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LANCASHIRE FAMILY HISTORY AND
HERALDRY SOCIETY
Rossendale Branch Newsletter July
2003
Programme:
Wednesday 2nd July
Preserving the Past for the Future.
Out Visit - North West Sound Archive, Clitheroe Castle.
The North West Sound Archive was established in 1979 to
" record, collect and preserve sound recordings of the life, character,
history and traditions of the north west of England".
Wednesday 6th August
Research Evening
Wednesday 3rd September
Private William Tomlinson and the Opium Wars. W.J.
Taylor
Wednesday !st October
Members Miscellany. (Short talks by members on a
subject of their choice)
Wednesday 5th November
The Lancashire Cotton Famine (1862 - 1865)
Fred Holroyd.
Coming Events
Saturday 13th September. The Great North Fair
Gateshead Stadium, Neilson Road, Gateshead
10.00 am - 4.30pm. adults £2.50, children free.
The new national event for Family Historians, supported
by the History Channel and the 2003 Genealogy Project.
Saturday 8th November
The North West Family History Fair will be held this
year at Manchester Velodrome.
Lancashire BMD
Births Marriages and Deaths on the Internet
Work has now commenced on Phase One of this project.
The indexes to all the marriages which took place in the old Haslingden
Registration area, are being typed onto spreadsheets for the years 1837 -
1899. This includes all the Church of England Churches and the Registrars’
Marriage Books (Non Conformist and Roman Catholic Marriages had to take
place in front of a registrar), there is a total of 176 index books.
As each index is completed, it will be checked against
the original certificates at the Hyndburn Register Office. As the
information is checked and approved it will appear on our Lancashire BMD
site.
Volunteers are still required for typing and checking.
Jackie Ramsbottom is the project co-ordinator for the
Hyndburn and Rossendale area. If you would like to participate contact
Jackie - Email: jax@grane92.freeserve.co.uk
Book Review
A History of Edenfield and District
by John Simpson. Published by Edenfield Local History
Society, 2003.
If your ancestors came from Edenfield (or the old
Township of Tottington Higher End) then this hard- back book is a must.
John Simpson has described the changing landscape of a largely rural area
from 1770. The book covers all aspects of life in Edenfield and its
neighbouring hamlets; the building of roads and railways, new houses,
farms, shops, churches, education, sports and games, public houses,
textile mills, quarries and coal mines.
In particular we meet the people, the clergy, the
doctors, the police, the industrialists who built up the mills and the
people who worked in them. The author tells of poverty and child labour,
we learn of fortunes made and lost. This is a well researched book, with
many photographs and an extensive bibliography.
It is available from the author, Mr. J. Simpson,
The Cottage, Tor View Farm, Helmshore BB4 4AB
£20.00 including P & P (UK residents only)
Rossendale Ancestry
I was very surprised when I received an email from
Laverne Granbois in Canada enquiring about a Bible mentioned in our June
1998 newsletter.
ASHWORTH/ BARNES BIBLE -
A success story
Submitted by John Dalton - Branch Chairman
At our last branch meeting I happened to hear of a
family bible in the possession of John and Joan Lord, for which they have
been trying to find a home since they found it in a car boot sale several
years ago. They had found someone in Canada who was a related to the
people listed in it, but posting such a heavy book would have cost about
£60.
By chance, a friend of mine was visiting from Utah last
week, so I contacted him and he agreed to take it home with him and post
it from Salt Lake City. He emailed me yesterday to say this was now done,
and it cost $22.
While he was here, we visited the Arndale Centre in
Accrington, and by an amazing coincidence we met Mr & Mrs Lord there, so
he took a photo of them to email to the lady in Canada.
BRAMILL/ Childhood Memories
Will Bramhill’s father (William Frank Bramhill) was
born in Liverpool in January 1913, he came that same year to live in the
Valley, probably at Touch and Take but possibly at Hardsough, Irwell Vale.
His sister Doris was born two years later,
Touch and Take, Cockerels and Zeppelins.
Submitted by Will Bramhill
Today's adults worry about the children of broken
marriages ... well, my father's parents' marriage broke up as he started
school, at the time of the First World War.
The main cause for the split appears to have been a
difference in class. Grandma came from a middle class accountant's family
while Granddad's family was from the poverty of Liverpool's Pier Head.
My Dad went on to escape his background, becoming a
ship's captain by 1958, and retiring as commodore- captain of the then
Sealink ferry fleet at Harwich in 1977.
So what interest is this to you in the Rossendale
Valley? Dad died in 1997 but left behind a large blue book of his early
memories, spent in Touch and Take, a group of cottages south of Haslingden;
in fact his very first memory is of being pecked on the eye by a
fearsome cockerel as he made the way up the farm path with his mother. He
carried the scar for life.
The year was probably 1916. Dad writes that Granddad,
unfit for war service through ill health, worked in a little red brick
building close by Edenfield railway station. He recalls that his father
would take him there regularly, and he would stare out of the window "at a
steam engine pulling three rickety
coaches into the station beyond the factory".
He says his main memory of this spell in the Valley was
of a low bridge near the rail line where empty paint drums were stored.
One Sunday Dad and his sister made a thorough investigation of those
drums, and ended up with their Sunday best "well and truly covered". This,
says Dad, resulted in his first tanned behind, and his father could wield
a belt, too. Dad also experimented with smoking at this early age, but was
caught. His father's punishment? A cigarette end
stubbed out on the palm of the hand.
Dad recalls leaving the Valley for Liverpool, he thinks
on a holiday. The family were happy, but he doesn't believe his mother
(maiden name Prossor) returned with his father. He recalls making his way
back to Rawtenstall with his father some time later. They
couldn't afford the rail fare from Liverpool, so father and son walked
from town to town, catching trams when possible. He writes: "I can recall
the misery of sore feet and of Dad coaxing me, sometimes carrying me,
then showing impatience and dragging me. Somewhere between Bury and Bacup
we got caught in an air raid by Zeppelin. We had to run along
a road, then Dad carried me and we went into a hedge and lay in wet grass.
I can recall the noise of the Zeppelin and thousands of bits of paper
fluttering down.
Note. The Zeppelin attack took place on the 24th
September 1916. It is described in great detail in John Simpson’s book on
Edenfield. The Bramhills must have been in the vicinity of their own home
at the time of the attack. Will has a letter which states that a piece of
shrapnel had gone through the window of his grandmother’s house at 5
ChapelTerrace, Hardsough.
Shortly after this following the break up of his
parents’ marriage William Frank, his father and sister went to live with
relatives at Reedsholme, Crawshawbooth...
to be continued.......
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