand were therefore in greater demand to turn it into a finished produce. They could thereforedemand a higher wage, but wages eventually fell mainly because of three reasons:

The hand-loom weaver was forced to compete with the increases in the availability of manpower as a result of the increases in the population, which started to rocket in the first part of the 19th century.
The eventual transformation to the use of power looms in the mills.
The weaver who worked at home had little or no bargaining power when changes were made in wages or the introduction of new machinery

Initially the introduction of the power looms was patchy because the earlymachines were not able to produce as good a quality cloth as could be woven byhand, but as the machinery evolved power loom production took over from thehandmade process from the 1830s onwards. Wages for hand loom weavers were lowered and the amount oftime between one job and the next could be days or weeks.

In the wake of atyphoid epidemic in the winter of 1843-4, a doctor called Robert Howard wroteabout medical and sanitary conditions in an area of Hebden Bridge called Slack. He lived at no. 15 New Road inHebden Bridge and was paid by the poor lawguardians to attend the sick. Howard’s local interests included medical andsanitary improvements in the town and district, but he was also concerned aboutthe loss of dignity suffered by hand-loom weavers now forced to rely on charity, and living in desperate conditions.
However, the poverty of the hand loom weavers became of national concern. There are records of riots in Skipton, and nearby Colne by hand loom weavers, as the work dried up and their plight became ever more serious. Thehand loom weavers tried to say that their jobs were safeguarded by statutesdating from Tudor times, but mill owners argued that these laws were archaic.Parliament had appointed a Select Committee as long ago as 1803 and again in 1806 toinvestigate the issues, but it was not until 1909 that the Government repealed all the old legislation.

Only in the 1840's, in thewoollen industries, did the power looms in the factories competed fully anddirectly with hand looms. Until that time the two existed side by side, with thehand loom weaver reduced to being an auxiliary of the factory, but not yetdriven out of existence by competition. Their role was to take up the slack inboom times, and to bear the first brunt of recession. They also acted as acheck on the wages of power loom weavers, most of whom were women. The plightof the weavers is a vivid illustration of how helpless a section of labouringmen could be when caught between the relics of the domestic system and the fullforce of competitive industrialisation.

Haworth's main industry during the earlyVictorian period was mainly weaving, and there was said to be 1,200 hand loomsworking at the time the Brontes were writing. Industrialisation then grew quickly inthe area. Mills were built to accommodate modern machinery that was replacingthe hand loom.

As a separate industry, the move to weaving in the mills instead of as a cottage industry, brought prosperity to those individuals involved in the making of weaving shuttles, and I wrote an article some time ago about the 'Bancroft Shuttlemakers' who saw their business prosper as more and more mills set up with the latest weaving machinery, which required large volumes of weaving shuttles.

In 1910 a Timmy Feather of Stanbury, who was known locally as the the "last of the Worth Valley Hand Loom Weavers", died. Timmy lead a simple life living on a diet of only porridge oats, and became something of a celebrity. He would get many visitors arriving at the door of his little cottage to see for themselves how he worked at his hand loom, practising his dying skill of hand loom weaving. His loomand accessories is now on display at Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley.

Timmy Feather weaving at his Hand Loom

Joseph Greenwood Bancroft 1889-1915

2011-11-11T13:03:00.000Z

Joseph Greenwood Bancroft

I came across the following story about Joseph GreenwoodBancroft, who was killed in the first world war, and although born in Manchester, Lancashire, moved to Yorkshirewith his widowed Mother and the rest of the family after the early death of hisfather, who was also called Joseph Greenwood Bancroft.

Joseph Parents, Joseph and Mary Ann were both born in Yorkshire, Joseph from Stanbury near Haworth, and MaryAnn from Grassington near Skipton, and it looks as though Joseph [snr] movedover to Arwick near Mancheser, with a job, some time in the 1870’s because census recordsshow him living with adopted parents in Sutton Yorkshire in 1871. It is prettyclear from the records that he was illegitimate, so there is no record of afather but it seems quite possible that his mother was Ann Bancroft b 1821, thedaughter of Joseph and Isabella [nee: Jowett], because she was listed as a single girl andworking in the area at that time, which was well away from the rest of herfamily who were living in an area called Cragg Bottom, near Stanbury, which although nearer the Haworth Parish area was geographically in the Keighley Parish.
By 1881 Joseph[snr] was working for a Corn Dealer and living atArdwick, and when he died in his early 50’s, the family then all moved back toSutton in Yorkshire , where Joseph [jnr] got a job as a shop assistant in thelocal Co-Op shop.

When war was announced in the autumn of 1914, the young menof the nation came from towns and villages to take the King's shilling and tooffer their dedicated services in defence of their homeland. Young men flooded into the recruiting centres inanswer to their nation's call for young manhood.

Prior to enlistment, Joseph Bancroft was employed asassistant manager in the grocery department at the Sutton Mill Co-operativeSociety.

At the outbreak of the Great War, Joseph Bancroft respondedto the call and volunteered to enlist into the 1/6th battalion Duke ofWellington’s (West Riding Regiment) in September 1914. His regimentalnumber was 2713 and he commenced with the rank of Private, and entered the war on 14th April 1915when the 1/6^th battalion West Riding Regiment landed at Boulogne inFrance.

The West Riding Regiment raised 24 battalions during WW1including the 1/6th (Territorial Force) battalion at Skipton on 4th August1914.

The Western Front was the name applied to the fighting zonein France& Flanders, where theBritish, French, Belgian and later American armies faced that of Germany.

It was marked by a system of trenches and fortificationsseparated by an area known as "No Man's land". These fortifications stretched475 miles and precipitated a style of fighting known as trench warfare. From the moment the German Army moved into Luxembourg on 2nd August 1914 to the Armistice on 11th November 1918, thefighting on the Western Front in France & Flanders never stopped. Just as there were quiet periods, there were also the mostintense, savage, huge-scale battles the world has ever known.

Having been in France for only 4 weeks, Joseph wrotethe following letter to a friend back home about his experiences in thetrenches so far, which was published in a local newspaper on 21 May 1915.

SUTTON MAN TALKS WITHTHE GERMANS

In a letter to afriend, Private Joe Bancroft, who before the outbreak of war was employed inthe grocery department at the Sutton Mill Cooperative Society, writes:-"I have only seen one German yet. I had a pot at him but he'bobbed'. The Germans use the periscope a good deal,and we do the same.

The troops opposite I fancy are Saxons. They are so quiet. Thelast lot were the Prussian Guards, a very noisy lot. One day some ofour fellows shouted across to their trenches, "To ------ with theKaiser". The answer came back, "Yes, we say the same. I wish I was back in London." In referringto the Christmas incident, Private Bancroft saysit was no fable. "One of our soldiers I was speaking with said itwould have happened at Good Friday, but their officer said 'No, youwould be having tea with them.' Last week we were shelled in ourbillets and they did some damage. Our aeroplanes seem to do far morework than those of the Germans, also our artillery. Theaviators are very plucky. The buildings around here are more or less shelled,and look very dilapidated. It is a shame to see nice farms ruined. Ifthe people over yonder saw them they would waken up and do theirpart to get this job finished. You cannot understand what war islike until you are in it. I am about three miles from Belgium and if my chance comes, Iwill do my bit for poor Belgium. The tales about the German treatment areall too true."

6 months after arriving in France, Pte Joseph GreenwoodBancroft was killed in action on the Western Front on the 22nd October1915 He was 26 years of age.

The local newspaper reported his death on 29 October 1915 asfollows:

"DEATH OF PTE. J.BANCROFT OF SUTTON"

2On Tuesday morning,Mrs. Bancroft, of Holme Bridge, Sutton, received news that herson, Pte. Joseph Bancroft, had been killed in the trenches onSaturday morning last. Pte. Bancroft was very widely known in the district,and his death is deeply deplored. Prior to joining the 1st Dukeof Wellington's,he was employed in the Sutton Mill Co-operativegrocery stores, where his services were greatly valued by thecommittee. His courtesy and desire to please were acknowledged and appreciated by its members. Although not a member of the Sutton Baptist Church, he was a regularworshipper, and took a greatinterest in the Young Men's Bible Class, being treasurer at the timeof joining the army. He is the first connected with the BaptistSunday School and Church to lay down his life. His comrades at the frontare greatly distressed at his death. The following has beenreceived by his mother, with whom great sympathy is felt:-"Dear Madam, - I am sorry to inform you that your

son, Private J.Bancroft, was killed in the trenches yesterday (Saturday). He was agood soldier and always did his work well, and a great favourite withboth officers and men. You will be glad to know

he suffered no pain.Please accept the deepest sympathy of officers and men of the ACompany, 1st Duke of Wellington'sRegiment. -Capt. Nicholson."

Memorial Card [source Andrew Monkhouse]

Article Date: 05 November 1915

SUTTON - THE LATE PRIVATE JOE BANCROFT

Memorial Service at the Baptist Church

On Sunday morning last, a service to the memory of the latePte. Joe Bancroft, of the 1st 6th Duke of Wellington's Regiment, whowas killed in the trenches on Saturday, October 23rd, was heldin the Baptist Church, the pastor (Rev.F.W. Pollard) being the preacher. The large congregation was representative of alldenominations in the district, there being present the committee of the SuttonMill Cooperative Society, his fellow workers (shop assistants), members of the Bible Class, for who Pte. Bancroft acted as treasurer,and the 2nd Sutton Troop of Boy Scouts. The service opened with the hymn 'Nearer my God to Thee', followed by the anthem 'There is aland', under the leadership of Mr. Joseph Overend. The story to thechildren of heroic deeds done by the Red Cross Society was veryappropriate to the occasion. Mr. Pollard based his remarks upon the text from John xv.,13, 'Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for hisfriends'.

His said: "We are met here this morning to pay tributeand grateful respect to the memory of our dear friend who has been killedupon the battlefield, and your presence in such numbers shows howdeeply we all feel his loss. None of us realised it, that he would betaken. It seemed the last thing in our thoughts that his brief, brightlife should come so soon to a tragic end. He is the first of our bravelads to fall, and when we heardthe news our hearts were wrung with anguish: all of us loved him. Hewas so bright and cheerful in his disposition and a favourite ofall who knew him, young and old alike. He bears a name that we shall remember with thankfulness as long as life lasts. The name of one whowas faithful and true, to the highest and best that was in him, andin the spirit of our text, cheerfully giving himself for those heloved and for those who called him friend. In one of the earlier letters received by Mr. Pollard hewrote: "Before I enlisted I counted the cost, I studied about it no little,and now, after six months of hard training, if it was to do now I shouldjust do the same; in fact I don't see how I could do any other way. Inyour letter you referred to Mr. Wilson's lads (Lothersdale) being fairlyin at it. It has to be hoped they will come through. If we don't comeback, it's a good cause we are fighting for, and that's worthsomething." In another letter, said Mr. Pollard, he showed the trueChristian spirit. In answer to Mr. Pollard's letter he wrote: "As regardsbillet life, it is best to be in at it to know. We have all sorts here, allgood-hearted chaps, and so long as you keep straight I think you helpothers who have need of it. Some might laugh at you occasionally, butthen . . . . .It does not bother me." "Here," said Mr. Pollard, "you have a spiritof courage manifested in camp life." In another letter which Mr. Pollardreferred to as showing the self-sacrifice of the man, he wrote: "A few monthsago I never thought I should be in the army, but things have moved fastsince then . . . . As regards credit being given to us it is notus, but I think it is the mothers that should have it." "These extracts," continued Mr. Pollard,"speak more powerfully than any words a man could; you all knew him and these words represent the man. He met his death while playing thehandyman, preparing a meal for his comrades, and he died while on anerrand of loving service. Our friend was steadfast to the duties towhich he had given his life, and today we lift up our hearts in gratitudeto God for the life lived, and we pray that his removal may besanctified. He entered this conflict because he heard the call of duty. Wepray this example may lead us all to the same fidelity and to manifestthe same spirit, which was the very spirit of Christ Himself who lovedus and gave himself for us." Mr. Pollard closed his address with a special appeal to his congregation to live for the highest and the best. Theservice closed with the beautiful hymn 'Brief life is here our portion',and the playing of the 'Dead March'.

Talana Farm War Cemetery

Talana Farm was one of a group of farm houses named by thearmy from episodes of the South African Boer war. The cemetery wasbegun by French troops in April 1915, taken over by the 1st Rifle Brigadeand 1st Somerset Light Infantry in June 1915, and was used by fighting unitsuntil March 1918. The Talana Farm Memorial in Belgium bears the names of 529 Commonwealth servicemen of the Great War buried orcommemorated in the cemetery, including the grave of Joseph Greenwood Bancroft.

Joseph Bancroft wasposthumously awarded the 1914/15 Star, British War Medal & Victory Medal

The family grave is still there at Sutton Baptist Chapel,where Joseph’s parents were married, and are buried, and where he was also a regular worshipper. The gravestone has aninscription about their son Joseph’sdeath .

I an grateful to the following websites for some of the information in this article.

Andrew Monkhouse and the Sutton-in Craven Village website on:
http://www.sutton-in-craven.org.uk/
Also the Craven's Part in theGreat War website on:
www.cpgw.org.uk

Isaac Bancroft saved Ickornshaw Moor !

2011-10-30T13:40:00.000Z

Ickornshaw Shooters outside the Round Hut - circa 1890

Ickornshaw Moor is the area of moorland above Cowling village, including the hamlet of lckornshaw, right up to the Lancashire border with the becks acting as natural boundaries. It is beautiful moorland, with ever changing scenery through the seasons, traversed by footpaths and bridleways, which can still be enjoyed today.

History tells us that Ickornshaw Moor is included in the wastes or commonlands of the manor of Ickornshaw. In or about 1565 Richard Tirrell, Lord of the Manor at that time, sold the tenants of the manor their ancient holdings, making them freeholders. In 1583 his son, Edward Tirrell, conveyed the Lordship or Manor of Cowling, including the commons, moors, and wastes of moors to those freeholders. The freeholders held the land in undivided shares of 304 equal parts., in proportion to the amount of rent each had previously paid. There is a deed to this effect dated 1657. There were originally 24 freeholders, but through the years these rights were passed down through generations or sold, so the number of freeholders became much greater and widespread as people moved further afield.

Ickonshaw Moor is reputed to be an excellent grouse moor, and villagers have enjoyed shooting rights across it for many years. These men were known as the Shooters to begin with, eventually becoming Cowling Gun Club in 1975. Voluntary subscriptions were collected to pay for the upkeep of a new stone shooting hut used by the Shooters, and built in 1902 on the site of an earlier smaller Round Hut [See this in the picture at the top], and the official opening of the new Stone Hut is shown below.

The new Stone Hut grand opening - 1902

And here is a more modern picture of the Stone Hut from the rear, with the addition of a lean-to, built onto it in more recent times.

Ickornshaw Moor and Stone Hut

There have been many disputes over Ickornshaw Moor through the years, some concerned with boundary disputes, some with shooting rights - which have been staunchly defended by the shooters. In August 1892 almost the entire village congregated on the moor on the glorious 12th to show a united front against Messrs. Pepper and Houldsworth, who had purchased rights to shoot from a minority of villagers in order to extend their existing rights to Emmott Moor which runs adjacently. This show of strength was too great and, despite one more attempt to shoot over the moor and several visits to court, shooting rights remain within the village and a Gun Club is still in existence today.

Back in 1880, the following articles, regarding shooting rights, appeared in the local newspaper.

Alleged Game Trespass at Cowling Petty Sessions, Skipton,

August 21st 1880

The following men were summoned for game trespass on the moor at Cowling.

Smith Shuttleworth, Painter, Cowling.
William Teal, Farmer, Colne.
Blackburn Robinson, Keighley.
Thomas Burry, Manufacturer, Nelson.
Richard Roberts, Manufacturer, Nelson.
William Smith, Silsden.
John Jackson, Silsden.
Isaac Atkinson, Farmer, Cowling.
Wright Greenwood, Woolsorter, Haworth.
George Binns, Warp Dresser, Cowling.
James Stephenson, Warp Dresser, Cowling.
William Wilkinson, Bradford William Turner, Bradford
Isaac Bancroft, Stonemason, Cowling.

From the statement of the prosecuting solicitor, it appears that the right of shooting on the moor in question is disputed, but that an arrangement has been come to that all summonses on the defendants should be withdrawn with the exception of that for Isaac Bancroft. The defendants promised in open court not to trespass again and to pay costs.

Mr Neill, who appeared for the defendants, ,who said that they were perfectly willing to do so, as the person who gave them liberty to shoot game, he found. had not the right to do so. The promises having been made, the defendants were dismissed.

The hearing of the case against Isaac Bancroft, who is said to have a right to shoot on the moor, was adjourned.

A Question of Shooting Rights on lckornshaw Moor,
Cowling Petty Sessions at Skipton, September 4th 1880
Judge T.H Ingham in the Chair

Isaac Bancroft, Stonemason of Cowling, was summoned for trespass in search of game on the moor near Cowling. Mr Nowell, solicitor of Burnley prosecuted and Mr Neill represented the defendant. From the opening statement on Mr Nowell it would appear that fourteen persons had been summoned for the offence, and at the session a few weeks ago, thirteen of the defendants had apologised in open court, and in paying expenses, the summons were withdrawn.

The present defendant claimed to have a right to shoot over the moor in question and declined to adopt the course adopted by the other defendants. In consequence, the case was adjourned until today, in order that enquiries might be made as to the question of right.

The prosecution stated that the people residing in the district claimed to have a right to shoot over the moor, whereas they had no right at all, and in the second place most of the persons claiming a right had signed an agreement with Mr Foulds of Burnley, which contained a paragraph to the effect that persons would be prosecuted for trespassing on the moor after that time.. In spite of that, the defendant went upon the moor, and it would be up to Mr Neill to show that the defendant had the right, which he claimed, to go on the moor and shoot game.. As far as Mr Nowell, the prosecutor could learn, the defendant claimed the right through some deed left by his father [James Bancroft of Fairplace Farm], and if such was the case, probably the deed would be provided. The simple statement that the defendant was the owner of the common property would not he sufficient to claim.

Mr Neill, defending, said that the conveyance of the property under which they claimed a right was made in 1841, and his client had shot on the moor for a period of thirteen years, and his brother for two years before him without any interference from anyone.

James Bancroft, the defendant's father, stated that he took from his father a plot of land at lckornshaw on which eight cottages were afterwards erected. The tenant had the right to take Ling, Bedding, etc from off the moor adjoining.
Isaac Bancroft stated that he had shot on the moor for thirteen years without any interruption. He got his licence to do so off his father.
Mr Nowell, at some length, contended that the evidence did not prove a reasonable claim, and in support of this quoted various decisions in the superior courts.

After the matter had been fully argued, it was decided by the Bench that it was not a case for them to deal with, and the summons was dismissed

His Honour Judge Ingham, in giving his decision added that the people of the Hamlet of Ickornshaw had a "JUST RIGHT TO THE MOOR". That expression of opinion would seem to be enough, as nothing more was hear of this attempt. It would seem by his actions the Isaac Bancroft "HAD SAVED THE MOOR FOR THE INHABITANTS OF THE VILLAGE".

The right to freedom of access to Ickonshaw Moor remains within the village, and moorland life continues much as it always has, and the picture below shows the Ickornshaw Freeholders having a brew outside their stone hut after a day's shooting in 1936 [courtesy of the Cowling Moonrakers website]


Ickornshaw Freeholders - 1936

Isaac Bancroft let a very interesting life,and I wrote about him and his skills as a stonemason and builder in a previous article, called: 'Quarrymen of Cowling'

[I am grateful to Mr Dennis Harker of Cowling and the Moonrakers of Cowling website for some of this information]

"Lewd & Obscene Entertainment" at the Lecture Hall

2011-10-20T15:01:00.000+01:00

“Strange Proceedings at the North-Street Lecture Hall”was the heading of an article in theLeeds Mercury Newspaper of 3^rd September 1878 and described the lively activities in that establishment ….activities, which today would hardlywarrant a few lines in any newspaper, but in 1878 were described as “most lewd and obscene entertainment”

The case was heard in Leedsagainst an elderly man, William Pratt, a 69 year old cloth-dresser, who wascharged with selling beer without a license and managing a disorderley house, along with Edwin Bancroft, a 40 year old labourer of St Peter’s Street, whowas charged with assisting in the management of a disorderly house.

The police stated that acting on informationreceived by them, they had cause to visit the Lecture Hall on North Street Leedsat about 12.50 in the morning, and this is how the newspaper describes the scene they were met withwhen they arrived!

“The door wasfastened, but on making use of the password “Rachel”, the prisoner Bancroftadmitted them. On proceeding upstairs to the large hall they found about ahundred persons assembled….three women, and the rest men. About twenty orthirty of the men however were dressed in female’s cloths. There were twodressing-rooms and persons were going in and out of them. Some of the men wereonly partly clothed, and one man who was dancing in the middle of the room, hadonly a cloak and girdle on. As he danced the cloak flew back and exposed hisbody. Whilst dancing, one of the men who was dressed as a woman purposely felland a number of other men threw themselves upon him whilst on the ground, andindecent familiarities took place. During the dances, the dancers kissed andconducted themselves indecently towards each other. The prisoner Pratt was inthe room the whole time, and Bancroft came in occasionally. A large stonebottle could be seen which would hold about six gallons of beer, and there wereglasses about containing beer. There was also a box present, which containedspirits, gin and whiskey.”

The prosecution requested a remand in custody until the followingweek when the case was due to be heard for further evidence to be obtained, “as the particular of the case were toomonstrous to admit of such a thing”, the defence solicitors requested bailon the defendants own recogniances…..both prisoners were remanded to thefollowing week, bail being refused.

The full details of the case were heard the following weekwhen Edwin Bancroft’s defence stated that The North Street Lecture Hall wasnormally let to a society known as the Secularists’ Society, who then sublet itfor lectures, music and dancing etc and that some time ago some people engagedit for a dance. Bancroft was thehall-keeper engaged by the Secular Society, and his only duties were to makesure the hall was opened and then closed when a function was over. He had nopower whatsoever in directing what was going on, and consequently could nothave interfered. He had only been at the door a few minutes when the policearrived because Mr Pratt was away for a few minutes. Pratt had told him that hewas to let no one in without a ticket or a shilling, and to let no one outwithout giving them a password, by which they could re-enter

More evidence was hear from various witnesses, and at theend, the Stipendiary Magistrate Mr Bruce stated that Pratt was in management ofthe affair, with Bancroft as his servant and therefore both men must have known something of whatwas going on. He therefore ordered Pratt to be imprisoned for a month, andBancroft be fined 60 shillings including costs. He said he did not consider Bancroft to be the main offender inthis case. The main offenders were the people who let the hall for the purposeof “a most lewd and obscene entertainment”and as a consequence of this he would be recommending that the music licencefor the Hall be forfeited as he was satisfied that what had taken place was sufficient to bring the room under the heading of a "disorderly house"

Edwin was the son of Joseph and Martha Bancroft and was born around 1829 in Lightcliffe near Halifax. The census records for 1871 show Edwin living at Davenport Square in the St Pater's area of Leeds, with his wife, Mary Ann, but no children and his listed occupation at that time was 'Mechanic'. By 1881, he looks to have moved up in the world to some extend, he was now living at 48 Duke Street in a different part of Leeds and his occupation was then given as 'Rent and Debt Agent'. He then had his widowed mother, Martha, living with him and his wife.

Lecture Hall circa 1860's

Why did Philemon Bancroft die in the Workhouse?

2011-09-30T13:23:00.000+01:00

Mealtime in the Workhouse

I have recently come across a rather interesting and disturbing report inthe Leeds Mercury newspaper of November 1860 which reported on the sudden deathof Mary Bancroft, the wife of Philemon Bancroft, and provides some answers toquestions I had wondered about for a long time….I’ll start at the beginning.

Mary's husband, Philmon Bancroft, was born in the Lightcliffe area, nearHalifax in 1808, the son of James and Sarah Bancroft.

Philemon & Mary's marriage record

He married Mary Sucksmith in 1832 at Halifax. Mary was heavily pregnant at the time,and was the daughter of James Sucksmith, a farmer from Norwood Green near Halifax and his wife Frances. There is some confusion in the records about Mary's surname, as some of the internet records show it as 'Lucksmith' rather than 'Sucksmith', although it seems more likely that 'Sucksmith' is the correct surname.
Philemon and Mary went on to have at least ten children……so the question is.... why did Philemonend his days alone, and without the support of his family, in a workhouse in the village of Claytonnear Bradford?

Looking at the census records, it would seem that Philemonhad a variety of occupations throughout his life. 1841 showed his as a farmerin Lightcliffe, while by 1851 he and his family had moved to Raistrick near Halifax and he was thenshown as a woolcomber.

By 1861 he has moved again to Cleckheaton and is now anAgricultural Labourer and shown as a widower, and was now living alone. The same census year shows eight of his children living at a separate address in North Bierley…and that where this story takes anasty turn!

The Leeds Mercury newspaper of 15^th November 1860had printed the following article:

Leeds Mercury Article

Philemon must have been a ratherunpleasant character as far as his family were concerned as he appears to havestarted a six month prison sentence shortly before his wife died at the earlyage of 46 years because he “inhumanly treated” her. One can only speculatewhether her early death was due to having ten children and then the crueltreatment at the hands of her husband.

Mary's Death Certificate

As can be seen from Mary’s death certificate, the cause of death leaves some unanswered questions. The Coroner isthe informant, and gives her cause of death as “ Sub Acute Bronchitis…evidencenot sufficient to determine if death was accelerated by ill treatment”

Anyway, Philemon eventually ended his days in the North Bierley Union Workhouse in Clayton near Bradford, and the 1871 census lists him there as "Pelam Bancroft" an inmate, together with several hundred other unfortunate individuals. He is shown as being of sound mind and body, unlike some of the others there, who are described as "imbecile or deaf and dumb" etc, and he is shown as a Labourer from Hipperholme.

Former Clayton Workhouse Entrance

The North Bierley Workhouse at Clayton was built in 1855-8 to accommodate the rapidly growing city of Bradford, which was starting to have to deal with large numbers of poor people, and was designed to accommodate up to 400 inmates. The building still exists today, although it has been greatly enlarged over the years. It was converted to a hospital called "Thornton View" in 1948, and eventually became a private girls school in 1991. Interestingly from 1904 onwards, the address given for all birth registrations was
'1 Highgate Road, Clayton' to protect children born there, from the shame of being registered as being born in a workhouse, so as not to stigmatise them in later life.

I wrote an article previously about life in another local workhouse at Keighley, describing the soul-deadening drudgery of daily life for anyone unfortunate enough to end up in one of these establishments. It can be read by clicking here

Thefollowing copy death certificate shows, he died of gangrene on 24^thJanuary 1873. Interestingly his name is mispelt as “Pelian” on the certificate.I had always though that his listed occupation at the time of death as aschoolmaster must also have been a mistake, and that it possibly referred tothe informant who was the Workhouse Manager, but on further investigation itwould seem that this was correct, because a few years later his son Edwin listshis deceased father’s occupation as this on his marriage certificate. Perhaps Philemonwas a changed character after his time in prison and reformed his ways inlater life!

Records show that Philemon was buried at Lightcliffe Cemetrynear Halifax,which is where his parents James and Sarah were also buried.

Philemon's Death Certificate

For anyone interested.... Philemon is a biblical name.'The Epistle of Paul to Philemon', usually referred to simply as 'Philemon', is a prison letter to Philemon from Paul of Tarsus. Philemon was a leader in the Colossian Church.

I am grateful to Peter Higginbottom, and his website www.workhouses.org.uk for some of the information in this article.

Construction of Ponden and Watersheddles Reservoirs

2011-08-31T09:46:00.000+01:00

Ponden Reservoir

When you look at this tranquil scene of Ponden Reservoir near Keighley, it's hard to imagine what life was like nearly one hundred and fifty years ago in this area, when Ponden, and the nearby reservoir of Watersheddles, were being constructed in the 1870's. At the height of their construction up to 300 men were involved in work on the two sites, living either alone or with their families in a 'Shanty-town' of makeshift huts and caravans on site.
This army of navvy workers, together with their wives, women and children, poured into the district from all over the country and caused no end of a commotion in the sleepy hamlets of Scar Top and nearby Stanbury. The area must have resembled a scene from the Wild West, because for eight years they dug, drank, fought, pilfered, were injured and died in various trench mishaps.
The local newspaper, The Keighley News, reported on one such incident on 17th February 1873 as follows:
" On Monday morning an accident, unfortunately caused the death of a man, occurred at the waterworks at Keighley Local Board now in course of construction at Ponden. It appears that an excavator named Greenwood Hird, residing at Stanbury, was engaged at his work on Monday, digging out for the puddle trench of the reservoir. A very heavy bed of stone had been met within this operation, and the stone and rubbish excavated in hoisted to the level, a distance of over thirty feet, by means of a pulley and a horse. The truck or boxes containing the material are hooked on, and the operation being of a rather dangerous character considerable precaution is necessary. While one of these trucks was being thus hoisted, a stone weighing over eleven pounds fell from near the top to the bottom, alighting upon the head of the deceased, who was going on with his work immediately below. His skull was driven in from behind, and the unfortunate man was killed instantaneously. It is stated that the deceased, who had a sub-contract for part of the work, had been frequently cautioned as to the practice of filling the trucks too full and also working underneath while the trucks were being hoisted; but that no notice was taken of these warnings. The deceased was twenty-four years of age, and leaves a wife and two children"

The situation in the area became so bad, with the influx of so many rowdy workers, looking for recreation after a hard days work, that the people of the nearby sleepy village of Stanbury, had to petitioned the authorities for an extra constable " to keep the navvies in order".

One of the construction workers was a local man, Joseph Bancroft, who was born on 8th April 1840 at Denholme, the son of John Bancroft and Mary Ann Holmes. Joseph, together with several of his brothers, had worked at various quarries in the area learning his trade as a stonemason and he eventually went to work on the Ponden Reservoir site doing 'top-facing' work, which was dressing stone for walls etc. Whilst working on site Joseph had to live on site in some sort of a caravan, only going home at weekends to see the family due to the distance involved. He apparently also did work on the side to complement his wages by doing jobs for local farmers and also mill employers who needed a bit of work doing on the fabric of their buildings. As well as a skilled stonemason, Joseph was an accomplished artist, who would do sketches of people he met in his everyday life, for the price of a pint of ale. He eventually moved on to work at the nearby Watersheddles Reservoir site, which was under construction at the same time as Ponden, and whilst there he heard about all the work available just over the border in Lancashire where stonemasons were required for all the new cotton mills which were being built around this time, so he moved to Colne and worked in Southfield and Marsden quarries in the nearby town of Nelson. He stayed there for most of his working life, ,moving back to Yorkshire in the 1920 and saw his days out in Yeadon near Leeds, passing away in March 1937 and was buried at the small Municipal Cemetery there.

Joseph Bancroft

The history of Ponden and Watersheddles reservoirs goes back to 1869, when the town of Keighley was in a desperate need of a fresh water supply. The Keighley newspaper at the time reported on parts of the town where the piped water supply had been dried up for thirteen weeks.... factory machines stood idle as water supplies had to be diverted for domestic use....new wells were being sunk in the town but were running dry almost immediately..... natural springs up to a mile out of town were being besieged night and day by men, women and children with buckets and cans..... the town drains clogged up due to lack of water and gave off poisonous gases, which were blamed in part for the scarlet fever epidemic which had killed a number of children. The local newspaper correspondent voiced the universal view of the desperate people of Keighley when he stated "Nothing....neither expense, covert opposition, nor open hostility will be deemed by the inhabitants an excuse for delay or even dilatoriness on the part of the Board.....they must let us have water, and they must let us have it soon!"
The upshot of all this was the Keighley Waterworks Extension and Improvement Act of 1869, which authorised the construction of the new reservoirs. Both Ponden and Watersheddles Reservoirs were of a similar size, about 50 feet deep, covering about 30 acres and with a capacity of about 200 million gallons of water each. Both took nearly eight years to build and work commenced in about 1870.

Ponden Reservoir under construction

The above rather grainy photo, shows Pondon under construction, looking along the puddle trench dug in readiness to build the embankment, which was 200 yards long and 18feet wide across the top.

Towards the centre of the photo, raising beyond the row of cottages, with smoke rising from the chimney, is Scar Top Brewery which was an enterprising business set up by William and Robert Heaton. These two gentlemen lived at Scar Top Farm and must have seen the business opportunity of starting a brewery in 1870 to supply the three hundred thirsty construction workers with plenty of drink, as it was a long way to walk to the nearest public house, and it was well known that they like to consume plenty of ale after a hard days work. The two men built the brewery onto the side of their farmhouse, and it consisted of a large underground store cellar, a wash house for barrels, a wagon shed, a counting house, a brew house, vatting rooms, refrigerator and setting back rooms, a hop chamber and a malt room. Business must have been good and must have grown beyond supplying the local workforce because by 1877 they also had three horses, an ale cart, a sprung cart and lots of other equipment, but by 1878 the reservoir work was finished and within a year the local newspaper had an advert offering the brewery, farm and three cottages for sale. They must not have sold, and the owners plight looks to have become more desperate because in November 1878 another advert appeared selling everything, including household furniture and livestock, by Order of Mortgagees, under Power of Sale conditions, so it looks as though the Bank must have foreclosed on the unfortunate business owners.

Scar Top Brewery

On completion of the Watersheddles Reservoir in 1877, which finally secured the water supply for the whole area, two hundred of of the workers sat down to a celebration dinner, whilst their employers toasted "Success to the Keighley Waterworks, and Prosperity to the Town of Keighley!"

Watersheddles Reservoir

George Bancroft...Electronics Wizard!

2011-07-30T16:22:00.000+01:00

I was recently given this story about George Bancroft [1907-1996] who had a very interesting life as an electrical engineer, and who's hobbies lead to a career as a radio expert, radio manufacturer and in his later life a maker of electronic organs.

George was born in Haworth in 1907, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Bancroft. His father was the local butcher, running his business from a shop in Haworth village and was always recognisable because of his habit of wearing breeches, gaiters and boots and always being followed by his terrier dog called "Curley".

After leaving Keighley Boys Grammar School, George went to work for an electrical firm in Bradford and his boss must have seen that young George had an inventive mind for anything electrical, because he asked him to make a crystal set.....and that's how his love of electronics began....he started making crystal sets which the firm he worked for then sold.

George had a flair for a good electrical idea from and early age, and in the 1920's some people had a radio at home, but needed to use a glass accumulator to run it because they did not have an electrical supply to the house. These accumulators were similar to a small car battery, and needed charging regularly. He therefore bought and old generator, which he set up in his mother's outside wash-house, and ran a business from home recharging accumulators for everyone in the area.

By the early 1930, he had set up one of the earliest radio relay business in the Haworth and Crossroads area from his home in Brow Road, Haworth. At the time many people could not afford to buy a radio for the home, so the radio relay arrangement allowed a person to have the BBC radio programme wired directly to their home, and the equipment in their house consisted of a radio loudspeaker with a volume knob, and in later years there was the added luxury of an extra knob allowing them to listen to two different channels! At it's height, radio relay was used in over one million homes throughout the country, and locally in the Keighley area, one in six houses were connected. The cost of the service was 1/3p per week. Alternatively if you needed the equipment installing the cost of a loudspeaker was 5/3d....this then gave you 100 hours of entertainment a week!
The minutes from the Haworth Urban District Council meeting of 2nd June 1931, list his application to set up this business as follows:
"The Clerk laid before the Council a letter from Mr George Bancroft dated the 28th ultimo, asking the permission of the Council to supply people in Haworth & Cross Roads with relayed wireless programs from the Central Receiving Station at 2 Spring Row, Cross Roads, the distribution to be by means of overhead lines. It was resolved that the application be granted."
At the same meeting the Council considered a similar application from an existing Radio Relay Company in Blackburn, Lancashire, and refused their application....presumably favoring a local business to operate this important service to the local community.

George eventually sold his radio relay business to a nearby rival company in the late 1940's. By then many people were getting their own radio sets due to the fact that many more British and Foreign stations were becoming available, so he decided to set up a new business renting out radio sets, and eventually set up another business manufacturing them from a small factory at Mill Hey in Haworth.

He had previously tinkered with television in the 1930's using his radio knowledge. The BBC at the time were using the Baird Televisor system with a long-wave radio signal, but as it was only broadcast at the time on a 30 lines format, the picture was very poor so he did not pursue this project. He looked again at television in the 1950's and built his father a television set which was a console type, (floor standing) and of course only received the BBC broadcasts, as that was the only channel available at the time. It was eventually passed down to his sister, Clara, and when she moved house in the mid 1960’s she disposed of it, although it was still in working order!!

By the 1960's George turned his electronics knowledge to a completely different hobby....making electronic organs.He had first become interested in organs shortly before the war when he was intrigued by the tracker action and coupled keys of the pipe organ in his local chapel, and then went on to read books on organ building before making small electronic attachments to a harmonium and then experimenting with tone generators and filters.Here his skill in radio electronics became vital.
He always said that he would donate an organ to the first local church to place an order with him, and the picture at the top of this article shows this organ, which took two years to build, and which he donated to the Bridgehouse Methodist Chapel in Haworth. A concert was held at the Chapel in February 1964 to celebrate it's installation, and the local newspaper reported the event as follows:
" Bridgehouse Methodist Chapel received a gift on Sunday of and electronic organ, worth several hundred pounds, built by Mr George Bancroft of Haworth. Mr Bancroft said that well known organist, Miss Freda Hall, has played the organ several times and considers it is the best in the world. She describes it as the Rolls Royce of organs. The organ was installed three weeks ago as a trial and Mr Bancroft asked if the church were willing to buy it. They said they were all delighted with it, and he then offered it as a gift. Mr Bancroft said his interest in organs stated about 15 years ago and he is now employed full time making organs at his workshop in Brow Road. He is at present making one for Scunthorpe Methodist Chapel."

As his skill and knowledge developed he started to produce organs where each note had it's own generator, which was an expensive refinement at the time. In an ordinary electronic organ, identical notes from the same or different octaves, produce precise unison, whereas George's organs produced what is known as a chorus effect, where they are as in a choir, fractionally out of tune with each other. This effect brought his organs into line with a pipe organ, where there is a pipe in every stop on every note. At that time pipe organs were ten times the cost of George's organs. His organs also had other features, normally found on much more expensive organs such as the ability to produce tones similar in sound to an oboe, french horn or trumpet, and coupler controls which made a note sound one or two octaves higher or lower, thus producing an orchestral effect in both tone and volume

George continued with his hobby from his home, and the following picture shows him hard at work in his little workshop where he produced up to four organs a year, mainly going to private houses or small chapels.

George had married [Ellen] Marie Moon in 1938, after a chance meeting when they were both passengers on a Norwegian Cruise, and they had a long and happy marriage. When they reached retirement age in the mid 1960's, they moved Wigtown in Scotland because George had fallen in love with the the area when visiting the nearby grammar school camp as a boy, and it was also convenient for travelling across to Northern Ireland where Marie had originated from. They finally bought "Clintz House" which was the old jailhouse in Wigtown and was in a pretty poor state when they purchased it. Being a listed building, it took a lot of time and expense to bring it up to a satisfactory condition, and here is a picture of how it looks today.

Even during retirement, George continued to move with the times and keep up with technology.In the early 1970's a neighbour's son who worked for a publishing company, asked him to make a small organ which could be used abroad, so George designed the following transistor organ which eventually ended up in Johannesburg.

George built his last electronic organ when he was 82years old, which was a two manual instrument with bass pedals. He had this organ with him in a nursing home in Newton Stewart where he died at the age on 89 years in 1996. The instrument was passed onto a friend in Kirckudbright after his death and is still in use there today.

Below is a picture of another single manual organ, together with speaker, which George built in the 1960's for the Halton Gill Church in Yorkshire.

I would like to thank Paul Allen from Oakworth, who was a long time friend of George and Marie's, for providing the information for this article.

Origins and Meaning of the Bancroft Name

2011-07-14T20:33:00.000+01:00

It occured to me recently that the one think that has not been explained on this blog is how or where the "Bancroft" family name originates from....there may be many explanations, but here is mine:

The surname BANCROFT is English in origin, being one of those names derived from the name of a dwelling place or locality where a bearer of the name lived.

The name can be traced to the Old English term "of the Bank Croft", denoting an enclosure, sometimes know as a "croft" on a slope or bank.

During the Middle Ages it was common practice to identify a man with the area from which he lived, and to then refer to him in this manner. Therefore if a person lived at or near, a single geographical feature such as a slope, this would become their name, and to which they would become known as.

Surnames were also occasionally derived from townships, and it is possible that the name was also originally used by residents of Bencroft in the county of Cambridge, and that the name then became corrupted to Bancroft.

Very early instances of the name were generally prefixed with 'de' meaning 'of ', a preposition used to denote surnames of local origin.

The first recorded instance of the name occurred in the Hundred Rolls, a document drawn up in London in 1273, where one Johannes de Bank-Croft is listed.

The modern form of the name began to appear during the 16th century.

The Yorkshire areas that supported the name from the beginning of the 17th century in any numbers, seem to be the parishes of Kildwick, Halifax, and the ancient chapelry of Heptonstall, gradually then working its way across the moors to Oxenhope, Haworth and Keighley later.There also appears to be two more quite separate Bancroft lines living in the Sheffield area of South Yorkshire and Derbyshire from the 18th century. In fact the early US settlers seem to all originate from the Derbyshire line, rather than Yorkshire.

There are variations of the name listed throughout Yorkshire, such as Bankcroft, Bankroft, Barcroft and Beecroft.

A clue to the origins of the name are clear when you look at the population listed on 1881 census.
The only counties in England, where significant numbers of Bancroft individuals are listed in 1881 are as follows:

Yorkshire - 984
Lancashire-716
Cheshire - 347
Derbyshire - 281
Middlesex - 120
Lincolnshire- 94
Staffordshire - 77
Leicestershire - 66
Nottinghamshire - 55

All other counties in England, list numbers less than 50 individuals, and many counties show no individuals at all. There are also very few individuals listed in either Scotland or Wales
It therefore seems clear from this, that the name must have originated in Northern England, in the Yorkshire/Lancashire area.

The Quarrymen of Cowling

2011-06-30T15:27:00.000+01:00

Cowling Quarrymen at Work

The village of Cowling near Keighley was the home to many Bancroft families in the 18th & 19th century. Many were involved with the stone business and worked either in quarries in the area, or indeed actually owned small quarries on pieces of land they owned.
The building firm called "Bancroft & Gott" was set up by two families who were both involved in the stone business, and probably their greatest achievement was the building on the Methodist Chapel, on the site of a previous chapel, in Ickornshaw nr Cowling.

Ickornshaw Chapel - soon after opening

Three Bancroft brothers, Smith b 1838, Isaac b 1846 and John b 1853 were all involved in the work which commenced in 1875.
Their time-sheets show a charge of five shillings per person per day against the hours spent by most of the stonemasons during the months from May 1875 to April 1876 when they were employed as stonemasons to build the new Chapel, and I list below a time and wages sheet taken from an old "Bancroft and Gott" ledger showing the hours worked by Isaac Bancroft on the chapel and wages paid to to him.

Isaac Bancroft's time & wages

The building materials were specified to be new ashlar in the native sandstone (or Millstone Grit) taken from neighbouring quarries. The old footings of the former Chapel on this site were to be used where possible. Other parts of the old building were incorporated in the new building, such as the steps leading to the former Gallery being re-used for the entrance to the new heating apparatus room, and the best of the flags were re-used in the heating room, back kitchen and coal shute. Old stones from the previous building were re-dressed and used for the plinth to the new Chapel. The new stone was mainly from Earls Crag quarry, the bricks came from Colne and the lime from Lothersdale.

On the 8th July 1876 the new Wesleyan Chapel at Ickornshaw was opened and was described in the Keighley News as a "plain substantial building. The interior of the building was said to be very neat and well arranged, the entrance being from the side furthest from the road. There is a gallery all round approached by a staircase on each side of the corridor. It is seated for 500 worshippers, with open benches, and the pulpit stands in front of the organ and choir gallery. Underneath the Chapel is a school estimated to accommodate 300 Sunday School scholars, which is divided into three rooms, one large, and two classrooms."

The total cost of the building was £2,276 15s 7d and by the time of the opening the amount raised had reached £1,300. The first sermon preached in the new Chapel, on the Saturday afternoon, was by the Rev. W. O. Simpson of Bradford, and on the following day two sermons were preached by the Rev. J. Clapham of Sheffield. As not all the painting had been completed in the Chapel, services were conducted in the schoolroom for a short time after the official opening.

The Chapel was eventually closed for worship in 1985, and converted to residential use as apartments, and the following picture shows it from the rear, as it is today.

Ickornshaw Chapel Apartments

The three Bancroft brothers, Smith, Isaac and John were the sons of James and Esther Bancroft who ran a 40 acre farm called Fairplace in Cowling. Their business partner in the building firm was Holmes Gott, and they had several other building project in the area.Smith died in 1890 and Isaac died in January1900. The firm then continued as "Reddiough & Gott" who went on to do an important job of rebuilding Cowling Pinnacle in the early 1900's.

Both Smith and Isaac lived with their families at a place called Farling Top, Cowling, which was originally a row of eight back-to-back terrace houses, and apparently the neighbours used to complain about the noise when the two brothers were dressing stone down in the cellars at night! Evidence that both were involved with the building of the Farling Top row can be found because a plaque can be seen on the house wall which says " S & I Bancroft 1875". Shown below is a picture of Farling Top, or Farling Ing Top as it was known on old census records, as it looks today.

Farling Top

This final picture is a photograph of some Cowling Quarrymen working in an area of Cowling called Crag Delph, when a fossilized tree was discovered. The names of the men are not known, so it may be that there were some Bancrofts and Gotts amongst them.

Crag Delph Cowling

[I am grateful to The Moonrakers site of Cowling for some of the information in the article]

The Evils of Drink !

2011-06-14T13:58:00.000+01:00

I came across these two little stories while going though copies of an old newspaper, the Halifax Reporter.

The first article was dated 11th July 1839, and reported on a poor individual called Samuel Bancroft born in Ovenden, near Halifax around 1802, and his downfall due to the demon drink!

"Samuel Bancroft [37] was charged with stealing a piece of mutton at Stansfield, the property of Joseph Ashworth. Mr Baines conducted the case for the prosecution. The prosecutor is a butcher at Swan, near Todmorden. On the 20th of May, about 1o'clock, the prisoner came into his shop, and after some delay in the shop, went out by the back door. The prosecutor was very shortly, after missing part of a shoulder of mutton, which was afterwards found in the possession of the prisoner. The identity of the mutton was proved by the circumstance that it was cut with a snipped saw, which tore it in cutting. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the Chairman in passing sentence, said that this was the effect of the use of intoxicating drink. He would rejoice to see the principals of teetotalism extended, and in this case the court had determined that it should have effect. The sentence of the court was that he be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for one month, and for that period we shall be sure that you will be kept sober. The prisoner then stated...."But you should consider sir, that I've been six weeks sober already!" ....[presumably trying to suggest to the court that he had not had a drink since this incident...or more likely he had been locked up since the incident!]

Some years later 2nd May 1874, the same Halifax newspaper reported on another incident with a different individual , also called Samuel Bancroft and also born in Ovenden around 1848, the son of John and Martha Bancroft. The newspaper report leave us in no doubt that he had the same problem with drink, and the headline reads as follows:

"A violent son near Halifax.'

Yesterday at West Riding Court, Halifax, Samuel Bancroft, joiner of Ovenden, pleaded guilty to having assaulted his father on the previous Saturday. When the prisoner had gone home, he struck his mother and dragged his sister about by the hair on her head. The father was assaulted when he interfered, and stated that his son was a drunken, lazy and dissolute fellow. The prisoner was fined £2 5s, or else 2 months in prison."

Around these times the Temperance Society was growing in strength, and produced in one of their magazines the following ‘fire and brimstone’ warning to pub landlords:

"If there is a business in which the candidates of hell are labouring, it is yours, and full well you know it.
Were it not a conscience killing business, you would not take the last sixpence from the trembling hand of the drunkard and give him in relief a poison that, ere the next rising sun, may send him to his tomb.
Were it not a demoralising traffic, you could not stand by unmoved, and see the last spark of mortality and virtue driven from the mind of a man by the poison you administer.
Were it not an inferior business you would not be so assiduous in servicing the devil with victims for his abode of endless misery, for he exalts over every drunkard you prepare for the drunkard’s doom.
Then cease this business of ruin, ere the cry of humanity ceases and ere the wrath of angry heaven be poured out upon your head, for God has announced “a woe to him who putteth the bottle to his neighbour’s lips”.

The Demon Drink

The Bancroft Brothers - Tailors of Haworth

2011-05-30T10:28:00.001+01:00

George & Maria Bancroft

I was recently given a large cardboard box of items, which had originally been deposited at a local solicitors, on behalf of an Emma May Bancroft, who died in 1970, an unmarried lady, who was the last surviving member of her particular line...and what an interesting assortment of papers, letter and photographs it turned out to be!

Emma May's father George, turns out to be a very interesting and rather "well-to-do" person of some note in the area. He, together with his three brothers, Abel, William and John Thomas, all ran tailoring business's in the area and he was, amongst other things a Grand Master of the local Masonic Lodge as well as a substantial property owner who at the time of his death in 1915 had at least eight houses and some land in and around the local area of Crossroads nr Keighley

The collection, as well as having the usual collection of photos, letter and personal items also had many rent books recording the weekly rent collected from his various properties both by him and later his daughters.

George was born in 1860 at Brow Top nr Haworth, the fourth of seven children of Abraham and Martha Bancroft [nee Sutcliffe] and married Maria Wood at St John's Church, Ingrow, Keighley on 18th June 1895.
They went on to have two daughters, Emma May in 1896 and Hilda in 1900, neither of whom were ever married.

A rather non-descript exercise book in the collection hold a nice secret....amongst dozens of recipes is one for Maria's Wedding Cake, or "Bride Cake", as it was know then. Her recipe is shown below with that special ingredient...."1 shilling worth of brandy" !

Bride Cake Recipe

The following picture shows George in full Grand-Master masonic attire, but it is not clear exactly when he took on this role. It is is thought that it was between 1900 and 1915, when he was probably seen as an important businessman in the local area. The Masonic Lodge is still there at Mill Hey Haworth, close to where he was living and running his tailoring business at the time and he, no doubt, was able to get lots of business from his lodge connections.

Funeral Bookmark

George died on 24/11/1915 at the relatively young age of 55 years, and his estate with all the properties he owned together with his list of other assets and cash were valued at over £1500.

He was buried at Slack Lane Baptist Chapel, Oakworth with his wife Maria, and later their two daughters. Unfortunately the gravestone is now in a sad state, as can be seen from the following picture no doubt because the family line has died out and no one is left to attend to it.

After the death of George, it was left to his brother William [Willie] to continue the Tailoring Business. The advert below shows the extent of his business and he was able to boast " Good Workmanship and a Neat Fit Guaranteed", and lists an interesting collection of items and services he was able to provide such as

" MOURNING ORDERS executed with despatch"

The rather faded picture below is believed to possibly be William at work in his workshop at Hebden Bridge Road.

A Tailor at Work

William carried on in the tailoring business until his death in 1932, at the age of 73 years. His obituary in the local newspaper described him as "having carried on business as a tailor and outfitter for many years, and was a well known tradesman in the Worth Valley. His funeral was attended by a large number of friends and fellow tradesmen".

He was buried at Haworth Church graveyard, and his Will lists his estate as being valued at about £3000, of which over £1300 was from a war-loan which had been left unclaimed from the First World War.

The last surviving member of the family line was Emma May Bancroft, who died in 1970, age 70. In her Will she bequeathed £500 for the installation of a stained glass window at nearby St James Church at Crossroads cum Lees, in memory of herself and her family.

[I wrote an article some time ago about Maria Bancroft and details from a school book which she wrote in the 1870's. This can be seen by clicking here]

A New Haworth Ghost?

2011-05-13T19:14:00.000+01:00

Haworth Graveyard

The village of Haworth is no stranger to ghosts, and here is a nice little story sent to me by fellow Bancroft researchers, Charles and Joan Jessop....see what you think!

"On a visit to Haworth in July 2010 our intention being to clean and tidy my wife's family grave, a grave we had found previously. We made our way past the Church up through the graveyard to the grave .First we moved hens and cats, then cleaned bird droppings off the stone. The grave is just earth and we could only weed it .We then decided to get some flowers, not realising Haworth is closed on Wednesday afternoon.We walked down the high street then down through the park, where Joan never fails to recount summer holidays spent visiting Grandmas. We found two plants at the greengrocers and made our way back to the graveyard.While I planted the flowers, pink for the ladies and white for the gentlemen, I made comments on why they had not left any inheritance to my wife's side of the family

On returning home that evening I decided to take a bath and while lying ,eyes closed relaxing, I opened my eyes to see in steam and condensation an image in the mirror. Having puzzled over it for several minutes I decided the Bancrofts had come to say thanks. I shouted to my wife and then took this photograph.

We cleaned the mirror several times but the image returned every night for several weeks until I guess the flowers died for it no longer appears, then I read on your web site of bodies buried in wool and the image seems stranger than ever. [click here to read the buried in wool story]
I will not make sarcastic remarks in Haworth graveyard again!"

The family grave they were researching contains Joan's ancestors Abraham Bancroft [1801-1881] and his wife Margaret Hartley 1840-1876] who were tenant farmers at a place called "Hole" near Haworth.
Also in the grave are their son Hartley Bancroft [1852-1922] and his wife Rebecca Robinson [1849-1907] who carried on with living at the farm after Abraham died, although his occupution on the various census records list him as a Stone Quarry Owner, rather than a Farmer.

I wrote an article some time ago about a different ghost in Haworth Station, which can be read by clicking here.

Pictures from the old Salt Tin

2011-04-30T16:04:00.000+01:00

John & Hettie with family 1923

There's an old saying " You don't know who you are, if you don't know where you come from!", and I am often asked about how I became interested in researching my family line, so I though I should put something on the blog about this..... this is how it all started.

After the death of my Grandmother, Hettie Bancroft in 1982, the family were going through the many things she had collected over her long life of 90 years, and came across a wonderful collecting of old family photographs, in a large old salt tin. She had obviously cherished this collection throughout her life. Much to everyone’s surprise, no one in the family had ever seen the salt tin before, and we therefore discovered that she had been an enthusiastic and prolific photographer of her family, her working life and surroundings in her earlier years.

The picture below shows a proud moment for the Bancroft Family.....Their first car!, which was a "Bull-Nosed Morris" and was only the second car to be owned in their village in Thornton. The first car in the village was actually bought by the local doctor. I also remember her saying how motoring could be a toil as well as a pleasure if they were out motoring at night. The rear lights had candles in the lamps and so they had to check the reflection of the lights in passing shop windows, to make sure they had not blown out. There was also her memories of everyone having to get out an push it up steep hills and then putting a brick under the back wheels, to stop the car running back when they all had to stop for breath half way up the hill!

The second car in Thornton

Hettie, and my Grandfather John, had run the family farm, Nettle Hall, nr Thornton all their married life and had been typical hard working farmers for most of the time, but unusually for that type of background, they had always spent a couple of weeks every year holidaying in lively Blackpool, as a complete change to their normal quiet way of life. Here they are with the children, enjoying a day on the beach....my Grandfather John dressed in a suit with a collar and tie, which was most unusual for him!

A nice day on the beach

The photograph collection contained lots of the normal holiday snaps, like this lovely one showing Hettie and children paddling in the sea on a rather misty day at the seaside.

There were also lots of wonderful family photos of life on the farm in the 1920’s and 30’s, showing farm practices long since overtaken by progress ,such as tending to breeds of cattle no longer seen on modern farms, haymaking by hand with scythes and wooden rakes, and working the land with a team of horses. Here we see a couple of them bringing the hay in, before the days of baling it, ready for storage for winter feed for the animals. The first one shows Hettie's parents, Lister & Jane Watson helping out at hay-time....notice the shiny toecaps of Lister's clogs, which everyone on the farm wore at that time and Jane's sun-bonnet which, I think, adds a certain period charm to the picture.

Helping out at hay-time

It must have been thirsty work...you can just make out Grandfather on top of the haystack drinking from a pop bottle.

and also this beautiful picture of my Grandmother Hettie in later life, with the working horses on the farm in an age before tractors became the norm in farming practice. She once told me how sad she had been on the day the horses were taken off the farm for ever. She could not bear to see them going, so stayed in the house when they were lead away.... praying that she would not hear them whinny...but of course they did make a noise when being loaded up and she then cried all afternoon.

Amongst this collection of photos was a Memorial Card to commemorate the life of my Grandfather John’s father Timothy Bancroft, who died in 1900 and was buried at Mount Zion Baptist Chapel at Ovenden nr Halifax.. Up until then I had never really thought much about my ancestors because as a family this was something that we never really talked about much. The religious verse within the card is as follows:

"Farewell, dear wife and children all

Your face I see no more

Until we meet at God's right hand

On Canaan's happy shore"

It was this one item, the memorial card, which started me on my quest for family history research, and from it’s details we were able to find the long forgotten family grave at Mount Zion Chapel, which was found after several searches in a very overgrown corner of a very neglected graveyard. I wrote and article about Mount Zion Chapel some time ago, which can be found by clicking here.

I just want to finish with, what for me, is the special photograph in the collection, showing my Grandparents in their younger days having a good time with their friends on a day out. [John & Hettie are third and fourth from the right...John is wearing a bowler hat for the occasion...very middle-class for a man who normally always wore a flat cap!]

Happy Days

They say that "every picture tells a story" and also "a picture tells a thousand words", and as well as the many family pictures in my Grandmother Hettie's collection which were easily identified, there were lots and lots where the individuals could not be identified because nothing was written on the back. She obviously knew who they all were but never passed it on to future generations, so all this wonderful material with all those stories about the people concerned will never be known....so here's a plea to all fellow researchers....please.... put some information on the back of all your photographs so that the information is not lost forever!

To read the full details of my family line click here

Bancrofts from Silsden in The Great War

2011-04-04T14:41:00.000+01:00

John Henry Bancroft and Son

This article is somewhat longer than normal, but very occasionally I come across a story, which is so moving and sad that it just has to be told in full. It concerns the family of John Henry Bancroft and his wife Agnes Ann, who lived at Oakworth near Keighley and then Ickornshaw near Cowling before moving to 14 Walker Place in Silsden near Keighley around the time of the First World War. They had a large family of fifteen children, and had their five eldest sons away fighting in France in the First World War. What a time of pain, anguish and despair these poor people must have endured, having two sons wounded and then another two sons killed during the war. It’s hard to imagine what must have been going through their minds as there received the many letters from their sons when they were away, and then the letters that all families dread from the authorities, informing them about the deaths of their two sons. Here are some details about these five brave men, some of which are rather sketchy, whilst others are more details thanks to the many letters they send home from the front to their friends and family. These letters paint a vivid picture of their day-to-day activities during their times in France, and the dangers they faced in the war.

John Bancroft, born 1897 at Ickornshaw, near Cowling joined up at the age of 23 in May 1918,and was in the Cavalry Reserve Regiment at Newbridge Camp Ireland. He seems to have survived the war largely unscathed.

Fred Bancroft, born in 1896 at Ickornshaw, and enlisted in January 1916 in the West Riding Regiment and went out to France in March of that year. He won the Military Medal, and the background to this was reported in the local press in September 1917 as follows:
“ He was proceeding on the railway at ……… [blanked out at the time for reasons of security] when enemy shelling became very heavy. One shell exploded near the party and mortally wounded a comrade. The rest of the party ran for cover, except Private Bancroft who remained cool and collected. In spite of further shelling, he proceeded along the track to obtain a stretcher and returned with another man to take his comrade to the dressing station. Unfortunately the man died 5 minutes after being admitted.”
He fought in The Battle of the Somme, and was engaged in work near the front for a considerable time and was later wounded. By October 1918 he was still convalescing in Ripon Convalescent Hospital.

Willie Bancroft, was born in 1899 at Ickornshaw and it is understood that he enlisted as soon as war broke out, even though he was only fifteen years old at the time. It was eighteen months later when this was discovered and he was immediately discharged, only to enlist again when reaching eighteen years old. It was reported that he was wounded in April 1918 whilst serving in the West Riding Regiment, and was discharged. In later life he was a leader of the Home Guard in Silsden during the Second Word War, and later became a founder member of the Silsden branch of the British Legion. In 1959 he was given life membership of this organisation in recognition of his services to the branch. He was also instrumental in setting up the British Legion Club, of which he was President at the time of his death. The local newspaper reported on his death on 16th November 1973 stated :

“ He was the British Legion Standard Bearer every year in Remembrance Day parades, and his smartness and military precision set an example to the more youthful members”

Sam Bancroft was the eldest of the family, born in 1890 at Oakworth and joined up in 1914 into the Royal Engineers. Prior to the outbreak of war he was a member of the Territorials, and was also a prominent ambulance worker before enlisting.
In correspondence to his family in January 1915 he wrote saying:

“ I received the parcel and all the men of Silsden wish me to thank all who have contributed on their behalf. The cloths will keep us very warm during the winter. I have got into trouble going home without leave from Birstall. I fairly caught it when I got back, but I was not alone. There were 84 of us, and we all got 21 days pay stopped, which is rather hard lines. However we broke one of the Army laws so we must keep on smiling. It was our own fault, so we must just stand it, although it is hard lines”.

In a letter received by a friend from Addingham in May 1915, he said :

"I am in the best of health, and have been in the trenches for three days and could count on one hand the number of men who had been killed or wounded. We have been shelled out of a village. The second night in the trenches we had all the wires broken, and the officer and myself had gone out to repair them. It was not a very nice job, but had to be done so that they could get the news through”.

A further letter received by his family in February 1916 says:
“We are fine, and are now enjoying a well earned rest. We must have earned it or we should not have got one. It feels grand to be away from the trenches for a while. I suppose Silsden will be quiet now as all the young men who are medically fit will be soldiers, it not they ought to be. How long do you think the war is going on? It can’t last forever, as we can hold out longer than the Germans. We do know that the Germans are getting worse off, so let us hope that before long they will give it up as a bad job”.
His wife received a letter saying that on 11th October 1918 he was dangerously wounded by a shell, and that it had been necessary to amputate a limb, which had resulted in his death.

He left a wife and a baby daughter and was buried at The Duisans British Cemetery, Etrun, France [pictured above]

Joe Bancroft was born in 1892 also in Oakworth, and also joined up in 1915. He originally went out to France in April 1915, serving in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and was both wounded and gassed while there. We are fortunate that he wrote many letters back to his friends and family, and here are some of the things he mentioned.
In a letter received in May 1915 by an Addingham friend he says,
“Our platoon in the 4th Battalion was fetching rations one day and it was a very risky job, going about a mile under fire with no cover. We are just getting used to it, and we have only had one killed so far even though we have been here ten days. I am enjoying myself… “If only we had more Woodbines!”
In a letter to his parents, dated 12th May 1915 he says,
“ We got through the big battle all right. We were kept in the reserve trenches all night and the next day, and then they took us up to the front line when the battle had been on all day. We were at it all night, and in the morning our trench was shelled and we had two killed and some wounded with one shell, but it was a sight when the big battle was on. The guns started at five o’clock in the morning and the noise was enough to make anyone deaf. Then in two hours the infantry charged after which there were wounded men coming down all day. At the beginning of the charge a General got on top of the trench to give the men the word to come on, and was shot dead. Some regiments had hardly any men left. We have now had a month in the trenches and have I have just had my cloths off once since I came, and had one bath, but someone has to put up with it. They keep saying the war cannot last long. We shall be glad to get away from here”
In another letter sent to his parents dated 18th May 1915 after coming out of the trenches after six days he says
“ Yesterday was the anniversary of Waterloo and we had flags up on top of the trenches all day. At daybreak we waited to see what the Germans would do. About dinnertime they put up two black flags in front of us, but soon put them down. At night when we took the flags down some of them had half-a-dozen holes in them. We have recently done a bit of haymaking in front of our trench during the night because the grass was about five feet high, and it had to be cut to enable us to see across”.
He sent word to his parents in a letter received in July 1915, that he was in hospital in France, but did not give the cause of his being there. He said he had been in the trenches for several months.
A letter sent by him to his parents in August 1916, informed them that he had been wounded, and was currently in hospital in France. He said:
“ I have bad news for you this time: I was hit last night with a piece of shell at the back of my shoulder. We were making a night attack, and had just got back to the trench when a shell dropped amongst my half of the platoon. Only two of us were hit, and I think I got off lucky”
In a letter received the day before he was wounded he had said,
“ I have been promoted to full Corporal, so you see I am not doing so very bad”
By January 1917, he had been awarded the Military Medal for ‘meritorious conduct on the battlefield’, and in a communication from the Major-General of the 49th West Riding Division it was stated that :
“He had distinguished himself in the field from 18th to 22nd January 1917 during which time an officer was shot through the head and Sergeant Bancroft assisted in bringing him back to the trenches”
An article in the local press dated 29th March 1918 reported that Sergeant Joe Bancroft of the West Riding Regiment had been wounded in the head.
His parents received official news that he had been killed in action on 4th May 1918. The letter went on to state
“ I am awfully grieved to tell you of your son’s death. He along with others was left in the line to assist a famous foreign battalion and it appears that he was accidentally killed by a shell. There are thousands of very brave men out here, but I have to say I have never seen a man so utterly indifferent and regardless of personal danger as your son. After one German attack, which was repulsed with very heavy losses to the enemy, your son went out about eight times on patrol close to the enemy’s position. He had already gained the Military Medal and I have recommended him for the DCM for great gallantry, and I sincerely hope it will be awarded. I can ill afford to loose such men as your son, as his influence on his comrades was great, and enabled them to hold out in many a tight corner. You and your family can be proud all your life of your son’s record in this terrible war, and I can say most sincerely that I never came across a braver man”.
Joe was 25 years old when he died, and was buried at Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium. [Shown below]

He was awarded the DCM posthumously, and in the London Gazette of 1st October 1918 it was reported as follows:
“His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal for the following officer…
200453 Sjt J Bancroft M.M,
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. After the enemy had been driven off with severe loss by the rifle fire of his company, Sjt Bancroft the same afternoon and three times the next day took out a patrol and went over 800 yards securing identifications from enemy dead, and bringing back valuable information regarding the enemy’s dispositions. He had only recently been wounded, and set a splendid example of devotion to duty.”

The picture above shows Silsden Cenotaph, which has Joe and Sam Bancroft’s names listed on it. In June 1918, a service of memory was held at Silsden Parish Church, to honour the sixty-nine men of the Silsden who were killed in action, or later died from their wounds. On behalf of the village the Vicar offered to the relatives and friends of these brave men their deepest sympathy and their most sincere and heartfelt gratitude for what they had done. He said he was touched beyond expression by the courage which the women of the parish had shown in these awful times, for they had shown themselves to be worthy mothers and wives of heroes who had given their all. He also expressed the wish that as long as a church remained in the village, it would be the custom once a year to commemorate all these men who had fallen in the war. He finished with the question….“Shall we betray their trust and take their deaths in vain?”

As a postscript to this sad family story, Mr & Mrs John Henry Bancroft were selected from a large number of applicants to be present at the opening ceremony of the Menin Gate in 1927. This memorial was build by the British Government at Ypres in Flanders to commemorate all the missing soldiers, …those who had no known grave. The Menin Gate, shown above, marks the main road out of the town where tens of thousands of men went towards the front line.
I just want to finish this article by quoting the following words from a speech by Lord Plumer of Messines at the unveiling ceremony of the Menin Gate.
"One of the most tragic features of the Great War was the number of casualties reported as, "missing, believed killed." ....... when peace came, and the last ray of hope had been extinguished, the void seemed deeper and the outlook more forlorn for those who had no grave to visit, no place where they could lay tokens of loving remembrance........and it was resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the missing are known to have fallen, there should be erected a memorial worthy of them which should give expression to the nation's gratitude for their sacrifice and their sympathy with those who mourned them. This memorial has been erected which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object, and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today…..He is not missing; he is here!"

I am grateful to the following two websites, which provided some of the information for this article:
Men of Worth: http://www.menofworth.org.uk
Craven’s part in The Great War: http://www.cpgw.org.uk

Auction at Fairplace Farm Cowling

2011-03-23T16:53:00.000Z

The above picture is copied from a poster found recently, and reminded me of the details that I found some time ago about this Isaac Bancroft of Fairplace Farm.

Isaac was born in 1777 in the Keighley area, and married Mary Judson on 11th September 1801 at Keighley Parish Church. In the 1803 Craven Muster Rolls he is listed as a weaver, and initially he rented a farm in the Sutton area, a small village near Keighley, before moving to Fairplace Farm in nearby Cowling in about 1820 and rented that farm, as a tenant, for £60 per year.

It is interesting to look at the items for sale on the poster. Most of them are farm stock or farm equipment, but also included are 3 pairs of Looms which indicate that as well as farming, Isaac's family still relied on some additional income from weaving, which was still common practice in many areas at this time when the farm was small and not able to produce enough income on it's own to sustain a large family.

His wife, Mary, died in 1839, and it may have been this that prompted him to sell up everything on the farm, lock, stock and barrel. I do not know where he moved to after the auction, but it is know that he died in the Cowling area on 28th January 1850, and was buried at Keighley Parish Church where his wife had previously been buried. These pictures show the neglected state of the grave as it is today, which is an all too common sight these days in many of our neglected graveyards.

Isaac & Mary's gravestone

The name "Fairplace" might seem a somewhat strange name for a farm set on these bleak moors, but it is thought that the name came from the fact that there was an annual fair held nearby many years ago.
The name of Piper Lane, on which Fairplace Farm is situated, is thought to be named after the Piper who lead the Fair.

The following details about the fair come from the book “Cowling a Moorland Parish 1980"

"As to what form the fair took is lost in the mists of time. By the mid 1800’s the “Hitchingstone Fair” was jointly held at Sutton and Cowling. The naming of Fairplace Farm is evidence of this. There would be all the usual sideshows, stalls and animal and produce sales associated with this period. One feature was the fell race run between the Hitchingstone, the Pinnacle and Fairplace Farm.

The Hitchingstone

Competition was fierce between Sutton and Cowling for the prizes of treacle puddings made by a man known as "Treacle Billy" who lived in a cottage nearby (the lane is still known as Treacle Lane). This fair was discontinued when a soldier who had cholera attended and an epidemic followed with a large number of deaths. After a few years lapse the fair was revived as the annual midsummer holiday with the mills by closing Saturday and Monday, the traditional date being the Sunday nearest the 9th July. This developed into Cowling Feast, and was the highlight of the social calendar in the village.
On the Sunday morning visitors would begin to arrive in waggonnettes, and this continued throughout the day. Every household had its visitors, twenty or more to one house was quite commonplace. The previous week would have seen much activity, cleaning the house from top to bottom, inside and out, weeding and swilling the pavements and “fettling” the family graves! “Cowinheaders” [the local name for residents of Cowling] were notorious for their hospitality and put on an excellent dinner and tea for anyone who cared to call. Many said that it was a financial struggle because extra collections were expected at the chapels too, but for all the problems the friendships and fellowships were worth a lot. At night when both chapels (Bar and Ickornshaw) had finished evening service, the village street would be packed with visitors and locals, chatting with friends, some of whom they had not seen since the last feast.

Monday was Gala Day with a colourful procession led by Cowling Prize Band. Sunday Schools, Band of Hope and Temperance Society, each with a large banner, and these were joined by gaily decorated carts and tableaux, with children and adults in fancy dress. On arriving at the fair ground children were given the traditional school bun and mug of coffee to sustain them through the forthcoming events. This day had been eagerly anticipated and was enjoyed to the fullest extent with sports for children and adults and the fell race up the Crag to the Pinnacle, plus all the fun of the dobby horses, swing boats and coconut shies. Brandy snap, toffee apples, and huge crystallized fruit jellies were the children’s special delight, to a background of the Brass Band, fair organs and fireworks. The day ended with a bonfire on Earls Crag blazing splendidly. Sadly, Cowling Feast has bowed to the pressure of longer summer vacations, the chapel anniversaries are held on different dates and the Gala is now at the end of July."

Fairplace Farm

I wrote an article some time ago about Isaac's son John, who fell on really hard times after his wife died, leaving him to bring up five small children. By 1837 he was struggling to stay on his small farm in nearby Sutton because the authorities were trying to have him moved back to his previous district, to save providing poor relief for the family.The story can be read by clicking here

[I am grateful to Dennis Harker of Cowling and Joan Tindale of the Moonrakers website for their help with this article]

Maria's School Book of 1876

2011-02-27T10:53:00.002Z

"Woman & her Mission in Life"

I was recently lent an old school exercise book written by a girl called Maria Wood, born 1859 in Oakworth nr Keighley who married George Bancroft at St John's Church, Keighley in 1895. The book gives a charming and also fascinating insight into life in the 1870's through the eyes of a young girl, and the preparation given in her school years, for her future role as a wife and mother.
I'm not sure the young women of today would be encouraged to go along with this philosophy of life....see what you think!
[Please note, I have not altered the grammar or spelling from the original book]

Woman & her Mission in Life

My Dear Teacher,

I would think that a woman's mission in life is at home. Her duty there should be to learn all she can to fit her for a future state, not only in this world, but she should make ready for her grand future in heaven. If she should have younger brothers and sisters, her duty is to show them a christian example and to speak kind words and wear a cheerful countenance. One of her missions and that not least is in sickness to watch and help. And if there is any sorrow, her place is to soothe and comfort.To be true to all honest upright in all her undertakings. Also to keep herself pure and unspoilt from the world. The mission also is to teach and inspire others in education necessary for this life as well as for that which is to come. In fact her mission in life my be in any other place where she might be called to do good.

Therefore I close for the present.

With love for you.

Domestic Economy

Domestic Economy means management of the home.

Home is home be it ever so homely.

Woman's work is never done, there is always something to do...washing, baking, cooking, mending , cleaning, sewing, week by week, day by day it is never done.

Father is the bread winner. Father has to go forth into the world to follow his occupation, whatever it may be, to earn money to keep home together.

Mother is the bread dispencer. Mother has to make the bread, and cook it, making it nice and plesant to eat.

Diet cures more than Doctors, by knowing what kind of food to take and taking care of what we eat.

Cleanliness is essential to health and gives pleasure both to ourselves and others in seeing things clean and bright.

Order means regularity as to time and place in whatever we have to do by trying to keep everything in it's proper place

Thrift is being good handed in doing things quickly yet rightly as they should be done

Tact means doing just at the right time and in the right place anything we have to do.

Common Sense is having forethought of what as so be done and how to be done, when to be done, with promptness in doing at the right time and in the right place

A constant outgoing demands a proportionate income or they will be bankrupcy

Home Management

It helps those who have any charge of housekeeping by promoting to the various kinds of food and the best way of preparing them discusses the choosing, washing and mending of clothes. Also shows us the need for keeping the house clean and airy so as to preserve the health of those that live in it and tells how to nurse the sick in times of illness.

If you would enjoy good health, get as much fresh air as you can and use plenty of soap and water to keep open the pores of the skin.Spare no pain to secure cleanliness.

In buying your cloths, think more of use rather than show. The first great use and objective in clothing is to keep in the heat of the body and assist the skin in regulating this temperature. What we want for clothing our bodies is some light material first which is a bad conductor of heat and at the same time will permit the free ventlation of the skin

Bear in mind that the fresher and purer the air you breath is, the more healthful and vigoures you are likely to be in mind and in body. Distinct results from inhaling bad air are 1st... A general lowering of the tone of health, and 2nd... immidiate fainting

Pleasures & Benefits by acquiring knowledge

My Dear Teacher,

I think that knowledge is a great benefit to people, it helps them to become high in office and great in talent. Their position is far superior to those who are ignorant. It gives them power to display their good qualities, and to know and understand things and places seen and not seen, both in temporal and spiritual things. It helps them to be useful in every domestic duty in life, and worthy in position, ameable in manners, knowledge benefits people in a great many ways. They have pleasures according to their knowledge of things and places if rightly used. I do not remember any more at present.

The book then finishes of with dozens of recipes, presumably given to her by the teacher, some of which sound very interested by today's standards. They include such things as: Haricot Mutton, Stewed Rabbit, Gruel, Bread Currant Pudding, Christmas Loaf [which has the note..."tried very good" written next to it]....and on and on!

For me, probably the best motto of life is this, from Maria's own wise words:

"Be thorough in everything... the best of everything, but be real... if you cannot get the best, get the next best to it. If you cannot get gold, get silver, if you cannot get silver get gelt or stone or pearl and so on"

[ I have previously written an article about Maria's family life after marriage to George Bancroft. To read it click here]

Maria Bancroft in later life

Bancrofts on the Craven Muster Rolls,1803

2011-01-29T14:51:00.000Z

I recently spent some in our local Reference Library, going through extracts of the Craven Muster Rolls, which contains details about some Bancroft individuals.

This was an important historical document produced in 1803, when England declared war against France and the threat of invasion by Napoleon made it necessary to prepare the whole of the active male population of the country between the ages of 17 and 55 for military training, but not military service. The purpose of the lists was to organise reserves of men, not already serving in the military services, who would be required to take on such duties as evacuation of the civilian population, moving food supplies and gathers arms and equipment in the event of an invasion in a similar way to how the Home Guard were organise during the Second World War.

The Muster Rolls Act was vaguely worded as follows:
“Divisions of Staincliff and Ewcross [in the West Riding] of the County of York. The enrolment under an Act of Parliament made and passed in the fourty-third year of the reign of his Majesty King George the Third intituled an Act to enable His Majesty more effectually to provide for the defence of the Realm during the present war and for indemnifying person who may suffer in their property by such measures as may be necessary for that purpose and to enable His Majesty more effectually and speedily to exercise his ancient and undoubted prerogative in requiring military service of his subjects in case of invasion of the Realm – And also of another act passed the same session of Parliament to amend the said last mentioned Act.”

The acts referred to in this title required the compilation of lists of all men between the ages of seventeen and fifty-five, arranged in four categories:

Class 1: unmarried men under thirty with no children living under ten years of age.

Class 2: unmarried men between thirty and forty-nine inclusive with no children living under ten years of age.

Class 3:married men between seventeen and twenty-nine inclusive with not more than two children living under ten years of age

Class 4:others not included in the above classes

Certain people were exempt under the act, although they could serve as volunteers and were then marked accordingly on the rolls. Listed in the rolls were such categories of persons such as Judges, Infirm Persons,Clergymen, Medical Men, Quakers, persons already serving in the army navy or marines, Lord Lieutenant, Constables, Peace Officers. There are also interesting comments made against certain names, which may be of interest to family researchers, such as “blind in one eye” or “missing one arm” and even one poor individual with “idiot” written alongside his name….one wonders exactly what sort of task he would have been allocated in the event of an invasion!

The original document consists of 26 membranes of parchment, and was for many years kept at the Settle Town Hall after being held in a local solicitor’s office previously. The full Muster Records have the names of over 9000 men and their occupations, but no address or age is given, which makes identification sometimes difficult.

There are six Bancroft men listed in the Keighley and Sutton areas, and it not easy to work out exactly which individuals are referred to, due to lack of details but I thing it refers to the following men. An interesting point to note is that the surname “Bancroft” is spelt with three different variations

Isaac Bancroft Class 3 Weaver
He was born 1777 and baptised at Haworth, the son of Timothy and Ann. In 1803 he was 26 years old and living at Cragg Top in the Deanfield area, and moved to Sutton later. In 1803 he was married and had two young children. He eventually became a farmer, although there is evidence that he continued with weaving from his farm, as many people did in those days to help supplement a poor living from a small farm. He died in 1850 somewhere in the Cowling area, and is buried at Keighley Parish Church.

Fairplace Farm

Timothy Bankroft Class 4 Farmer
Was born at Far Oxenhope in 1761, the son of Joseph and Grace. In 1803 he was 42 years old and living at Brow Top in Haworth. He later moved to the Bocking area and eventually ran a shuttle making business with his sons. He married twice, firstly to Ellen Mitchell, and then later to Ann Mitchell [probably the sister of his first wife] He had a total of twelve children with his two wives. He died in 1837, and left a will valuing his estate at £207. I wrote and article some time ago about the Bancroft Shuttlemakers, click here to read it.

Joseph Bankcroft Class 4 Weaver
Was born at Far Oxenhope in 1755, the brother of the above-mentioned Timothy. In 1803 he was 48 years of age and living at Hoyle House, Oakworth in the Keighley Parish area. [shown below] and spent all his wife as a weaver.

Hoyle House as it is today

He also married twice, firstly to Judith Smith and then later to Ellen [Nelly] Bradley. He had a total of fifteen children with the two wives. He died in 1838, and is described on his death certificate as a weaver, and death due to of "old age" on his death certificate age 83 ¾ old!

William Bankroft Class 4 Weaver
Was born 1762 on a farm called Old Snap in the Keighley Parish area, the son of Abraham. His mother’s details are not confirmed. In 1893 he was 41 years old and living at New Laithe. He married Ann Binns, who died in 1794 at the early age of 34 years from smallpox, which was quite a prevalent disease around this time in the area. They had at least two children. William died in 1823 and is buried at Haworth Parish Church.

Timothy Bankcroft Class 1 Weaver
This one is not so easy to identify. It is most likley to be the Timothy who was baptised in 1790 at Haworth, and who had been born at Leeming, Far Oxenhope, the son of John and Martha. If his birth was during 1790, it would have made him underage on the Muster Rolls, but how accurate are the Parish Records and The Muster Rolls? He went on to become a man of some substance because by the 1838 rating valuation, he is listed as owning six houses, a smithy and a house with shop, all in the Uppertown area of Oxenhope. He married Hannah Baldwin.

John Bancroft Class 1 Weaver
Again, this one is also not easy to identify. He could be brother of the above Timothy, was born in 1780, but there are several John Bancrofts in the area around this time

If any fellow researcher can provide more information to confirm the identity of these individuals, please let me know.

"To live in hearts we leave behind us is not to die"

2010-12-31T13:19:00.003Z

I was recently given a press cutting from our local newspaper from 1943,which was reporting on the death of Joseph Wallace Bancroft in an aeroplane accident in Canada during World War Two, whilst serving in the R.A.F. as a Pilot Training Officer.

Joseph was born in 1921 at Sutton, Near Keighley the son of Alfred and Annie Bancroft. His father was employed in the textile trade and the whole family went out to India when Joseph was a small child because his father got the job as the manager of the Cawnpore Woollen Mill. He returned to England at the age of 10 years and obtained a scholarship at the Keighley Boys Grammar School. On leaving school he became articled to a firm of accountants in Bradford.

During World War Two he volunteered for service in the R.A.F in February 1941, and was sent out to the Estevan Airbase in Canada to train and after a short period of training he was granted a commission in the R.A.F and was retained in Canada as an Instructional Officer. During World War Two the airbase was part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

Avro Anson

The story of how the R.A.F came to be at Estevan in Canada is an interesting one. Initially a different site was chosen for the Airbase at a place called Swift Current, because the Estevan site was only about half a mile from the US boundary and was therefore felt to be a security risk. It took a personal intervention of the local mayor before Estavan was given the go ahead in late 1941.The cost of setting up the base came to three million dollars and by April 1943 was up and running to commence training with about 54 RAF officers and almost 800 airmen and other ranks on site. A list of aircraft in use initially was 32 Avro Anson 1's, 84 Avro Anson 11's and 14 Menasco Moths in reserve.
It seems that much of the pilot training was real "seat-of-the pants stuff" as is explained by some interesting comments made by an aviation historian, Mr J.M. Bruce "When I was an instructor in Canada, we heard of another instructor at Estevan, Saskatchewan who did the whole session of circuits and bumps with a pupil with only the port tailplane and elevator attached. The starboard surfaces lay on the airfield near the end of the runway, and the instructor and pupil were highly amused when looking down from the air, to see that someone had lost half a tail. They were less amused when they landed and got out of their Anson, to find the surfaces belonged to their own machine!"

By 1944 the war overseas demanded fewer pilots and more navigators, so the airbase was gradually disbanded, and in the week prior to closure, the remaining airmen attended a service at the nearby church in Estavan in memory of those who had died at Estevan Airbase.

Estevan Cemetery Plaque

There were many incidents at the airbase, one being when more than 20 personnel of the Royal Canadian Air Force were killed at the airport when their C-47 plane, carrying them back to Canada from the US (to which they had been ferrying surplus military trainers) crashed on the airport.

It was in the summer of 1943 that Joseph was on an air test with four ground crew on board. He was piloting an Avro Anson plane, number 3582, when for some unexplained reason it crashed in a low flying area of the Estevan airbase, and everyone on the aircraft died in the accident. Unfortunately little is know about the cause of the accident.

All the men who died in the accident are buried at the Estevan Cemetery.

"To live in hearts we leave behind us is not to die"

Thanks to Doug Gent for letting me use this picture of the cemetery sign and Joseph's gravestone. Click here for his excellent website on Estevan Cemetery

Rest in Fleece !

2010-11-30T16:16:00.000Z

Affidavit 1714

Being born and bred in Yorkshire…the heart of the wool industry, I have often been intrigued to see notes on burial records saying “ buried in wool” or a reference to “affidavit” on many of the records, and wondered if it was something to do with the fact that many of our Bancroft ancestors were employed in the wool industry, either as woolcombers and hand-loom weavers or later after the Industrial Revolution working in the Mills as spinners and weavers……was this therefore a practice peculiar to wool workers?

Many affidavits survive today, and the picture at the top shows one from 1714, which unfortunately is not of a Bancroft burial.

On further investigation it appears that being buried in a shroud made of wool was not just a practice in our area, but was actually required throughout the country because of Acts of Parliament known as “The Burial in Woollen Acts”.

The decline of the wool industry, on which so many people and places in this country depended upon, was behind the reason that an Act of Parliament being passed to encourage the wool industry in this country, and lessen the fear of importation of wool products. Many of the MP’s in Parliament had constituencies heavily dependant on woollen cloth and yarn particularly if they themselves were mill owners. Many were also landowners relied on the rents paid by tenants who’s livelihood relied on keeping sheep, so an Act of Parliament intended to create a new market for woollen cloth was brought in.

In the reign of Charles II, Parliament passed "An Act for Burying in Woollen only " saying:

"For the encouragement of the woollen manufactures of this kingdom and prevention of the exportation of the monies thereof, for the buying and importation of linen. Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority thereof, that from and after the five and twentieth day of March in the year of our Lord, one thousand six hundred seventy seven, no person or persons whatever shall be buried in any shirt, shift or sheet made of or mingled with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver, or other than what shall be made of wool only, or be put into any coffin lined or faced with anything made of or mingled with flax, hemp, silk or hair; Upon pain of the forfeiture of the sum of five pounds, to be employed to the use of the poor of the parish where such person shall be buried, for or towards providing a stock or work house for the setting them to work, to be levied by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of such parish or one of them by warrant from any Justice of the Peace, or Mayor, Alderman or Head Officer of such city, town or place-corporate respectively within their several limits by distress and sale of goods of any that had a hand in putting such person into such shift, shirt, sheet or coffin, contrary to this Act, or did order or dispose the doing thereof, to be levied and employed as above said. Provided, that no penalty appointed by this Act, shall be incurred for or by the reason of any person that shall die of the plague, though such person be buried in linen."

Sometimes another name appears in the register either alongside the actual entry or listed at a later date. This is the name of the person who either laid out the body for burial or viewed the body before the funeral and has sworn that the regulations have been followed. In some registers, there are also entries detailing infringements such as the word “Naked” and the subsequent payment of a £5 fine when it was found that the body had not been buried in wool. It is difficult to understand how people who were too poor to afford a woollen shroud, could afford to pay a £5 fine, but presumably this was not enforced. It was not uncommon for the very poor to be buried completely naked if the parish could not help by providing woollen cloths. Cloths were valuable items for those struggling to survive in these difficult times, as can be appreciated when one reads some of the old probate records, which quite often paint a vivid picture of how the dead person’s belongings were divided between other members of the family.It was also common practice for a poor family within a parish, who after paying for the woollen shroud, could not afford a wooden coffin, so many churches kept a coffin ready for use at funerals for the poor, and once at the graveside the body was taken out of the coffin and buried just in the woollen shroud. The coffin was then returned to the church ready for the next funeral!

This law was sometimes unpopular with the wealthier, who wanted to be buried in their finery, as opposed to a relatively cheap, thin, off-white coloured garment made of wool, so they just paid the fine. Their disgust at being expected to be buried in this fashion is told in this short poem, written by the poet Alexander Pope.

“Odious in woollen!..t’would a saint provoke

Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke

No! let a charming chintz and Brussels lace

Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face”

It was not easy to enforce this legislation. The wrapping of a corpse in linen, rather than wool, was older than Christianity itself, and this old custom could not be broken down by Acts of Parliament, and its provisions were easily avoided. Because of all this, another Act, far more stringent, was passed in 1678, which said that not only had the corpse to be buried in wool, but the coffin had to be lined with wool as well. It was enacted that within eight days of the funeral an affidavit of the fact of the burial being in woollen should be brought to the minister, failing which, notice should be given to the churchwarden or overseer, who would levy on the defaulting person for the recovery of the fine. This new act was very sweeping, but was no more successful than the former one, and long before its repeal in 1814, it had fallen into disuse and generally ignored.
Shown below is a later affidavit from 1770, which shows the wording of the act much more clearly.

Affidavit 1770

Just in case you were wondering if being buried in wool has anything to do with the saying “Having the wool pulled over your eyes”, the answer is no….This saying can be traced back to when wigs were commonly worn by men (especially judges and attorneys) in the 18th century. A Judge fooled by a clever lawyer, it is said, would be said to have the "wool" (slang for a wig) pulled over his eyes, blinding him to the facts of the case.

However, as they say “what goes round, comes round” and this was never more true!…..Guess what you can be buried in these days?….A WOOLLEN COFFIN!! An enterprising company, called Hainsworths in Leeds, have started manufacturing coffins made from wool and recycled cardboard at a cost of £600 - £700 each…everything, including the packaging, is biodegradable...Each coffin uses three fleeces and can bear a weight of up to 60 stones!

Woollen Coffin

The Ghost of Haworth Station

2010-11-01T14:47:00.000Z

Haworth Station

I wrote an article on this blog some time ago about the fatal accident that happened to Binns Bancroft at Haworth Station in 1882, when he was killed by a coal train at Haworth Station.

Was this the end of Binns Bancroft?....maybe not!

Haworth Station is part of the “Keighley and Worth Valley” line, a private steam railway organisation run by volunteer railway enthusiasts. Many of the volunteers come some distance to help and therefore stay overnight, sleeping in a spare coach in the goods yard. One summer night a volunteer decided to have a walk round the yard before turning in. The night was warm and almost windless and the yard was full of various station equipment and paraphernalia in every corner leaving shadows everywhere. As he wandered around, his eyes were drawn to something moving in a corner of the yard. Puzzled, he went forward to approach the area and saw the hazy shape of an old wizened man holding a long pole. The figure seemed solid enough, but the haze made if difficult to make out all the features. He froze to the spot, fascinated by the scene, as the area where the man stood seemed to show other features, with a background from a different period in time. The figure was moving about waving the long pole and gesturing to him to come closer, so he started to move nearer to get a better look, but as he approached the figure, it seemed to melt away. He wasn’t frightened, but more baffled and had a less than comfortable nights sleep, not able to get out of his mind the scene he had witness that night.

The next day, after telling his mates about the previous night’s mystery, a good laugh was had by all, but he could not find a logical explanation for the events and still could not get the matter out of his mind. A few days later he found himself working with an old-hand who’s father had worked for British Rail many years before, and when he recalled the sight he had witnessed the other evening, he was told: ‘Oh…that'll be old Binns Bancroft you saw….he sometimes appears, and has a look around!’ When he queried whether this was some sort of a joke the old-hand shook his head and said ‘Oh no…Binns Bancroft thinks he still works in the yard!’

The old-hand then told the story of how Binns Bancroft was a coal merchant in Haworth, in the 1880’s. His premises were located in the goods yard across the road from the railway station so he didn’t have far to go to pick up his coal supply. When the coal was shunted into the yard Binns was always there to help, with his shunting pole in his hand, and when the wagons had discharged their load, Binns would drive his horse and cart into the yard and load up for his local deliveries. He liked to be in the yard when the coal arrived, and would always try and direct operations for shunting the wagons, shouting and bawling instructions to the engine driver and guard. They always regarded him as a damn nuisance, who did nothing but get in the way and caused many anxious moments for them as he darted in and out between the wagons. They feared for his safety, but he was always there, waving his pole, and they could do nothing to keep him away from the station.Then one winter’s day in 1882 Binns was supervising operations at the station as usual, as the coal wagons were shunted into Haworth goods yard. He was waving his pole and bellowing instructions as usual to the guard who was trying to understand his shouts in the high wind. Binns was a little hard of hearing, so his replies to the guard and driver were also difficult to comprehend, so it was not surprising that disaster was about to strike. Binns was moving in and around the wagons when, failing to heed the warning shouts or maybe because he did not hear them, he was caught between two coal wagons and had the life crushed out of him.

Haworth Goods Yard & Shed

But this was not the only sighting. Another apparition was witnessed a few years later,when Haworth Goods Shed was the scene of more activity from Binns Bancroft wandering around. On this occasion another railway volunteer was walking around the yard before departing to the sleeping coach for the night when he saw an unusual dim light through a window in the goods shed. Thinking it was rare to see anyone working at this late hour he went to investigate. As he entered the shed everything was quiet and still. There was a strange light coming from the corner….a soft light, almost as if it was from an oil lamp. Suddenly, the figure of a man emerged from the shadows and walked towards him, with a pole in his hand beckoning him to come closer. Our observer was frozen to the spot and then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the figure melted away in front of his astonished eyes.

To this day, many more people swear that they have seen the ghost of Binns Bancroft, and heard his footsteps.

Others talk about unexplained 'happenings' at night in and around the goods yard and shed.

For the full story about the accident and subsequent inquest, please look at my earlier article entitled:
"Accident at Haworth Station - 1882"

Haworth Station in the 1880's

[With acknowledgments to the book ‘Railway Ghosts and Phantoms” by WB Herbert, where some of the details for this story come from]

Woolcombing in Yorkshire - A Dirty Business !

2010-10-01T00:10:00.019+01:00

Keighley

The wool industry has been the predominantly industry in West Yorkshire for hundreds of years, and many of our Bancroft ancestors were involved in either the production of wool from sheep farming, or working in the manufacturing industry as woolcomers, weavers, spinners or just general mill workers. I wrote an article some time ago on this blog about the occupation of woolcombing that many of our Bancroft families were engaged in, including my Great-Great Grandfather Timothy, who spent his early life as a woolcomber, probably working for home, as was the normal place of work at the time, and I recently came across this report done in 1837 about this occupation in nearby Bradford, and the living conditions these poor people had to work under.

In 1837 a sanitation report was produced, which described Bradford and the woolcombing industry as follows:
“Bradford is the dirtiest town in England, were Mills abound in great plenty, and their number is daily increasing while the town itself extends in like proportions. Bradford is essentially a new town and half a century ago it was a mere a cluster of huts. Now the district of which it is the heart contains upwards of 132,000 inhabitants. Fortunes have been made in Bradford with rapidity almost unequalled, even in the manufacturing districts….The greatest part of the labour of male adults through the worsted districts consists of combing wool. In Bradford, I am told on good authority, there are about 15,000 woolcombers. These men sometimes work singly, but more often three, four or five club together and labour in what is called a shop, generally consisting of the upper room or chamber over the lower room of the house. Their wives and children assist them to a certain extent in the first and almost unskilled portions of the operation, but the whole process is rude and easily acquired. It consists of forcibly pulling the wool through metal combs or spikes of different lengths and set five or six deep. These combs must be kept at a high temperature and consequently the central apparatus in a combing room is always a fire-pot, burning either coke, coal or charcoal, and constructed so as to allow three, four or five combs to be heated at it…the vessel being in these cases respectively called a “pot o’ three”, “pot o’ four” or “ pot o’ five”. When coals are burned, the pot is a fixed apparatus like a small stove with a regular funnel to carry away the smoke. When charcoal is used, the pot is a movable vessel without a funnel, the noxious fumes too often spreading freely through the room. Scattered throughout the chamber are frequently two or more poles or masts, to which the combs after being heated, are firmly attached, while the workman drags the wool through them until he has reduced it to a soft mass of filament which he draws by skillful manipulation out of the compact lump into long semi-transparent “slivers” which, after certain minor operations, are returned to the factory to be subjected to the drawing machines. The general aspect of a combing-room may therefore be described as that of a bare chamber, heated to 85 degrees. A round five-pot stands in the centre, and masses of wool are heaped about with four or five men in their shirtsleeves working busily.”

Woolcombers at work

In nearby Haworth, at one point almost every cottage in the village was involved with woolcombing, working in terrible conditions, and performing this labour intensive and laborious task in rooms with little ventilation and putrid smells and at almost intolerable temperature because the stoves for heating the combs needed to be kept lit both day and night. In the 1840’s and 1850’s spinning and weaving mills were being build and required vast quantities of the raw material, combed wool. Although spinning and weaving machines were by then quite common, no one had at that time been able to invent a reliable and cost effective combing machine. This Woolcombing Cottage Industry peaked in 1851, and the census information shows the numbers of people employed as woolcombers for Haworth.
1841 – 730 individuals
1851 – 1260 individuals
1861 – 332 individuals [with 6 people listed as “machine woolcombers”]

The plight of the woolcombers is explained in detail in a letter from George Spencer, Clerk to the Guardians of the Keighley Poor Law Union, a body set up to cut the cost of dealing with destitution. Claimants were offered a harsh existence in their local workhouse doing boring and sometimes pointless tasks in return for food and shelter, and it they refused they had no right to any other assistance. His letter, written in 1846 to the authorities in London, explains his problem of dealing with woolcombers in Keighley who had gone on strike that year, seeking higher wages from local mill owners. The response of of the Employers was to sack woolcombers, even those who were not involved with the strike.Spencer wrote:
"The district of the Keighley Union is principally occupied by worsted manufacturers, and many of the workpeople are employed therein. For some time past the woolcombers have been formed into a union of their trade. A few weeks ago, wishing to get a general increase in wages, they cast lots as to at whose factory they should first turn out. The woolcombers of Keighley struck for an advance of wages, and, when their request was not complied with, immediately ceased to work for their master, and were from then until now supported by the trades union. At this point the manufacturers of the town immediately dismissed all their woolcombers to prevent them from contributing to the support of those who had turned out. As a consequence, some of them applied to the guardians for relief. In many instances they gave such applicants orders to break stones, which a few accepted. The master manufacturers are now willing for the woolcombers to go back to their employment but the woolcombers now decline to do so, unless they get an increase in wages saying that their former wages are too little for their support. The previous Wednesday, a few of them applied to the guardians for relief, but the guardians declined and directed them to apply to their former employers who would now let them have work on application. The woolcombers are about to hold a public meeting tomorrow on the subject, and it is probable that applications may again be made to the guardians next Wednesday for relief. The guardians presume that as the woolcombers can now get employment with their former masters, the guardians can no longer relieve them. The guardians cannot interfere in any dispute there may be as to the wages or terms of employment. The guardians request the Commission to make suggestions as to how the board can legally and properly discharge its duties."

Through the 1840's various woolcombing machines had been invented and started to be used in the mills, but it not until 1853 that one called the 'Noble Comb' was invented and patented, and become very widely used [see picture below]. This unfortunately proved the death knell of the cottage industry of woolcombing.

The Noble Comb

Back in Bradford,around this time the employment situation for woolcombers got so bad that the City Council allocated £2000 to assist out-of-work woolcombers to emigrate, which many did, as it was by then obvious that their cottage industry was disappearing fast because mill owners were buying the new combing machines, which could do the work more efficiently with fewer workers and at much lower cost in the large mills.

The Cottage Industry

[For more details see my earlier article called : “Woolcombing in Yorkshire”,

The Old Bell Chapel - Thornton

2010-09-01T09:00:00.004+01:00

I had a very enjoyable morning recently looking around the St James Church in Thornton, near Bradford. Whilst there I went across the road to see the Old Bell Chapel and Graveyard, which served the community before, St James’s was opened in 1872.
As a boy, growing up in Thornton in the late 1950’s, I attended St James’s as a choirboy, and can remember looking across the road from the church at the overgrown jungle that was hardly recognisable as a ruined chapel and a graveyard, where over 6000 burials took place from the 1500’s, with the last one taking place in 1965.

The reason for the visit was to research a Bancroft family who were buried there. There are records of one Bancroft family baptised and buried there, and that is the family of Joseph Bancroft who seems to have originated from the Northowram or Ovenden area of Halifax.

Records show Joseph marrying Mary Whalloy [possibly a misspelling of Whalley] at Halifax on 26th September 1721. The couple then seem to have had at least three children in quick succession, who were all baptised in the Ovenden area…..Ann on 23rd September 1722, Elizabeth on 22nd December 1723 and then a boy called Lockey on 20th March 1725. It seems clear that Joseph and his family then moved over to the Denholme area, which came under Thornton Parish area, and the sad records show his children Elizabeth and Lockey both being buried within two weeks of each other in July 1726. There is then a thankful gap in dates until 12th June 1728 when another daughter Betty is baptised. It may seem a little strange to name a second child after the earlier one [i.e. Betty is quite often used as a alternative to Elizabeth], but it is not uncommon for this to happen, and the second child was baptised as Betty rather than Elizabeth. This practice is usually done in large families, where the later child is baptised in memory of the earlier one, but with a slightly different first name.
Then the really sad piece of information….written alongside Betty’s baptism record is a hand written note saying “ nothing due…mother buried the same day” and when looking in the burial records, there it is.

Joseph is listed on the record as a weaver from the nearby village of Denholme, but I have never been able to find any records of his birth or burial, so I don’t know what happened to him eventually, but what a sad life this family must have had. We can only guess what the cause of their deaths were, but it is known that many infants died in this time from what we class today as everyday illness, such as measles. There were also the ever-present problems of typhoid, cholera etc from poor living conditions. I suppose it is also quite likely that Joseph’s wife Mary died in childbirth.

There is no gravestone to mark the grave, although the exact spot is know thanks to good graveyard records. This family were one of many listed as “poor”, and therefore were probably put in a grave with other similar families.

A chapel and graveyard go back to the 16th Century on this site, and it is known that an earlier chapel was originally built there is 1587, prior to the later Old Bell Chapel being built in 1612 as is shown by the old date stone incorporated in the present day remains of the chapel.

The Old Bell Chapel is of great historic importance, because the Reverend Patrick Bronte was the Curate there from 1815 to 1820, before he moved to Haworth….and as they say, the rest is history!

Four of Patrick’s famous children, Charlotte, Emily, Branwell and Ann were all baptised in the Old Bell Chapel during the period he was there, and the original font from the old chapel, used to baptize his children, is now on display in St James’s across the road.

An interesting fact is that at one of his first services at the Chapel, on 23rd July 1815, he gave a thanksgiving for the victory at the Battle of Waterloo over Napoleon.

At this time the village of Thornton had deeply divided loyalties over religion because there was a large non-conformist following in the area at the nearby Kipping Chapel in Thornton, which was thought to be the largest of the Independent or Congregational Churches in the area and had an every increasing size of congregation. In contrast Patrick’s poor little chapel was already in a dilapidated condition so he wasted no time in trying to improve things, and one of his first actions was to stop the practice of allowing burials to take place under the chapel floor. This practice had been previously allowed, for the more wealthy locals who could afford the extra charge of a few shillings, but this was causing a putrid smell to permeate the building. Someone described the interior of the chapel at the time as follows: “ The interior is blocked on the ground floor, with high backed unpainted pews. Two Galleries hid the windows almost from view and cast a gloom over the interior of the edifice. The area under the pews, and in the isles is paved with gravestones and a fedit, musty smell floats through the damp and mouldering interior”
Shown below is the earliest picture available of the chapel interior, which confirms this description.

Patrick’s plans including building a Cupola [a bell tower] and to take down the south wall to rebuild it with six new large windows. The early photograph below, shows the chapel and cupola after this work had been completed.

The Bell Chapel then fell into disrepair after the new, and much bigger St James Church was opened in 1872, and it was then left to fall down until all that remained was one wall and the original Cupola which was later rebuild at ground-level, at the other end of the chapel remains.

In 2000 an Action Group of Volunteer was set up to save what was left, and raise awareness of the history of this important site. They meet weekly to carry out maintenance of the site.
Shown below are two photos showing before and after shots of the remains of the chapel, together with a few more photos which show what a splendid job has been done around the graveyard, saving this historic site for future generations.

If anyone wants to know more about the Bell Chapel and Graveyard, or indeed would like to become a volunteer, please contact their coordinator Mr Steve Stanworth on:
stevenstanworth@blueyonder.co.uk

"From Woollen Mills to Flying Machines" - Part 2

2010-07-31T15:00:00.002+01:00

I wrote an article several months ago taken from a book called “ From Woollen Mills to Flying Machines” about the exploits of Thomas Bancroft OBE [1897-1985], who was born in Denholme near Bradford and which talked about his early life working in the local mill at the tender age of eleven years of age, prior to his career in the Aeroplane Industry.
Click here to read part 1 of this story.
When war broke out in 1914, Tom joined the Royal Flying Corps at the age of 17 and served as a mechanic in France and Belgium. After the war ended he started work with The North Sea Aerial Navigation Co [ a flying school], based within The Blackburn Aircraft Company in Brough, East Yorkshire.

As World War Two broke out the flying school, of which Tom was Chief Engineer, was closed down immediately with all aircraft taken away and all the instructors and reservists called up. Any surplus staff were transferred to the nearby Blackburn’s factory and Tom was left with an empty hangar. Within days however Blackburns were awarded a contact to build the Fairey Swordfish aircraft at a new factory in nearby Sherburn-in-Elmet…a factory that had not yet been built! and Tom was given the job of getting the whole project off the ground, so to speak!…”Hell!! he thought…I’ll have to throw away my engineer’s ticket and pilot’s licence and find a big desk…There’s a war on!”

A new factory had to be built, without delay, where assembly and testing of the aircraft could be done, and five group members, made up of vehicle garage men, agricultural engineers and railway carriage makers would share the production of the main components together with about two hundred sub-contractors who would be needed to supply minor items.

The first meeting of the group did not start off well. Tom was called in to meet them all at in the boardroom at an office in York and after introductions, he pulled out his packet of cigarettes and threw the wrapper towards the fire. It fell short, landing on the tiles and there was then a shout for ‘Edgar’ from the Chairman. Edgar, and old man, then came in, looked at the paper and then went away for a brush and shovel together with three ashtrays. Tom realised quickly that the Chairman didn’t like smoking!

Tom later made another gaffe, while showing various Naval officials around the factory. One particular chap showed up from one of the aircraft carriers…a Swordfish pilot, who turned up in tatty battledress, giving the impression that he had just clambered out of a cockpit. The Officer introduced himself and was then taken around to meet the various members of the production team where Tom introduced him as Lieutenant Bisto. It was only later that the man said, with a grin on his face “ You don’t seem to have got my name quite right old man: actually it’s Lieutenant Commander Tyndal Biscoe RN!”. A very red-faced Tom went home that night determined not to make a mistake like that again, as he had the highest respect for the Royal Navy. With the help of his son and his collection of cigarette cards, he learned how to tell a sailor’s rank from the amount of gold braid he wore!

Soon after the opening of the factory, a very special visitor, and a truly welcome one, came to call…. H.R.H Princess Mary

The visit went off well, and was a good moral booster to the men and women at the factory. Shortly after her visit, Tom and his boss Captain Blackburn were invited to have lunch with Princess Mary at her home, Harewood House, near Leeds. They were shown into a room by an old manservant to meet Princess Mary and her lady, who were both sitting close up to a small fire. It was a bitterly cold day, and all four sat around the fire in normal conversation with no fuss or formality. Lunch was served in a screened-off corner of a huge dining room, by the old man who had shown them in, as they were short of servants. The four of them sat down to a simple meal without any trimmings. Tom was highly honoured by the occasion but sad about the circumstances…. this chap Hitler had brought the country to a sorry pass when members of the Royal Family couldn’t live in comfort, he thought.

Tom had, from time to time, deal with complaints from the workers about the contract with the Ministry to build the Swordfish….”why were they wasting their time building poor old Stringbags [the nickname for the Swordfish] instead of producing Spitfires and Lancasters?”…Tom, together with his boss Captain Blackburn handled this by inviting The Fifth Sea Lord with a few other Navel Officers to the factory. They brought with them pictures taken from the air, showing the mess that a handful of Swordfish had made of Mussolini’s Navy in Taranto Bay, and in a talk to the staff in the canteen at lunchtime, the Admiral described how a Stringbag brought about the end of the crack German battleship Bismarck. After that visit complaints died down, and the monthly output from the factory rose steadily towards the forty a month target….with Tom secretly keeping his fingers crossed all the time!
[The picture above is of HMS Ark Royal flight deck with her 810 sqdn Swordfish about to launch the attack on the German Battleship Bismarck]

Tom also relates the details in the book, of the day that the War Minister, Sir Stafford Cripps made a visit to the factory to meet the workers and see how things were going. The Minister duly arrived and his first question was “Where’s the Tannoy?” because he wanted to speak to the workers on loud speakers, which were only normally used on special occasions such as Mr Churchill’s speeches. This was a bad start because no one seemed to know where they were kept….the Minister was not amused! Tom introduced Sir Stafford and then sat down and waited for the barracking to start, because he knew there were a few agitators in the crowd waiting to have their say. Sir Stafford started his speech with “Comrades” but before he could utter another word, a loudmouth from the back of the crowd standing up on a chair shouted, “ We, the workers, demand a new management!”Sir Stafford continued with his long speech with a lot of placatory noises and told them what a magnificent job the management were doing, and it might therefore be wise to leave things as they were. Tom didn’t get the sack that day, and he knew that as long as the Navy were happy his job was safe.

Labour relations were quite often difficuly at the factory, and at one point Tom was faced with his first real strike. The large assembly hall was filled with a crowd listening to a man standing on a bench. A fight broke out and the crowd let Tom through to speak. He jumped on the bench, which he had to say took him about a minute and shouted “ There’s a war on….no work no pay”!! He knew straight away that he had broken the rules by his actions because he should have invited a few of the men and women to a meeting in the conference room to discuss the matter, and negotiate, in other words… given in, but instead he put the matter back to the foreman responsible to sort it out, and no doubt helped by the ‘no pay’ picture, the wheels were turning again before the end of the day. Tom knew that he had been lucky that day to get away with it, but it had worked!

Due to the nature of what they were making, the factory obviously had to have fairly tight security, and was therefore surrounded by a high wire fence with guards wandering around. Tom quietly knew that security was being broken regularly by a few of the thirsty workers preferring a pint and a sandwich at the local pub, rather than canteen meals. The lads had two escape routes, one was a tunnel under he wire, and the other was a heap of boxes to help them over the top! This arrangement had been going on a while without abuse until after lunch one day, a security official turned up unannounced to do a spot check and report back on security. It goes without saying that he did not like what he found!, and so that was another unpopular task Tom and his staff had to sort out!

In total 1699 aircraft were built at the Blackburn works in Sherburn between 1940 and 1944,and at its peak the factory had 60 aircraft a month rolling off the assembly line.
A further 692 were built at Fairey’s factory in London.

The Swordfish Aeroplane was nicknamed the "Stringbag", not just because of it’s jungle of bracing wires making up its construction, but also because crews likened it to a housewife’s string shopping bag due to it having no fixed shape, and could therefore adjust to hold any shape or number of packages. Like the shopping bag, the crews felt that the Swordfish could carry anything, and often carried an endless supply of stores and equipment.
It’s role was as a Torpedo-bomber for the Royal Navy and went into full scale service in 1936, with primary users being The Royal Navy, The Royal Air Force, The Royal Canadian Air Force and The Royal Netherlands Navy.
Although the design was thought by some to be outdated by the start of war in 1939, it outlived several other aircraft types intended for its replacement and remained in front-line service through to the end of the war in Europe. It utilised folding wings as a space-saving feature for aircraft carrier use and achieved some spectacular successes during the war, notably the sinking of one, and then damaging a further two battleships of the Italian Navy in the Battle of Taranto.
It was also famous for crippling the Bismarck, which at that time was the largest and most feared Battleship in the German Navy. On 24 May 1941 the new carrier HMS Victorious launched nine Swordfish to intercept the Bismarck in the North Atlantic Ocean, but with bad weather conditions the aircraft only scored a single hit. On 26 May 1941, 15 Swordfish were launched by the carrier HMS Ark Royal in a storm carrying torpedoes armed with contact detonators, they scored two hits on the German battleship: one did no damage, but the other struck the Bismarck's steering gear. None of the aircraft were lost in the attack, though a German officer said: "It was incredible to see such obsolete-looking planes having the nerve to attack a fire-spitting mountain like the Bismarck." The Bismarck was sunk by gunfire from the Royal Navy Fleet the next day.
In its anti-submarine role, the Swordfish were very successful, and usually flew in patrols at night, patrolling between 145km and 40km ahead of the convoy. Targets were located with radar, and investigated by dropping flares.
It was finally retired from service in 1945, gaining the distinction of being the last biplane to see active service.

I just want to finish with a few words from the preface of the book, written by his daughter Pat, which I think make a fitting tribute to Thomas Bancroft OBE:
“ Tom Bancroft recounted incidents in his life that were usually meant to amuse. In later years I asked him to record his memories, which he did, but with no notion of turning them into book form. It seemed a shame that these accounts of how life was for many at the beginning of the 20th century should be lost forever, and with the growing interest in ‘things past’ I decided to publish them. My father was a hardworking, conscientious and fiercely patriotic person, a good husband and father, who never saw any hardship in working half-time in the mill and half-time at school at 11 years of age, nor indeed working a full-time 53 hour week in the mill at the age of 12…..this book is about life as he saw it.”

Titus Bancroft - Clockmaker from Sowerby Bridge

2010-07-01T07:42:00.007+01:00

I have come across the name of Titus Bancroft, from Sowerby Bridge near Halifax, several times over the years as a noted watch and clock maker, and have tried to find more out about him, with little success.

What I have managed to find out was that he was a clock maker of some renown, specialising in church clocks.

He was born 13th February 1778 in the Halifax area, the son of Titus and Sarah [know as Sally] Kitson and baptised on 15th March 1778 at the Northgate End Presbyterian Chapel in Halifax. He died in Halifax on 17th May 1839 and is buried at St John’s Church Halifax.

Titus seems to have been a maker of watches and clocks in the period between 1809-1838. The local trade directory of 1822 lists him as a “Church Clock Maker” which in those days must have been an occupation of some importance, and it is know that he was producing larger clocks from as early as 1813, because a long clock came up for sale by auction in recent times, which had his name, together with that of his brother John inscription on the front plate…presumably they were business partners at the time. The clock shown below was auctioned some time ago and at the time was described as follows:
“A rare and important musical long case clock in a case of feathered mellow mahogany cross-banded in satinwood with boxwood panels and stringing and brass Cornithians to the hood. The substantial five pillar movement is of outstanding quality and plays on a carillon of eight bells, striking each hour on a single bell with a repeat mechanism. It also has an adjustable fly, beat adjuster and a most unusual feature of the days of the week, date and strike silent to the arch. It stands eight feet tall.”

He later went on to be a Church Clockmaker, and is credited with producing the clocks for the many local Churches, including the following:

St Thomas a’Becket Church at Heptonstall in1809, which was described as having an eighteen-foot pendulum and six-foot dial, and had the following inscription on the dial “ Titus Bancroft, Clockmaker, Sowerby Bridge 1809” The church now stands derelict, after being severely damaged by a storm in the 1850’s and the clock was then moved to a new Church built next to the old one. An article, written in 1947 about the new church described the clock at that time as “ Being in good going order”
The photo below shows all that is now left of the original clock tower.

He also made the clock for All Hallows Church at Almondbury, near Huddersfield at a cost at the time of £250 in 1823. [The old photo below, is not the best quality, but thanks to Genuki-UK for supplying this.]

and Holy Trinity Church at Halifax some time between 1822 – 1834.

The last church clock that I can find any information on, which Titus built was the one at Skipton Parish Church in 1835, and which remained there until 1899. A record of the church trustees says the following about the decision to have a new clock
“The present clock replaces the one of 1769, which was of great age and appears to have been causing expense. In 1826, at a meeting of the inhabitants it was resolved that as the clock was so old and out of repair, it was expedient that a new ones should be purchased at once, the cost not to exceed £100, and that Titus Bancroft from Sowerby Bridge be employed to make the new clock on the following terms and conditions: The clock to strike quarters upon the first, third and fifth bells, and the hour upon the fourth and sixth bell, with all necessary appendages agreeable to the specification…to be fully completed within nine months, for the sum of one hundred and sixty pounds to be paid when the work is done, and no charge to be made for any extras”
The details of the clock were that it had two dials, one on the south and the other on the west side. The dial plate on the south side was circular and the one on the west side was octagonal.

It is surprising that there is so little information about Titus Bancroft, bearing in mind that he had such an unusual and important occupation. Does anyone know anything else about him?
There are also records of a John Bancroft working in Scarborough, who was in the same business between 1780 and 1807 and also a William Bancroft also of Scarborough who was possibly the son of John, and had premises at Newborough Street in 1823. I am not sure if they are related to Titus…does anyone know anything about these three gentlemen either?

Diseases of the 19th Century

2010-06-01T09:12:00.007+01:00

I was at a fundraising event recently for the Lowertown Old Burial Ground Trust in Oxenhope, and was reminded about one of their early newsletters which was produced some years ago and gave details about the tragic life of John & Mary Bancroft from Oxenhope, who lost four of their seven children at a very young age, as the following monumental inscription shows.

The family’s tabletop gravestone is in the Lowertown Old Burial Ground at Oxenhope.

John Bancroft of Oxenhope married Mary Riley from Oldfield on 23rd July 1838 at the Parish Church in Bradford, and they then started their married life together in one of the cottages adjoining Charles Mill, where John was employed as a spinning overlooker.

They had seven children but none of them were baptised at Haworth Church, as would have been the usual practice in those days. Instead John & Mary took their surviving four children to the Wesleyan Chapel just across the way from Charles Mill at Lowertown and four were baptised together on 11th November 1847. The four children were Joseph b. 13th Oct 1838, Walker b. 26th May 1840, Susannah b. 13th May 1844 and John b. 7th Aug 1846. They’re later children George was baptised on 3rd Dec 1848 and their last child Jonas on 14th July 1850.
A previous child, also called Jonas, had died of the croup in his 4th year without being baptised. They were then to loose two further sons in infancy, John died 26th May 1848 in his 2nd year of “worm fever” which lasted for 2 months, and George died 6th Jan1850 also in his 2nd year from what was described as “teething, inflammation of the lungs and convulsions” which lasted for 3 weeks.

Mary, the mother of the above, died of “congestion of the lungs”, [also known as consumption or T.B.]. In her twelve years of marriage, in which she had seven children, she had to endure the heartbreak of seeing three of them die and possibly nursing a sick child, George, while she herself was suffering from illness and also while being pregnant with her last child, Jonas.

Eleven years later more tragedy struck the family when Walker, their second son, died at Charles Mill, where he worked as an engine tender. An enquiry was held on 3rd March 1862 by the Deputy coroner for Yorkshire, and the cause of death was given as “accidentally crushed, when working in a steam engine”. Walker had also previously been involved in earlier accident, when he lost his left hand, and this early photograph survives of him with his large cap strategically placed to hide his missing hand.

John, the father, who must have suffered greatly with the lost of his four sons and wife at an early age, died himself seven years later of a ‘chronic ulcer of the stomach’. His two surviving sons, Joseph & Jonas went on to inherit Charles Mill from an Uncle in 1870, and the family continued to run the mill for another hundred years.
The picture below shows Joseph in later life.

Here are some details from a 19th century medical book of the illnesses this family suffered from, and the proposed remedies….Thankfully, medical science has improved since those times!

Croup.
“This disease generally prevails in cold and wet seasons. It generally attacks children at night, after having been exposed to damp cold easterly winds through the day. Damp houses, wet feet, thin shoes, wet cloths or anything that obstructs perspiration, may occasion the croup. It is attended with a frequent pulse, quick and laborious breathing. Which is performed with a particular kind of croaking noise, which may be heard at a considerable distance. The voice is sharp and shrill, and the face is generally much flushed”.
The treatments includes:
“He should be made to breath over the steam of water and vinegar. The child may take frequently a tablespoon of the following julep… Take a pennyroyal water, three ounces syrup of althea, and of poppies each one ounce mix them together. Asafoetida is found to have a good effect in this case”.

Worm Fever
“ Those who eat great quantities of unripe fruit, or who live much on raw herbs and roots are generally subject to worms. Cures include Harrowgate water, which is excellent for expelling worms, the great bastard black hellebore, tansy, garlic, wormwood and rue are also effective. Anther remedy is to put white soap in their pottage”.

Teething, Inflammation and Convulsions
“ If the fever be high, bleeding will be necessary, but this in very young children ought always to be sparingly performed. When an inflammation appears, the physician will labour in vain if a cure has not begun with applying a leech under each ear”.

Consumption
“Young persons between the age of fifteen and thirty of a slender make, long neck, high shoulders and flat chest are most liable to this disease. Consumptions prevail more in England than in any other part of the world, owing perhaps to the great use of animal food and malt liquors and the great quantity of pit coal, which is there burnt, and to the variableness of the weather. We would recommend the Peruvian Bark, that being the only drug which has any chance to counteract the general tendency which the humours then have to putrefaction”

[With acknowledgements to the book: “The Lowertown Old Burial Ground and Life in Oxenhope 1807-1908”, where some of the information about this family came from.
If you would like to purchase a copy of the book, please contact the trustees on: OOBGT@lowerisle.co.uk]

Marie Bancroft - Leading Lady of the Victorian Theatre

2010-05-01T08:44:00.019+01:00

Here’s an interesting story, if somewhat longer than normal, about a Yorkshire born lady who became a Bancroft through marriage…well her husband was not a “genuine” Bancroft but was born a Butterfield, and started using the Bancroft surname when he first went on the stage! … read on for the full story.

Marie Effie Wilton was born in Doncaster in 1839, the daughter of Robert Pleydell Wilton, a travelling actor, who just happened to be working in northern theatres at the time. A precocious child, she first appeared on stage at the age of five, often she would be dressed as a boy, maybe as a jockey, or in a sailor-suit, singing while dancing a hornpipe. She had no formal education, being taught entirely by her mother, who, at a time when sound-amplification was undreamed of, trained her daughter to speak so that her voice could be heard clearly from the back of the gallery. The stage was then considered a disreputable profession. Marie’s father had become estranged from his respectable family when he ran away to become an actor, and his children would suffer from similar contempt. Once Marie was engaged to perform some songs and recitations at a private fundraising function attended by wealthy ladies and gentlemen. Her audience was enchanted, and someone proposed that they contribute money to buy her a toy. A lady then enquired whose child she was. On the revelation that she was the daughter of actors, purses that had been enthusiastically opened were snapped shut and smiling lips were pursed in disapproval.

Marie would never even attempt to play the great dramatic roles. Instead, with a sparkling, captivating personality and diminutive stature (she was no more than five feet tall) she specialised in comedy, song and dance. She learnt her art initially in Bristol. Then in 1856 she was invited to London where she rapidly became a star of pantomime and burlesque, a form of musical satire, immensely popular at the time, largely because it involved young girls playing ‘breeches roles’ ….boy’s parts, which gave Victorian men the opportunity to legitimately see far more female leg than was otherwise considered seemly. Seeing her at the Strand theatre, Charles Dickens wrote to a friend advising him to go to see her: ‘Miss Wilton is so stupendously like a boy, and unlike a woman, that it is perfectly free from offence….I call her the cleverest girl I have ever seen on the stage in my time, and the most singularly original.’ Marie was then only nineteen.

Despite professional success, Marie’s personal life could not have been easy. She had two illegitimate children, Florence, who died as an infant, and Charles Edward Wilton in 1863. There has never been any definite proof of who the father of her son was, but speculation has it that it could have been another actor called William Hunter Grimston, who used the stage surname of ‘Kendall’, or even possibly the future King Edward V11! [For more details on this subject see the note at the end of this article]

By April 1865, she had managing to acquire a loan of £1000 and took a lease on the small run down Queens Theatre, popularly known as the ‘Dusthole’ in Charlotte St, off Tottenham Court Road. The above picture of the theatre is unfortunately not of good quality, but it’s the only one available. Following refurbishment she reopened it as the renamed Prince of Wales Royal Theatre. It is not know where the loan came from, but it is known she mixed with much of the high-society of the day, which might be a clue to the origins of the loan. She set out to transform it into one of the most fashionable in town. Attracted by her reputation, the carriage trade queued in the street for the first night.

Inside, they found carpets and comfortable seating, bright lights and colourful décor, refinements never-before seen in London. But she had further plans she intended to implement, the first of which was to provide her actors with costumes – previously bought at their own expense. She also began gradually to increase their pay, which was to be delivered to them individually, rather than expecting them to queue up for their wages each week.

She met the actor Squire Bancroft, while they were both working in a Liverpool theatre, after she had become established in London, and was then on tour in the north. She managed to persuade him to work with her back in London, and they then starred in a string of successful comedies in which Marie generally took the female role. Squire was considered a competent actor, where Marie was considered brilliant; He excelled as a manager, and committed himself to Marie’s plans for the theatre.
First they pioneered the practice of having just one play on the bill each evening, then the introduction of the matinee performance…a practice that was later to be widely adopted by other theatres as a valuable source of additional income. The Bancrofts were also great technical innovators, and used electric lights for the first time on the English stage to create storm scenes and also give the illusion of moving cloud. These innovations, helped by improvements in public transport from the suburbs, were eagerly followed by other changes and turned the theatre of late nineteenth-century London from a somewhat disreputable form of entertainment into one that the respectable Victorian middle-classes could embrace,…. and bring their wives too!

Squire Bancroft was born on 14th May 1841, the son of Secundus Bancroft White Butterfield [1799-1848], an oil merchant in Rotherhithe London, although it seems probable that the family line originates from the Halifax area of Yorkshire. His full name was ‘Squire Bancroft White Butterfield’ and he started to use the shorter name ‘Squire Bancroft’ when he first appeared on the stage in 1861 at the Theatre Royal in Birmingham. Rumour has it that his did this because he did not want to bring disgrace to the Butterfield family name, as being an actor in those days was not considered a respectable profession….or maybe it just looked better on the bill-boards! He continued to use the name for the rest of his life after officially changing it by deed poll on 14th December 1867 to ‘Squire Bancroft Bancroft’ so he must have been happy with it.

The coupled were married at Marylebone on 28th December 1867, and continued to perform at the Prince of Wales changing from producing and acting in comedies to more serious dramas by the early 1870’s. Following their marriage, Squire adopted Marie’s son, Charles, as his own, and a year later they had another son, George. Respectability assured, Bancroft was elected a member of the Garrick Club.

By 1879, after exactly 4000 performances, the Bancroft couple had outgrown the Prince of Wales and managed to acquire the lease on the larger Haymarket Theatre, and after redesigning it’s rundown interior, reopened it in 1880. There was a near riot on the first night because she had decided to abolish the pit bench seats near the stage, where the rowdiest elements of the audience used to sit and replace them with more comfortable padded seats, and rename them “the stalls”. The opening night proved to be a great success, attended by a glittering crowd of high society theatregoers including the great Henry Irving.

The 1881 census shows them living in the fashionable area of Cavendish Square, London without children, but having six servants…. coachman, cook, butler, maid, housemaid and stable hand, which shows that they were by then enjoying an upper-class lifestyle. The census of the same year shows the two children Charles and George, away at different boarding schools

The couple retired from the stage, at the height of their success on 20th July 1885, having made a considerable fortune from theatre production, and then rarely appeared on stage again.
Their retirement from the theatre was widely reported and even the New York Times wrote an article about the occasion with the following glowing comments:
“The celebration of the retirement of Mr and Mrs Bancroft from the management of the Haymarket Theatre was a brilliant and memorable event. The Prince and Princess of Wales and their daughters were present and the auditorium was crowded with persons prominent in the literary and artistic circles of London….several of the theatres had altered the evening’s programme so that the actors and actresses at the different houses might take part in the performance…Mr and Mrs Bancroft appeared in “ Masks and Faces”. They were repeated recalled and were showered with bouquets. Mr Henry Irving recited a farewell ode…the curtain was raised again, displaying a stage fairly converted into a garden with bouquets, wreaths and other floral offerings, which were limitless. Mr Bancroft appeared, struggling with emotion and made a long speech, in which he thanked the public and all those who had kindly assisted in making the evening’s entertainment such a success. At the conclusion of his remarks there were loud calls for Mrs Bancroft and when she appeared, the whole audience arose and waved their handkerchiefs, while the stage was again showered with bouquets”’

After retirement from the theatre, Squire Bancroft became chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art [RADA] and a member of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Board for the licensing of plays, and was knighted in the Jubilee Honours of 1897, ‘for services to the theatre’.
Lady Bancroft wrote three plays and a novel called ‘The Shadow of Neeme’, and also collaborated with her husband in writing two books about their lives called ‘Mr & Mrs Bancroft – On and Off the Stage Years’ and ‘The Bancrofts – Recollections of Sixty Years’

From 1917 they maintained rooms at the fashionable Albany, in Piccadilly. Lady Bancroft died in 1921, and her husband Sir Squire Bancroft died in 1926. Both are buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

I suppose the question that must be asked is…. where did the Bancroft middle name come from in the Butterfield family? There seems to be no mention of it as a maiden name in any family marriages, so possibly it refers to a godparent, particularly if the family line does originate from Halifax in Yorkshire, where the Bancroft surname is quite common….. who knows, but I would be interested to hear from anyone with any ideas about this.

I am grateful to Caroline Blomfield, who is the great-granddaughter of Squire & Marie and provided much of this information, and I want to finish with one paragraph from the notes that she provided to help me with this article, which is a fitting epitaph to Squire and Marie Bancroft:
“In the theatrical world of the 1880’s, dominated by great actor managers, Marie and Squire Bancroft were as celebrated as Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. Between them the Bancrofts transformed the theatre of their day. Squire Bancroft was a capable actor and an even better manager, but it was Marie Wilton Bancroft who had the greatest artistic talent, and it was she who initiated the theatrical revolution that was to make their fortunes.”

I also want to thank Chris Gares who’s website provided some of the information for this article and has all the details on Marie’s son Charles Edward, and the theories as to who his father might have been. This is fascinating story to read, and can be found on:
http://www.oldwhitelodge.com/

The Babbage Report of 1850 about Haworth

2010-04-01T09:01:00.009+01:00

There were many Bancroft families living in the Haworth area in the 19th century, and many of them were baptised, married and buried at the Parish Church there [St Michael and all Angels]. I have records of over twenty family gravestones in the graveyard, and I know there were many more Bancroft individuals buried there, who were too poor to afford a gravestone. Burials go back to 1645, and it is estimated that 40,000 people were buried in the graveyard, which by the 1850’s was overcrowded and badly drained, adding to the already poor sanitation conditions in the village. Many of the Bancrofts in this area died of such things as “The Decline”, “The Gripes” or “Consumption”, which were all illnesses related to the poor living conditions in the town and surrounding area. Reverend Patrick Bronte was the vicar of the parish from 1820 to 1859 and dealt with the birth, marriages and burials during that time. The two pictures below show the parish records of the burial of my G/G/G/ Grandfather Joseph in 1837, and the baptism of my G/Grandfather Timothy in 1842. Both records were hand written and signed by him.

Haworth in the mid 1800’s was not the romantic village that one thinks of when reading all those books written by the Bronte sisters, but in reality was quite a grim place to live and had many social problems because of it’s poor water supply and virtual lack of sanitation. Over 40% of children died before attaining the age of six years, and the school records from this time are testament to the poor health of local children with smallpox, measles, whooping cough and scarlet fever frequently mentioned as the cause of death. The average age of death in the village was 25.8 [years], which was about the same as in Whitechapel, St.George-in-the-East, and St.Luke, three of the most unhealthy of the London districts.

The situation became so bad that Reverend Patrick Bronte took it upon himself in August 1849 to prepare a petition of 222 signatures to send to the General Board of Health in London, in an effort to improve sanitation in the village. No response was received to this so he sent a second petition in October of the same year, and then in February 1850 wrote to them again asking them to survey the water supply in Haworth. His persistence obviously stirred them into action and in April 1850 an Inspector, Benjamin Herschel Babbage, travelled to Haworth to conduct an investigation into the sanitary conditions in Haworth and the surrounding villages of Stanbury and Near and Far Oxenhope. His report found that the sanitary conditions were poor, with open sewers coursing down Haworth Main Street, and water leaching from the graveyard into the main source of drinking water. Here are some of his findings, which make grim reading:

Sewerage
“There are no water closets in the town, and only 69 privies, being little more than one privy to every four and a half houses….I found seven houses in the main street without a privy….I found twenty four houses lower down with only one privy amongst them….I believe that it would be found that there are no more than two dozen houses in the whole town that have a privy to themselves….two of the privies used by two dozen each, are in the public street, not only within view of the houses, but exposed to the gaze of passers by, whilst a third, as though even such a situation were too private, is perched upon an eminence commanding the whole length of the street. The cesspit of this privy lies below it, and opens by a small door into the main street; occasionally this door is burst open by the superincumbent weight of night soil and ashes, and they overflow into the public street, and at all times a disgusting effluvium escapes through this door into the street. Within two yards of this cesspit door there is a tap for the supply of water to the neighbouring houses….there are no sewers in Haworth;…..as a consequence of the want of sewerage there is a contiguous to each privy a receptacle for the night soil, in some cases walled round… into these midden-steads are thrown the household refuse and the offal from the slaughter-houses, where mixed with the night soil and occasionally with the drainage from pigsties, the whole lies exposed for months together, decomposition goes on and the offensive smells and putrid gases are given off in close proximity to dwelling-houses, making them much more injurious.”

Water Supply
“Bad as is this state of things, [the lack of a sewerage system] perhaps the most crying want of Haworth is water, of which there is an absolute dearth in the dry season…..very few of the inhabitants use the pump-water for cooking or drinking, as they do not fancy that the water is pure and when the soakage into the ground from the midden-stead, and the small depth of the pump-wells are considered, there appears every reason to suppose that the general opinion upon this subject is correct….the supply of water upon the Head Well is so scant in the summer time that in order to have water for the Monday’s washing, the poor people are in the habit of going there at 2 or 3 o,clock on Monday morning, in order to wait their turn to fill their cans and buckets from the slowly running stream. It is stated that the water at this well is very bad at this season, and it is sometimes so green and putrid that cattle, which have been driven there to drink, after tasting the water, have turned away and refused to touch it again”

Burial Grounds
“The churchyard is almost full of graves….it would appear that 1344 burials have taken place in the last ten years….the practice at Haworth is to cover the grave with a flat stone, and the churchyard presents one entire surface of flat stones, some of them simply reposing upon the mound of earth which covers the grave….this practice is a very bad one as it prevents that access of atmospheric air to the ground, which is necessary for promoting decomposition; and beside, the stones take the place of those grasses and shrubs which if planted, would tend to absorb the gases evolved during decomposition, and render the process less likely to contaminate the atmosphere….drains should be laid very deep, below the greatest depth to which the graves would be dug and the drainage should be carried away by airtight pipes into a main sewer… care being taken to lead into one which has no direct communication with any house-drain. I consider the speedy carrying away in covered channels of the water charged with this most dangerous and most subtle matter to be one of the most efficacious means of diminishing the evils, which there can be no doubt always take place from the vicinity of burial grounds to inhabited places.”

Babbage Recommendations
Babbage’s recommendations for improvements in Haworth were as follows:
He thought that water should be collecting from the surface of the nearby moorland, and also collecting from two springs, which had a wholesome supply, and this should then be piped to a reservoir created in one of the many abandoned stones quarries in the area. The water should then be supplied via a new main running down the main street.
A complete sewerage system should be installed in the village.
The costs of the sewerage system would be £863.10s and should be covered by a rates charge per house of 3/4d per week, and the cost of a water supply would be £1274.12s.6p and should be recovered by a rate of 1 1/4d per house per week
As far as the overcrowded graveyard was concerned, he recommended that no more burials should take place there, and a new burial ground should be found a short distance from the village which should be thoroughly drained to a depth of eight feet, and that a ‘code of regulations’ be established to prevent graves being dug too close to each other, and also that no more than one body be allowed to be interred in each grave.
He also recommended that a new small slaughterhouse be established for the use of the village, and that all slaughtering in other places should be prohibited.

Nothing much seemed to happen quickly after Mr Babbage’s visit to Haworth, other than his report and recommendations, so in August 1851 Patrick Bronte again wrote to the General Board of Heath saying
“ Yet after, tedious delay, they have as far as we know done almost nothing….We might have thought that this arose from a press of more urgent business, had it not been that we have learned from good authority that their salutatory rules have been adopted and enforced in various other places where there was less necessity for them”.
Eventually Patrick Bronte’s persistence was rewarded when a clean water supply was put into Haworth in 1856.

It is interesting to note that most pictures of Rev.Patrick Bronte show him with a scarf/muffler over his lower face and neck, and it is thought that he always wore this to try and protect himself from the noxious smells and diseases in Haworth. There still prevailed at this time something called “The Miasma Theory”, which lead people to believe that certain diseases, particularly cholera, were more prevalent in places where water was undrained and foul-smelling, and that the viruses were carried in the air. This theory was disproved in the late 1850’s, when it was found that these diseases were not airborne, but were carried in the water supply. Improvements in water supplies and sewerage systems reduced these illnesses dramatically.
Rev Bronte must however have been made of stern stuff because he lived to the grand old age of 84 years and outlived his wife and all six of his children, which was quite an achievement for anyone living in Haworth in those days!

The Bancroft Shuttlemakers

2010-03-01T10:18:00.010Z

I recently came across and purchased a Bancroft Weaving Shuttle, which got me thinking about an interesting family business conducted by a Bancroft family who lived in the Bocking & Crossroads areas, which although geographically are nearer to Keighley, were in the 19th century listed as part of the Bingley census area.

The manufacture of shuttles for the textile industry was an important business in Northern England for the wool and cotton mills of Yorkshire and Lancashire, particularly after the ‘flying shuttle’ was invented in 1733 and led to great social change in people’s lives as cloth production moved away from a cottage industry and into the mills with the introduction of mechanised machinery such as the ‘spinning jenny’ and later the ‘power loom’ [shown below]

Our Bancroft story starts with Timothy Bancroft [1761-1837] and two of his sons James [1792-1872] and Jabez [1794-1863]. The directory of local businesses of 1822 lists these three men as shuttlemakers in the Crossroads area. The business must have flourished because when Timothy died in 1837, his will states that he left the sum of £207 in goods and credits, which in those days was a sizable amount.

It looks as though the business seemed to have continued through Jabez’s five sons, Benjamin, John, Thomas, James and Joseph who are all listed on various censuses between 1841-1881 as shuttlemakers and woodworkers.

There were dangers to health for anyone working in the trade, due to the materials used. Initially shuttles were made from Persian Boxwood, but there was a move towards using West African Boxwood for two main reason….it’s cheapness, and the fact that it was free of knots, which meant that a larger number of blocks could be obtained from the original log. A medical report looked into health problems in the industry in 1906, and he came up with the following findings:
“There has been many cases of illness amongst the workmen handling the wood [West African boxwood] in the factories, and an impression has gone abroad that the sickness was due to some poison given off by the wood during the process of manufacture of shuttles. The symptoms complained of were headache, sleepiness, running at the nose and eyes, chronic sneezing, giddiness, faintness and weakness, loss of appetite, shortness of breath, nausea, etc. The patient exhibited as well a pale yellowish or greenish colour on the face and body, accompanied by a particular ‘camphor’ or turkey rhubarb’ odour from the breath and skin. After weeks of intermittent illness these symptoms had, in two or three cases, culminated in pathological conditions which had resulted in death, the death certificate registering ‘cardiac asthma’ or ‘cardiac incompetence’. I was also informed that the men who were affected had, in the course of their work, to stop, hold on to some support and gasp for breath.”

Jabez’s son Benjamin [b 1816] seems to have been the one who was later the most actively involved with the industry and public records show he had to go to court on the following two occasions.

In October 1852, he is listed in local court records having filed a petition to the court for bankruptcy, and then obtaining an interim order for protection from the process. This may seem a little strange until we look a little later to October 1853 where Benjamin Bancroft and John Summerscales, ‘Shuttlemakers both of Keighley’, jointly made a patent application, listed as for ‘Provisional Protection only’ which was described as follows:
“ Improvements in shuttles employed in weaving textile fabrics…This invention consists in the applications to shuttles of a fixed spindle and appendages to receive the bobbin, and in forming the shuttle so as to admit the bobbin and allow it to pass out freely”

Benjamin seems to have continued as a shuttlemaker and woodturner through the 1850’s and 1860s. He is missing off the 1861 census, although his wife Mary, is shown as having an occupation as “Shuttle Top Shop” that year, and as she is listed as “married” I suspect that her husband was there and just missed off the record when it was take.

By 1881 Benjamin looks as though he had fallen on harder times, as he is listed as living at the Union Workhouse as a woodturner. I wrote an article on this subject on this blog some time ago, which explains the hard life people had to endure in Keighley Workhouse. The article con be read on the following link: “Life in the Workhouse”
The picture below shows Keighley workhouse, as it is today, having been converted to residential accommodation in the 1990’s.

"I had to walk three miles there and three miles back"

2010-02-12T10:44:00.004Z

Following on from the previous article about child labour in the mills, one of our fellow researchers, Michael Northrop was reminded of his Grandfather Joseph Bancroft, who at the age of ten years old went to work at a mill in Keighley.

Michael can remember the story he told….. “ I had to walk three miles there and three miles back”. The family had very little money, and what young Joseph earned had to be given to his parents.
Joseph’s father, Jabez, was the Caretaker and Sexton of the Dockroyd Methodist Chapel in Oakworth.

Michael has passed on the ‘Labour Certificate’ issued to Joseph on leaving school, a requirement of the Elementary Education Act, which was needed by any employer before they could set a child on. The wording of the act was as follows:

Every person who takes into his employment a child of the age ten and under thirteen years, resident in a school district, before that child has obtained a certificate of having reached the standard of education fixed by the bye-laws in force in the district, for the total or partial exemption of the children of the like age from the obligation to attend school, shall be deemed to take such child into his employment in contravention of the Elementary Education Act 1876, and shall be liable to a penalty accordingly……PENALTY …40 Shillings

The certificate shown above, was signed by the child’s teacher at the school, and if you click on the picture you can read the following handwritten statement
“ Joseph Bancroft has reached standard 4 and is eligible for fulltime employment”
….at the tender age of only 10 years !!

Young Joseph therefore had to go to work in a mill, three miles away in Keighley, and spent all his life in the textile industry, working on the machinery rather than the production side, eventually becoming a machine fitter and toolmaker.

"From Woollen Mills to Flying Machines" - Part 1

2010-02-02T16:30:00.009Z

I have just been reading a very interesting book called “ From Woollen Mills to Flying Machines”, which is an autobiography of Thomas Bancroft O.B.E. [1897-1985]. It goes into fascinating detail, and paints a vivid picture about Tom’s early life from starting to work half days in the local mill in Denholme, near Bradford, at 11 years of age, before spending the other half of the day at school, and then at the age of 12, working a full 53-hour week in the mill. The book then goes on to talk about The First World War, albeit not the grim side, but the more day to day activities and then leads onto Tom’s later career working for Aircraft Company’s eventually to become the Works Director of Hawker Siddeley in Brough, East Yorkshire.
This first article concerns his early life at the Foster’s Mill in Denholme, prior to The First World War. A future article will be about his later life, working in the aircraft industry.

Whilst reading the book I was reminded of my Grandmother talking about her time working half-days in the local mill in the early 1900’s, a practice which was very common with all young children growing up in northern mill towns. The morning’s work started with a siren sounded to remind the workforce to “get to’t mill”. If anyone arrived late, they had to wait until the door was reopened again, and lost an hour's pay.
The noise inside was frightening to anyone not used to it. The machines were driven by long leather belts, which would stretch the length of the room, or shed as it was known, and wrapped around huge wheels. The ends of the belts were fastened with metal clips, and if any of these gave way, due to wear and tear, the flying leather could, and did, cause serious injury.
Despite the heat, the youngsters wore overalls, with the girls also wearing black stockings and clogs. Hair had to be kept fastened back out of the way of machinery, which in those days was unguarded and accidents were commonplace. Loose clothing, like the short smocks worn by the men, was easily caught up unless the greatest care was taken. The smell of lanolin, the natural wool oil, clung to clothing, and grease from the machinery made floors very slippery as it soaked into the floorboards. All this made the mills a serious fire hazard.
Children of eleven years of age, both boys and girls, started as doffers, who had the job of removing the full bobbins from the spinning frames and replacing them with empty ones. For this they received 1s 6d (7.5p) per week. They were supervised by older ones who had become proficient at it and then graduated to spinning. The many and varied processes in a woollen mill all required nimble fingers and a keen eye. Broken threads had to be joined with a neat, flat knot. A poorly repaired knot was known as a “slub”, and the inspector could identify which spinning shed this had come from, so that the careless worker could be reprimanded. I can remember my Grandmother saying that her inspector had a big long strap which he often used on the children if their work was not up to scratch.

Tom’s story starts with a wild shriek of the mill “whew” [mill hooter] gently rattling his bedroom window at 5.30am. This was it!....He had been lying awake for a long time waiting for this great day, when he ceased to be a school kid and became a man. He had been looking forward to this for months, and had been fully accepted by the Spinning Department Manager at W.H.Foster’s Mill, Denholme to start work at six o’clock that morning, a beautiful day, 6th June 1908…his eleventh birthday. After a pot of tea with his father, who was an Overlooker at the same mill, they both set off for work, up the main street to ….THE MILL!

His father then left him in the scurrying crowd of other part-timers at the mill door at around 6.00am, with a tap on his back, saying “ See you at 8.00 o’clock lad” After making his way to the Spinning Rooms, he was directed to the Overlooker, Percy Myers, who was walking along the long isles banging the floor with a foot wide strip of leather, some 4-5 feet long, attached to a short wooden shaft. The noise this made on the floor could be heard above the howling of the two long rows of spinning frames. Percy’s first words to Tom, on seeing his size was “ I’ll hev ta finned thee a box ta stand on”.
He then met Sarah, a nice lass of about seventeen, who looked after some spinning frames, and was given instruction as to what to do as a new “doffer”. He watched the more experienced boys and girls till 8.00 o’clock when the “Whew” blew again, and joined the swarm of men, women, boys and girls pouring out of the main gate.

Just enough time to get home for breakfast and then back before the doors closed again at 8.30 am so he could get back to Sarah, before the Overlooker’s whistle blew to start work again. From then till 12.00 he then followed on, copying the other boys and getting the hang of doffing. It took him weeks before he do this properly, and found school dull after a morning in the mill. He couldn’t wait to get back again the following morning.
After he had picked up the knack of doffin, Sarah gave him some more instructions, about what to do when the thread broke on a bobbin. She was able to take the waste off the roller on the spinning frame, without stopping it and start it on the bobbin again. He had watched her do this scores of times a day with just a finger and thumb, so had a go under her watchful eye. When he tried to do this, he had to jump back from the frame sucking a blistered thumb and finger. Sarah stood there laughing and said “ It’s no good laking wi’ it, th’sta grab it ‘ard before it burns tha”. He collected a few more blisters before he got the knack, but then enjoyed watching the new lads burn their fingers as they also learned the knack.

When his twelfth birthday arrived, it found him as a fully trained doffer, and he automatically became a 53 hours a week full-time mill worker. On Friday, payday, he proudly handed his wage of half-a-crown to his mother, who always gave him something back. He felt he had grown up and was justifying his existence in a fine family life

All this from a lad of 12 years of age!

The picture below shows Tom as a boy with his two younger brothers.

[click her to read part 2 of this story]

Accident at Haworth Station - 1882

2010-01-01T11:16:00.011Z

While reading through some old newspapers recently, I was reminded of the large number of accidents that occurred on the railways in the late 19th century, and the following fatal accident at Haworth Railway Station in 1882.
It concerned a man called Binns Bancroft who died at the age of 42, after being crushed by a moving coal train in the station.

Binns was born in 1840 at a house called “Throstles Nest”, which is still there today and is situated on the moors near Stanbury, looking out over the bleak Bronte moorland.
He was the son of John and Hannah Bancroft, and was one of at least eleven of their children.

Binns Bancroft married Hannah Chaplin at Haworth Parish Church on 24th December 1870 and lived at Clarendon Street Haworth from where he went to work for the local Co-operative Society, where he was employed as their coal agent.

On the afternoon of 19th December 1882 around 1.15pm, Binns was at the station, waiting for a coal delivery, and went over to the coal train, which had just come in. He checked with the guard to see if there was any coal on the train for him and the guard said there was one truck of coal allocated to the Co-op. Witnesses then told of how Binns attempted to get through between the buffers of the engine and the wagon, with his back towards the engine, and just as he had got between them, the wagons were closed up by the engine shunting them down the siding. An eyewitness, the guard, said he was carried about a yard, and killed on the spot. The body, when later formally identified, had no marks of external injury visible, beyond two or three slight black marks and a Doctor came to the station within ten minutes of the accident and ‘pronounced life to be extinct’

It was thought Binns was trying to get to the other side of the wagons, in order to take a card from one of them.

An enquiry on the accident was opened two days later at the nearby Royal Oak Inn.
Evidence was heard from eyewitnesses, the guard and the doctor who attended the scene shortly after the accident, and after hearing all the evidence, the jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death”

His widow, Hannah, was left to bring up their five children, and eventually received the sum of £30 compensation from either the Co-op or the Railway Company. She later remarried a man called Holmes Feather in 1885 and continued to live in Haworth.

The photograph at the top shows the station around this time, and the one below shows the station in the foreground and the Royal Oak Inn in the centre. Both show a very smoky Haworth ….presumably from all that coal they were burning in those days!

[So was this the end of Binns Bancroft?....maybe not!...click here to read how his ghost haunts Haworth Station]

Living conditions in Ickornshaw 1904.

2009-12-01T09:59:00.009Z

John Henry Bancroft

Several months ago I wrote a long article about John Henry Bancroft and his sons who were servicing in the Great War, and I recently came across some more information about him that may be of interest to my readers.

A report in the local newspaper in April 1904 describes the house he was living in at number 14 Ickornshaw near Cowling.
Apparently the local medical officer of health, Dr Atkinson, was most concerned about the living conditions in this house, which at the time was occupier by John Henry, his family and a lodger…a total of nine people in accommodation, which consisted of one living room and two bedrooms!

The properly was owned by a Mr Ben Snowden of Fold Lane and was occupied rent free by John Henry, but was is such a dilapidated state that Dr Atkinson asked the Clerk to the Council to obtain an order to close the house as it was ‘unfit for human habitation’

Here is a brief description of the state of the property:

· There were no gutters or fall pipes to the back of front
· The roof is not in good condition.
· It has damp walls and was earthed up at the back to a depth of over a yard
· There are no drains from the house
· There is no water supply to the house.
· The ventilation in the house is not good.
· There is a pail-closet in a state of disrepair.
· There is an open unenclosed ash pit next to it.

I am not sure what the outcome was of the council’s actions seeking closure, but I suspect that they were successful because John Henry and his family moved to the nearby village of Silsden in January 1905, and he remained there till his death in 1931.

The row of houses fell into disuse and were then used for none inhabitable purposes. The drawing at the top shows the row, next to Ickornshaw Wesleyan Chapel, which was built in 1875. The house on the left-hand end was at the time shown as boarded-up. The house at the right-hand end was eventually a blacksmith’s shop, where horses waiting to be shod, were tethered either on the nearby gas lamp or at the end of the nearby footbridge over the beck. The row was eventually demolished sometime in the 1980’s, and a new house has recently been built on the site.

The picture below showed the row in the centre, next to the Ickornshaw Wesleyan Chapel. The Chapel is still there today, but has in recent times been converted into residential accommodation.

I am grateful to Mr Dennis Harker from Cowling, for his help with this article.

What's in a name?

2009-11-01T15:14:00.008Z

A story with a different theme this month, and certainly not a Yorkshire one!

I recently returned from a trip to the small town of Tuam in the West of Ireland, to see family and friends and that got me thinking about my Christian name…something that I am asked about on a regular basis, so here is the story.

The name “Jarlath” is commonly used in the area around County Galway Ireland, and comes from Saint Jarlath, who was an Irish priest and scholar from the West of Ireland. He is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Tuam Co Galway.It is not known when he was born but but he it is believed that he came from a village called Sylane near Dummoore and he died around 550A.D.

His father was called Loga and mother Mongfinn, and he was a member of the Conmaicne family, which was looked upon as probably the most important and powerful family in Galway at that time.

He was educated in a monanstery founded by St. Bennin of Kilbannon and after being trained as a holy man and ordained as a priest, he founded a monestery at Cloofush, just outside Tuam, and presided over the monestary as Abbot-Bishop. The picture at the top shows the remains of the monestry at Cloonfush as it is today.

Folklaw suggests that St. Benin, told St. Jarlath to seek out a site for a new monestary, and that where ever his chariot broke down, that was to be the place of his “resurrection”. He therefore travelling eastward, looking for a site for a new monastery and as foretold, the “accident” happened, and the wheel of his chariot broke on what is now the site of St Mary’s Cathedral in Tuam, only four miles from where he started out, and so it was here that he founded his new monastery. The following pictures show the interior of St Mary’s, as it is today.There are still parts of this beautiful building going back to the 12th century, and it is believed that a church has existed on this site since the 6th century.

His “chariot” may be something of an exaggeration, as the mode of transport in those days was more likely to have been either a horse & cart, or even a handcart, pulled by others. A broken cart wheel is the emblem for the town of Tuam, and a modern sculpture of this is in the Town Square to commemorate St. Jarlath’s short journey.

Long after his death, his bones were found and placed in a silver shrine to be deposited in specially built church called “ Teampall na Scrine” in the town in the seventh century. This church was later destroyed at the time of the Reformation, and eventually became a barn, and the silver shrine then disappeard for a while. Then in 1650, two men were threshing in the old barn and noticed a bright object on the clay floor which turned out to be the silver shrine containing the relics of St.Jarlath. The item was then handed over to various religious persons and seems to have vanished without trace around 1870.

The picture below shows me standing at the gate of the site of the original Clonflush monastery, which is also a graveyard. The gate shows the name “Jarlath” spelt in the Irish language, and the wheel denotes the one broken on his chariot.

The Butterfly Roof Bungalow

2009-10-05T17:13:00.005+01:00

Here’s an interesting short story about Sydney Bancroft, who in his normal walk of life would have been considered a very conventional person, and yet he lived in a very unconventional house in Oxenhope near Keighley.

Sydney was born in 1906 in Oxenhope and led a very full and worthwhile life, firstly as a mill owner of the firm of John Bancroft & Co at Charles Mill Oxenhope, after taking over the running of the family business from his father in 1945. He retired after selling the business in 1957, and then spent much of his time working for several charities and for the community as a local councillor, and eventually as Mayor of Keighley in 1971 to 1972.
He was a lifelong member of Oxenhope Methodist Church and was a steward of the Haworth & Oakworth Methodist Circuit, and also had the unique distinction of being elected an Alderman by the local Council, when he was no longer a servicing Councillor.

Sydney & his wife Maud [Riley] had previously lived in a large house built by his father since their marriage in 1939, but then decided to have a new house called “Woodridge”, built in 1959….and what a house! Their main stipulation they gave to the architects when designing the house, was that there must be no need to go through one room to get to another, and so they were able to come up with this ultra modern design for the time, by designing a split level bungalow, suitable for a sloping site of one-and-a- quarter acres.

The local press at the time wrote an article about the new house saying
“ It’s like a book cover!”
“It makes you want to look inside!”
“The layout is given an added appeal through it being asymmetrical”
“ Some would call it variety, and others would say off- beat!”

The most striking feature of the house was the fact that it was designed with what was described at the time as a “Butterfly Roof” which, when built in 1959, must have been viewed as a little unusual, to say the least!

Here are a few things the newspaper had to say at the time about this state of the art property, with it’s up to the minute design features:

“It’s a home with a polished mahogany canopy above the front, which has a 26 ft stretch of south-facing windows overlooking the picturesque valley, with wild majesty of the moors beyond”

“When seated behind the open fire, with it’s underfloor draught, it is possible to enjoy the full warmth and at the same time appreciate the magnificent views”

“The kitchen ceiling is azure blue, and working surfaces are in red laminate…there is a dish washer, and also a steam extractor….the polished mahogany door is steam resistant”

“Equipped with underfloor electric heating…the bungalow has separate thermostatic controls in each room”

“The front garden leads down to rose beds, and with the flowers give a froth of gaiety along the top of its low wall”

Sadly the house is no longer there. It was sold to a developer in recent years, who then demolished it and built five houses on the land that it had occupied. Below is a picture of the bungalow, taken from the newspaper at the time…sorry for the poor quality, but it’s the best I could find.

Jabez's story hit the Keighley News

2009-08-24T09:44:00.009+01:00

Following on from the previous article about Jabez Bancroft, the story has been picked up by the Keighley News. The following article appeared in the newspaper this week.

I have also received the nice piece of ephemera from Steve Pick, which appears to be an advertisement that Jabez must have been using to promote his work as a taxidermist. I am now wondering if this was more than just a hobby for Jabez, as he describes himself as a “Dealer in British and Foreign birds, skins, bird eggs and artificial eyes etc”.

I like the bit that says ….” Specimens got up as life-like as possible” !!

To read my earlier artice on Jabez Bancroft click here

Jabez Bancroft - The Taxidermist !

2009-08-01T09:30:00.019+01:00

I am indebted to Steve Pick, who lives in Texas USA, for details about his Great-Grandfather Jabez Bancroft, who led a very interesting life.

Jabez was born on 18th May 1833 at Hollins Summer House, Crossroads near Keighley and then grew up on a farm knows as Whins Delf, also sometimes called Unwins Delph at Ingrow, on the outskirts of Keighley, the son of James and Hannah Bancroft who ran this small farm of about 13 acres. He married Deborah Waddington and the two photos below show a couple thought to be them, although this cannot be definitely confirmed by his descendants…..Does anyone recognise the people in these pictures, and are able to confirm their identity?

Jabez came from a large family of twelve children, and he and Deborah had seven children themselves. During his life he was a man of many talents and had many occupations, some of which were running a quarry, another a brewery, as well as being a teacher, and also being in charge of several railways. He was a man who travelled widely, and seemed to spend money as quickly as he earned it on this, because travelling to America three times.

The most interesting side of his life was his lifelong hobby of collecting animals, birds and bird’s eggs. In fact his trips to the US seems to have been to collect more birds and animals for his large collection.

Taxidermy in those days was quite a dangerous hobby,due to some of the substances used in the process. Poisons such as mercuric chloride, and arsenic mixed with soap were commonly in use to help preserve the specimens, and these are known to have had serious consequential health problems for the people using them if care was not taken.

It is not known if Jabez suffered the effects of these substances, but he died at 7.15pm on 4th January 1897 at 14 Carlton Street, Beechcliffe, Keighley, and the vast collection of over 1600 birds, birds eggs, animals, bees and butterflies was sold to Keighley Corporation, by his second wife, Elizabeth, after his death. Initially the collection was due to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, but after the intervention of the auctioneer, a private arrangement was agreed between Keighley Corporation and Mrs Bancroft so that they could purchase the entire collection for the princely sum of £130, provided it was to be used for the benefit of the town.

The Corporation were in the process of setting up a new museum in Keighley, and The Bradford Observer Newspaper of 8th February 1897 reported on this as follows:
“Mr Jabez Bancroft, a well known taxidermist and naturalist from Keighley, died some two months ago, and his large collection of birds is announced to be brought under the hammer. There is a desire in the town that the whole collection should be acquired for the museum now being formed at Eastwood House, and a deputation will wait on one of the committee of the Corporation tonight to urge them to make the purchase. A few gentlemen have taken the matter in hand, and the auctioneer, Mr Wright Watson, has named a very modest price, which Mrs Bancroft is prepared to accept if the collection is bought by the town. The specimens, which were nearly all prepared and mounted by Mr Bancroft, number over 1600 and include Hawks, Silver and Golden Plover, Grey Lapwing, a pair of Red Grouse and young [10], Ptarmigan, Gannett, Black-Headed Gulls, Heron, Falcon, Teal, Raven, Small Auk, Green-Backed Cormorant, Hoopoe and other”

The bird collection included many skins, which were not completed exhibits at the time, and so the Corporation engaged the services of a Derby expert, Mr AS Hutchinson, to professionally mount the whole collection. This took two years to complete, and the whole collection was then put on display in Keighley’s first Museum, at Eastwood House in Victoria Park, which opened in 1899 as part of a Science and Art Exhibition to raise funds for the Cottage Hospital.

A local newspaper at the time reported
“The collection of one hundred and twenty cases were delightfully received….the robin has hopped down to an old chopping-block, into which the axe has been driven, and close to a bundle of sticks. Quite a happy family appears in another case, the sheldrake, which embraces a pair of adults and five immatures. Three of the young are swimming in a small pool, and two are wandering on the sand….”

Jabez’s collection of birds eventually ended up on permanent display at another museum in Keighley called Cliffe Castle which was opened in 1955, and currently there are thirty eight cases of his birds on display there, together with about another forty other examples of his work held in storage elsewhere.

I was recently given a guided tour of the exhibits by the staff. Many of them are now somewhat faded after having been subjected to over one hundred years of exposure to sunlight, but I was very privileged to see and handle three specimens that were taken out of storage for me to examine. Shown above are these three birds, a King Parrott a Soldier Bird or Noisy Minor, and a Magpie Lark. It was amazing to handle these specimens, which were well over 100 years old, and yet were in perfect condition with the colour of the feathers as bright and perfect as they must have been when the specimens were caught so long ago, thanks to the fact that they had been stored in the dark, away from damaging sunlight. One unanswered question with these three specimens is the fact that they all originate from Asia and Australia, and we know that Jabez’s only trips abroad were to America, so how did he acquire these?…perhaps we will never know.

Some of the exhibits are, what would today be described as quite rare specimens, such as Chough, Red-Footed Falcon, Sparrowhawk, Honey Buzzard and Snowy Owl [photo at top] and one wonders where Jabez managed to obtain them from. A clue to this is that one exhibit of a bird of prey, mentions it was shot by a gamekeeper on local moors, which might give an indication of his source of supply.

Currently there is no mention at Cliffe Castle of the fact that many of the exhibits were from Jabez’s collection. It would be nice to see, at some time in the future, a small plaque or notice put up in the museum, attributing this important work to Jabez Bancroft and the legacy he left to the town.

Unfortunately space does not allow me to show photographs of all Jabez’s exhibits, but here are a few, and I would urge anyone who visits Keighley to go to the Natural History Museum at Cliffe Castle and have a look at this wonderful collection of birds and animals.

To read more about Jabez Bancroft click here

Horkinstone Baptist Chapel - Oxenhope

2009-07-01T07:16:00.006+01:00

I was recently driving past the site of what was once the Horkinstone Baptist Chapel, which was on the outskirts of Oxenhope. All that remains today is the graveyard, where quite a few Bancrofts were buried, including some of my family line, together with my Great-Great-Grandparents William and Hannah Greenwood.
There are at least six separate Bancroft graves on the site, all of families who lived in the Bradshaw Head and Far Oxenhope area, including Jonas & Betty Bancroft and their family, who lived in the Tancy End and Sykes areas of Far Oxenhope. Jonas occupation was a quarryman, an occupation sometimes also referred to as a ‘stone delver’ Another grave denotes what must have been a sad story of the death of four of the children of John and Harriet Bancroft, which shows their children dying at the ages of 7 months, 15 months, 19 years and then an unnamed stillborn child. John and his family lived in the Leeming area of Far Oxenhope, and carried on the business of a Greengrocer there. Thankfully at least three of their children reached adulthood.
My own Great-Grandparents Timmy & Jane Bancroft also have a grave there denoting the death of their firstborn child Fred, who died as an infant in 1871. At the time they were tenant farmers, living at nearby Dole Farm, Bradshaw Head.

As the photos show, the Chapel is no longer there, it having been abandoned in 1924 when it was declared unsafe and then demolished. All that remains is the graveyard, which continued to be used after the demolition of the Chapel, with the last burial there recorded in 1953.The site for a new Chapel further down the road was acquired in 1925, and that was opened in 1927. This replacement building is still there today, although it ceased to be a place of worship in 1996 and has since been converted to residential use.

Extracts from the Souvenir of Centenary Celebrations of 1936 and the old minutes book for the Chapel, can be read by clicking on the photo, and they give some interesting facts about it’s inception and the early days of the Chapel when it was getting established. They provide a record of the first meetings in 1836 when it was resolved “with great daring” to build a chapel from the funds available which were £13 in cash with a promise of a further £41 after collection in all the outlying areas There are also interesting items about everyday things, such as "precuring iron candle sticks, a pair or two of snuffers, lamps, oil, candles and brushes”,and also “asking Mr Smith to remove his cow-house” by a certain date.

As was the practice of many chapels in those days, Horkinstone provided an annual Christmas Day Tea. The local paper at the time in December 1883 said, “ The Christmas entertainment was a great success. About 300 sat down to an excellent tea. After tea Mr W Kershaw took the chair when an excellent programme of glees, duets, readings and songs together with piano duets by Mrs Crabtree and Mrs Kershaw. Mr L Crabtree presided at the piano”.

The choirmaster from 1896 to 1907 was Amos Dewhirst, and in his time there the choir occupied a wider sphere than just it’s Sunday services. Under his leadership it formed the centre of the local social life. Public teas and Saturday-night concerts were important social events, and the choir alternated sacred oratorios such as ‘From Storm to Calm’ and ‘From the manger to the cross’, with comic songs like ‘The Chinese Laundry Man’ and ‘Ain’t Yer Ebber Gwine ter Marry Me?’
For some years the choir took part in the Great Nonconformist Festival in London, which required leaving Oxenhope on a Friday night and not getting back till early on the Sunday morning.

The graveyard is now managed by a group of trustees, and they are currently in the process of producing a book about the graveyard and it’s inhabitants. If you are interested in getting a copy of the book when it is available, please contact the trustees on: OOBGT@lowerisle.co.uk

The Boulderclough Tragedy of 1894

2009-06-08T09:59:00.002+01:00

I am grateful to Tim Bancroft from Canada, who supplied me with details of this terribly sad story of his Great-Grandmother Sarah Bancroft, who drowned herself and her baby daughter at Boulderclough near Sowerby, Halifax in 1894.
At the time, Boulderclough was a sleepy little hamlet where not much ever seemed to happen until 19th June 1894, when Sarah Bancroft, the wife of Wright Bancroft, went out in the middle of the night with her fourteen month old child in her arms, and firstly drown the child before drowning herself in a nearby stream.
Here is how the local newspapers reported the tragic events as they unfolded, and the Coroner’s eventual verdict as to why this happened.

Sarah’s husband, Wright Bancroft was a well-respected man who was employed as a cloth miller at a nearby mill at Luddenden Foot, and was also a teacher and chapel-keeper at nearby Bethel New Connection Chapel. His job required him to work during the night, and he tended to return home between five and six o’clock in the mornings. Sarah had been complaining for about six months of acute abdominal pains, and had been spending long periods in bed. The couple had two children, Joe age 7 years and Alice Elizabeth who was about 14 months old at the time.

A niece, Miss Betsy Pickles, had been staying with the family to help Sarah with the house and children, and was woken in the middle of the night by some movement. She found Sarah sitting on the side of the bed putting her stocking on, and when she enquired if she wanted anything, was told “no, stay where you are” so went back to sleep and was then woken by Mr Bancroft at about six o’clock on his return from work, after finding both his wife and the baby missing, and the front door ajar.

Mr Bancroft went back outside on to the street and gathered some of the neighbours to look for his wife and child. Within ten minutes the bodies of mother and child were found in a shallow stream less than sixty yards from the house. The newspaper reported the finding as follows

The mother lay on her back with her face upstream, and a miniature waterfall of clear water was trickling down upon her face. She lay in her nightdress and the only other articles of clothing she had on were stockings and a petticoat. The little baby was to her left side, also having her head upstream…the child’s head barely reached the mother’s hands. The distressed husband waited for nothing, but lifted his wife out of the water exclaiming the while “ Eh Sarah, whatever have you done this for?” He burst into a flood of tears as he knelt on the rivulet bank and gazed into his wife’s pale face. The baby was taken from the water by someone else. The corpses were removed to the house and laid out side by side in the chamber they had recently left. As the morning sun stole in at the windows, the little baby’s face was a picture. Never in life had she exhibited much colour but now her cheeks were a pretty scarlet. The mother, as white as a sheet, lay on the left side of the infant.

An Inquest was opened two days later at the nearby Kings Arms Inn, and evidence was heard firstly by the family doctor who confirmed that he had visited Sarah seven times in the last week He felt that she had had delusions about her ailment, and he had tried to persuade her that she was mistaken, but that she remained in low spirits, although he did not think she had any suicidal tendencies.
Wright Bancroft was then interview, and in a distress state gave his evidence about the events of day in question. He left home to go to work at 5 o’clock in the evening, as usual, and that day his wife had stayed in bed all day. He went on to say that his wife had been seeing the doctor since 1st July, and that he had told him that his wife was suffering from an ulcer, but had been told that there would be no operation because of his wife’s nerves, due to the strong pain she was suffering. He said she did not seem low-spirited, but she never was of a very cheerful disposition. He confirmed to the jury that he and his wife “had lived affectionately together all their married life…and that she was a very good woman”
There was then evidence given by the niece Betsy Pickles, and various neighbours who commented on Sarah’s state of health, and how weak she was. One witness commented on the fact that she was so weak, she could hardly lift the baby up, and the fact that she was able to carry it to the stream surprised her.
The Coroner in summing up said that ‘all the evidence tended to show that the poor woman, distracted with pain, had drowned herself, and as to the baby, he was afraid the evidence was very strong that she drowned it as well….The case was a very unfortunate one, and he hoped it would be a long time before there was another like it in the township. From the way he gave his evidence, the husband seemed a quiet and respectable man, and he said he and his wife had always lived very affectionately. Besides he said, she was a very good woman’.

The jury deliberated a few minutes in private, and then found that Mrs Bancroft had committed suicide while temporarily insane, and that she had also drowned the child.
These facts regarding Sarah’s death are confirmed on her death certificate, shown below.

The local weekend paper for Saturday 23rd June 1894, summed up the whole incident as follows:

The Sad Affair at Sowerby
There will be but one feeling, that of profound sympathy, with the poor fellow at Sowerby who this week lost his wife and infant daughter in such a tragic manner. Boulderclough is so peaceful and quiet a village, it’s life is so regular and monotonous that the sad event of Tuesday must have produced a terrible shock in every home. The complaint from which Mrs Bancroft was suffering, an internal abscess, may well have occasioned in her a feeling of despondency, and now after her death, circumstances are called to mind which, though little regard at the time, seem to have indicated that her condition was producing a mental effect which is very familiar to coroners and juries. The fact that her husband was away at work during the night may indeed have accentuated her feelings of despondency, though the arrival of her niece on Monday to spend a few days with her might have been expected to have a cheering effect. Very sad indeed is the story of the finding of the poor woman and her cherub babe. The shock, so unexpected, was terrible to the stricken husband upon who’s happy home had come a sudden and crushing blow of a kind happily rare in human experience

After Sarah’s, death their surviving son Joe, was brought up by two maiden aunts. Joe’s first-born child, born 1910, was named Alice presumably in memory of his long lost sister.

I have never found anything to lead me to believe that Wright remarried after this sad incident. He died on 19th July 1913, and is buried with Sarah at the chapel near their home, where he had been at one time the Chapel Keeper.
Below is a picture of the Bethel New Connection Chapel and the gravestone of Wright & Sarah Bancroft.

A Nice Day

2009-05-17T11:36:00.004+01:00

I get lots of requests for help from fellow researchers, and was contacted by David Riley recently about the article I wrote some months ago regarding the Lowertown Old Burial Ground.

David was researching the Riley side of his family and found details in the article about one of his ancestors Mary Ann Riley 1815-1869 who married John Bancroft,a local Mill Owner, in 1838 and who’s table top stone is in the graveyard.

David came up to Yorkshire recently and we had a great day going through his family tree. He went away with lots of information he did not have already, including photos of his Great-Grandparents, which he had never seen before!….a good day for all concerned.

The photo, taken beside the gravestone shows David, together with John Kitchen and Norma Mackrell who are both trustees of the Lowertown Old Burial Ground

Timmy Bancroft's narrow escape from the Stocks!

2009-05-01T11:05:00.004+01:00

I was reading an old book recently, and was amazed to find some ‘shocking’ details about my Great-Grandfather Timothy Bancroft 1841-1900, who was known as Timmy.
It seems that Timmy was not the quiet unassuming farmer’s son I thought he was, because on 8th May 1856, when he was just 15 years of age, he was in front of the local Magistrates on a charge of drunkenness in the village of Cullingworth where he lived. Also with him was a Davy Lambert on the same charge. Each was fined five shillings plus costs….or the alternative to this fine would have been to spend six hours in the stocks at Haworth.

Following on from this revelation, I thought I would do a little research about the general attitude to drunkenness at the time, and about punishment of the stocks.

Around this time the local Temperance Magazine produced the following ‘fire and brimstone’ warning to pub landlords:

"If there is a business in which the candidates of hell are labouring, it is yours, and full well you know it.
Were it not a conscience killing business, you would not take the last sixpence from the trembling hand of the drunkard and give him in relief a poison that, ere the next rising sun, may send him to his tomb.
Were it not a demoralising traffic, you could not stand by unmoved, and see the last spark of mortality and virtue driven from the mind of a man by the poison you administer.
Were it not an inferior business you would not be so assiduous in servicing the devil with victims for his abode of endless misery, for he exalts over every drunkard you prepare for the drunkard’s doom.
Then cease this business of ruin, ere the cry of humanity ceases and ere the wrath of angry heaven be poured out upon your head, for God has announced “a woe to him who putteth the bottle to his neighbour’s lips”.

The Stocks had been popular since medieval times, as a mild restraining device for minor offenders, and consisted of a wooden or iron frame to hold the head, hands or ankles. As can be seen from the photograph, the Haworth ones were of the ankle type. They were first introduced in 1376, when King Edward III had a law passed decreeing that every town and village had a set of Stocks. They were usually positioned in the most public place available in a town to give maximum humiliation to the offender, such as a village green or busy main road. The Haworth ones are situated outside the front of the Parish Church on the old main street, as can be seen in the photograph.
They have a plaque on them, which shows that they were restored in 1909, and they were possibly moved to this position at that time.
The use of Stocks as a means of punishment started to gradually disappear from the mid 1850’s and the last recorded use of the Stocks for punishment in the UK was at Adpar in West Wales in 1872.

As far as I know, Timmy did not spend his six hours in the Stocks at Haworth, so I assume his parents, Timothy and Sarah, coughed-up the five shillings fine and costs, to save the family embarrassment, and save young Timmy the humiliation.

The First Car in Oxenhope

2009-04-08T11:27:00.017+01:00

As I said in a previous article, I recently read a book called “ Lowertown Old Burial Ground & Life in Oxenhope 1807-1908”, which contains a mountain of information about the life and times of some of the people of the village.

One such person was John Walker Bancroft who was born around 1868 at West View House, Oxenhope the son of Joseph Riley Bancroft, who was one of the local mill owners and worsted manufacturers in Oxenhope, and who in 1870 had jointly inherited Charles Mill from an uncle.

John had a lifelong interest in engineering, and built Oxenhope’s first car. Construction started in 1889 and was completed in July 1900, and the car had the appearance of a small waggonette with big wheels.
A wheelwright at Oxenhope made the body and a firm of Keighley engineers, Messrs Judson & Hudson made the car to Mr Bancroft’s design. The vehicle was looked upon with awe when it travelled up the road, making a tremendous noise. The total weight of the car was about 7cwt and had a 31/2 hp water-cooled single cylinder engine, which was an experimental engine made by Allard & Co of Coventry. The shifting gear for the belts was controlled by handles on the steering pillar, giving two forward speeds, but no reverse. He ran the car for about 2000 miles before disposing of it in 1903.The two photographs show this original first car, and then John driving through Oxenhope with his two sisters in the next car he owned, made by the Victrix Motor Co in Paris.This second car was kept by him until 1919.

For 60 years John was connected with the firm “John Bancroft & Co”, worsted spinners at Charles Mill Oxenhope, and was a senior partner there for 54 years. He had over 50 years continuous membership of the Bradford Wool Exchange.

The 1901 census shows him living at Westview as a Worsted Manufacturers with brother Frederick and two sisters.

In later life he lived at Hillcrest, another large house in Oxenhope, which he had built when he married. He was married twice and first wife was Edith Lund.
They had two children Sydney & Ida. Sydney was a town councillor and later became The Lord Mayor of Keighley in 1971.

He died at Hillcrest on 3rd August 1945, and was interred in the family vault at Oxenhope Cemetery. The newspaper at the time reported in his obituary “ He had a lifelong association with the Methodist Church and was secretary and treasurer of the Sunday School for nearly 40 years. He was an excellent conversationalist and could recall many amusing incidents in connection with his travels to Bradford on market days and of life in the village”

[If you would like to purchase a copy of the book, please contact the trustees on: OOBGT@lowerisle.co.uk]

John Bancroft b 1803 - Removal from Sutton

2009-04-03T18:28:00.005+01:00

I came across an interesting article recently concerning a John Bancroft born 1803 in the Keighley area, the son of Isaac & Mary.

John’s wife, Mary [nee Brigg] died at the young age of 32 years in 1836, and left him with five young children to bring up. Shortly after her death John was obviously desperate for some financial help, and must have approached the Sutton Authorities where he was living, for some poor relief money. He then fell foul of the “Act of Settlement” rules, which allowed the authorities to remove someone from their parish and send them back in the parish from where they came from previously, unless they could produce a Certificate of Settlement.

The ‘Settlement and Removal Act’, follows on from the ‘Poor Relief Act’ of 1662, the purpose of which was to establish the parish to which a person belonged [i.e. their place of “settlement”], and hence clarify which parish was responsible for him, should they be in need of poor relief money. It was mandatory for each person to have a parish of settlement and to produce a Settlement Certificate to prove that they were a legitimate resident of that parish, otherwise they were liable to be moved back to the parish they had lived in previously.
The Settlement Act was partly repealed in 1834, when legislation was introduced to strengthen the authority’s powers to send people to the workhouse, although not fully repealed until 1876.

To gain settlement status to a parish a person had to meet one of the following conditions:
· Be born in the parish.
· Have married in the parish
· Be hired for a year and a day within the parish
· Rent a property worth £10 per year, or pay the same in rent.
· Receive poor relief in that parish previously.
· Have a seven-year apprenticeship with a settled resident in the parish.

A person had to undergo a settlement examination by the overseers of the parish to obtain legal settlement in a new parish, before they could obtain poor relief, and if they were unsuccessful in obtaining this, the overseers could obtain a removal order to have them transferred back, by force if necessary, to their original parish of settlement. [The picture at the top shows an original removal order]

The statement given in 1836 by John Bancroft to the Sutton Authorities for his request for settlement in the Sutton Parish was as follows:
"I am about thirty three years of age and was born at Keighley in the said Riding, as I have been informed and believe. My father when I was about a year and a half old removed to Sutton and rented a farm of the yearly rent of about eighteen pounds, that he occupied the same farm until about 17 years ago when he removed to Cowling and took a farm where he now resides, of the yearly rent of about sixty pounds. I lived with my father at Sutton aforesaid, and removed with him to Cowling and continued to form part of his family until about twelve years ago when I married, when I took a farm in Cowling aforesaid, of Holmes Clapham for the yearly rent of Eighteen Pounds and occupied the same about five years and paid the Rent. I then removed to Sutton and occupied a Cottage and had the keeping of two cows from the twenty third day of March to Martimas for which I paid Eight Pound ten shillings: That I am now a widower with five children viz. Isaac aged about twelve years, William aged about ten years, Abraham aged about eight years, Sarah aged about four years and Mary aged about two years. That I have done no Act save as aforesaid, whereby to gained a settlement, and am now chargeable to the said township of Sutton".

Despite this statement given by him, and probably because the authorities could see the cost involved in supporting John and his five children from poor relief funds, they decided not to issue a settlement certificate and to remove them from Sutton parish back to his last place of residence, Cowling. They would have produced a request to the local Justice of the Peace for removal of John and his family. The wording of their request would have been “the family came lately to inhabit Sutton, not having gained a legal settlement there nor produced a certificate owning themselves to be settled elsewhere” and that “if not timely prevented, they are likely to become chargeable to the township of Sutton”

This sad story shows the struggle that some people had surviving during these hard times, and ended up being past from pillar to post, as parish authorities did what ever they could to rid themselves of so called “paupers”, who would be a burden and drain on their local poor relief funds.

I do not know what happened to John after his move back to Cowling, but by the time of the 1841 census, there is no sign of him in the area and his children are by then scattered across different areas. I assume John probably died sometime between 1836 and 1841.

Does anyone have any further information about when happened to the family after they had to move back to Cowling?

Life in the Workhouse

2009-03-07T10:34:00.005Z

I was recently researching a local individual called Abraham Bancroft, who was born circa 1809 in the Oldfield area of Keighley and eventually ended up in the local Workhouse, where he ended his days in 1893. He was listed as a single retired woolcomber, and must have been left there by his family for some reason.
This research got me thinking about what life must have been like for those unfortunate enough to end up in one of these establishments.

The local Workhouse in Keighley is listed on the census for 1891 as having about two hundred ‘inmates’, both in the actual workhouse building and the nearby hospital, many of them listed as either ‘imbacile, blind or deaf & dumb’ and was managed by a Workhouse Manager, his wife and a handful of others who were listed as porters, nurses, a cook & a gardener. The last workhouse building in Keighley was built in 1858 at a cost of £7000, and still exists today, albeit is now turned into residential accommodation. A previous smaller establishment existed up until that date at nearby Exley Head, and earlier in 1777 a parliamentary report on this establishment stated that it had forty inmates.

Workhouses largely came about because of an act passed in 1601 called “The Act for the relief of the Poor” which made parishes legally responsible for looking after their own poor, and was funded by the collection of a poor-rate tax from local property owners. These funds were then used to provide unpaid work for the unemployed….with the threat of prison for those who refused!. It also set out proposals for the erection of houses for the “impotent poor, the elderly and the sick” Parish poor relief was initially dispensed in the form of money to enable people to buy clothing, food or fuel for those living in their own home in exchange for work without pay. This procedure was it seems, open to abuse, so by 1723 the “Workhouse Test Act” was passed and gave parishes the option of denying money to claimants and offering only the Workhouse.

In 1887 a local writer and bookseller called Mr CW Craven, went undercover into Keighley workhouse to try and experience what is was like first-hand, and later published an account of his experience called “ A Night at the Workhouse”….here are some extracts from it:

“I found myself in a room where a regular pauper was in charge, who at once told me to undress myself. Whilst doing this, a piece of dry bread, about 4 oz in weight was thrown onto a board with the exclamation, “ Thear’s yer Tommy”. On getting my coat, waistcoat and trousers off and discovering my underclothes, the attendant exclaimed several times “You don’t look as if you hed been on t’road long anyhow”. “No!” says I “ this is the first time”. He then told me to take my shirt off, and strip myself entirely. “Why take my shirt off?” I asked. “ Because ther might be sum o’ them thear things abaght!” he replied. “ Are there many of these things round about these quarters?” I further interrogated. “Nah, ah doan’t think there’ll be so monny, we mostly stove ‘em when we find onny” With this answer I was somewhat comforted. When I undressed myself to a state as naked as when I was born, I was told to tie my cloths up and place them alongside a series of other similar bundles laid against a wall. I was then furnished with a couple of rugs and ordered into the sleeping room and the lock tuned on me. All was dark as pitch. My bare feet slipped on what I afterwards found was the vagrant’s spittle on the stone floor, and the sensation was cold and slimy. It made me think of snails and worms, and other loathsome creeping things…...I laid myself on the hard slanting boards, with bare wood as a pillow to experience twelve hours of misery.
I did not sleep a wink all night, and kept fancying “some of them thear things” were creeping over me. By the time the welcome streaks of morning dawn appeared, my bones felt terribly sore, and I was half staved to death. At about a quarter to seven the key turned in the door, and the order was given to “get dressed and bring your rugs in here”. Seven naked forms then flitted about in search of their cloths, and commenced to dress. I found the piece of dry bread I had left untouched the night before, and told one of the vagrants he could have it if he cared to do so. He appeared exceedingly grateful and at once commenced to devour it.
Breakfast was brought in by a pauper attendant, and consisted on seven pieces of dry bread on a board, each piece weighing 8 ozs, one for each vagrant. They were placed on the stone floor. A rusty can was then brought in, containing about two quarts of cold water, which was to serve as a drink for us all. A strong feeling of indignation rose within me as I observed this miserable fare, and the contemptuous manner in which it was served.
After a sufficient time had been allowed for breakfast, we were ordered out to perform our task work. Two were relegated to some lighter labour, whilst five, amongst whom was myself, were set to corn-grinding. We were placed in a room, where protruding from the wall were six wheels with handles attached, and nothing else but the dead wall was discernable. After being ordered to grind away at these, we were locked in. some of the machines were dreadfully hard to turn, whilst others were not so bad. The most aggravating part of the affair was that none of us could observe how much work had been accomplished.
The atmosphere was very warm and in midsummer must have been nearly stifling. Being in want of something to drink,we thrust a tin through an aperture in the window, with a request for one of the paupers to fill it with water. The tin was taken away, but no water appeared, and nearly an hour elapsed before our wants were supplied in this respect, and then only because of repeated knocks and shouting. Drearily the hours passed until twelve o’clock, when we were liberated for dinner consisting of thick soup, which I could not bring myself to taste. From one till five o’clock corn-grinding was again our portion, after which the night was spent much similar to the last one. I was greatly pleased when my time expired and I was again a free man.
My impression of the general treatment of vagrants is that the system is much too severe. Making every allowance for the shortcomings of the class constituting them, I am of the opinion that the lowest of mankind deserves better treatment than that accorded to pigs, dogs, and other animals of creation. The food furnished was scarcely fit for these last mentioned, whilst about the harsh treatment, the less said the better. It is a disgrace to any civilised country.”

Thankfully the end of the workhouse system came in 1930, when the Boards of Guardians across England and Wales were abolished, and responsibility passed to the local authorities. The Keighley Workhouse site was taken over by the West Riding Council and became Keighley Public Assistance Institution. It later became Hillworth Lodge old people's home and was afterwards used by Keighley College. In 2000, the site was redeveloped for residential use. The photograph at the top shows part of the original workhouse complex, as it is today.