John Smith's Family Tree Website

Turner family

* * *

Part 2: George Turner (1827 - 1896)

Working life and marriage to Elizabeth Ann Thomas

George Turner was the eldest son of John Turner and Sarah Schofield. He was born 28 April 1827 in Hipperholme and baptised 15 July the same year at Coley Chapelry. He married Elizabeth Ann Thomas (c1827 - 1894) 04 October 1847 at St Peter’s Parish Church, Birstall, Yorkshire. Birstall is a village between Halifax and Leeds which was known for its textile industry. Elizabeth was born in Bradford. Her father was not listed on her marriage record and nothing else is known of her family origins. She could not sign her name.

Like his father and brothers, George worked in the stone quarrying industry as a dresser, cutter and delver at various times. After their marriage, George and Elizabeth lived in Bradford for about three or four years, but the rest of their married life was spent living in Lane Ends Green, a street of stone terraced housing in Hipperholme. They had fourteen children: Maria, Thomas, John, Sarah Ann, Elizabeth Ann, Mary Ann, Amelia Ann, Abraham Schofield, twins Emma and Lucy Ann, Jonas Greenwood, Martha Hannah, William Henry and Edith Hannah Matilda. ‘Ann’ was a popular middle name for the girls! The children’s birthdates were compiled in a family tree by a descendant and there is no documentary evidence for most of the dates given.

The family must have been in constant need of money as several of the children worked in the mills whilst young. Calderdale, the valley in which Halifax lay, became a new centre for the textile industry in the early 1800s. Just north of Halifax and Northowram were the Black Dyke Mills of Queensbury which produced worsted fabrics (as well as became the home of the famous Black Dyke Mills Brass Band which is still touring). The children had to wake up very early and make the three- or four-mile trudge to this mill to work daily (Sunday was a day off). Several Acts of Parliament had been passed in the 1830s and 40s to limit children’s working hours to 10 a day, with two hours of education. Children under nine were not allowed to be employed. Mill life was hazardous for children and adults and injuries and death were all too common.

As soon as they were old (and strong) enough, George Turner’s sons moved into the stone quarrying industry. According to notes made about the family by a grand-daughter, two of George’s sons were quarry owners who supplied stone for the railway viaducts at Lightcliffe. Bottom Hall Viaduct opened in 1850 so it may have been another viaduct nearby. One son donated bells to the Lightcliffe Parish Church and the other donated bells to Bramley Lane Chapel. No record has been found to substantiate these stories though four of the eight bells of St Matthew’s were apparently purchased through parishioner subscriptions and the Turners may well have been some of those parishioners. [1]

Elizabeth died 11 June 1894 and was buried two days later in the family plot (B72) at St Matthew’s Church, Lightcliffe. George died 02 November 1896, aged 69, and was buried three days later in the same plot. Many of the children who predeceased them were buried in the adjoining plot (B71). There is a headstone in B72 (that has fallen over) with the inscription ‘In Memory of the children of George and Elizabeth Ann Turner of Hipperholme’. [2]

Children of George and Elizabeth

Maria (1848 - ?) was born 12 April 1848 in Bradford. She died 17 June 1859, aged 11, and was buried in Bramley Lane Chapel, Lightcliffe.

Thomas (1849 - 1899) was born 20 December 1849 in Bradford. There is no baptism record for him. It is likely that when he turned nine he started working and at age eleven was working as a worsted spinner. By the time he was an adult, Thomas had joined the stone quarrying industry. He married Eliza Walker (c1850 - 1923) 01 November 1873 at St John the Baptist Parish Church and they had four children: Ada (c1874 - 1925), Harry (c1877 - 1904), Lucy (c1882 - c1961) and Willie (1883 - ?). During the 1890s, Thomas became landlord of the Old Dumb Mill in Hipperholme, which was located on Tanhouse Hill (off the Halifax Road). Thomas died 07 December 1899, aged 49, “… after a lengthy illness” (as reported p11 ‘The Halifax Courier’, 09 December 1899). He was buried four days later in St Matthew’s Church, Lightcliffe, in grave plot O17. Eliza took over as ‘beer house keeper’ and was there until at least 1905. She stayed living in Tanhouse Hill until her death 05 August 1923, aged 72, and was buried in the family plot four days later.

John (1851 - ?) was born in Hipperholme 04 September 1851. He was baptised 10 August 1864 along with Elizabeth, Mary Ann, Abraham and the twins. Like Thomas he was a worsted spinner at age nine but then became a stone dresser by adulthood. Nothing is known of him after 1871.

Sarah Ann (1853 - ?) was born 31 May 1853 in Hipperholme. She died 12 March 1869, aged 15.

Elizabeth Ann (1855 - 1874) was born 13 January 1855 in Hipperholme. She was baptised 10 August 1864 at Coley Chapelry. She also worked in a mill when young like her siblings. She died 12 March 1874, aged 19, and was buried four days later in plot B71 in St Matthew’s Church, Lightcliffe.

Mary Ann (1857 - ?) was born 17 April 1857 in Hipperholme. Like her siblings she was a spinner in a mill. There is no record of her after 1871 and it is possible she died the following year.

Amelia Ann (1859 - 1863) was born 08 April 1859 and died 28 August 1863, aged 4. She was buried in Bramley Lane Chapel, Lightcliffe.

More information about Abraham Schofield (1861 - 1915) appears in Part 3.

Twins Emma and Lucy Ann were born 04 May 1863 in Hipperholme. It is not known what Emma (1863 - 1942) did prior to her marriage to bank clerk George Tillotson Armitage (c1859 - 1948) in 1889. Emma and George lived in Bradford and had two children: John Edward (1890 - 1944) and Kathleen Mary (1901 - ?). Less than a month before Kathleen’s birth, George had travelled to the United States on board the SS Lahn, via Bremen, Germany. The rest of the family followed a year later in October on board the SS Oceanic. They settled in Saratoga Springs, New York State, where George had various jobs, mostly as a labourer. They owned their own home on West Avenue and Emma died in 1942 and was buried in Greenridge Cemetery. George died in 1948.

Lucy Ann (1863 - 1923) worked as a domestic servant in Hipperholme then moved in with her twin in Bradford where she lived for over a decade. After they emigrated, Lucy remained in Bradford, working as a property agent and taking in boarders (unlike lodgers, boarders ate meals with the family). She never married and died in August 1923. She was buried in a family plot in the Ambler Thorn United Methodist Cemetery.

Jonas Greenwood (1865 - 1940) was born 15 February 1865 in Hipperholme. Unlike most of his other siblings he appears not to have been baptised (at least no record has been found so far). By age 16 he was a stone delver. However, twenty years later he had become a leather merchant and would later supply mills with leather belts for their machinery. He married Louisa (Louie) Mitchell (1875 - 1949) 22 December 1904 at Coley Parish Church and they had three children: Jonas Stanley (1907 - 1984), Olive (1908 - c2000) and George Mitchell (1909 - 1935). Jonas died 05 August 1940, aged 75, at the Gibbet Street Institution, a home for the elderly, which had formerly been a workhouse. He left his widow £621 in effects (about £18,000 in today’s money). Louie died 14 November 1949 at St John’s Hospital, Halifax, aged 74.

Martha Hannah (or Ann) (1867 - 1939) was born 1867 in Hipperholme. She was baptised 20 May 1877. It is likely she avoided working in the local mill as she was recorded as a servant, aged 14, for a local merchant along with her older sister Lucy. The 1881 census also listed her as a scholar at home! Although the 1870 Education Act made education compulsory, it was supposed to be for those aged five to thirteen. Children listed as ‘scholars’ sometimes worked rather than attended school, as is likely the case here. Martha married brass finisher Thomas George Thyne Morley (1866 - 1943) at St John the Baptist Parish Church 16 February 1887 and they had seven children: William (c1887 - ?), Edward (1888 - 1962), Lucy Emma (1889 - 1973), George Thomas (c1896 - 1958), Arthur Cole (c1900 - 1900) and two other children who probably died in infancy. Martha died in 1939, aged 72, and Thomas died in 1943, aged 77.

William Henry (1870 - ?) was born 12 January 1870 in Hipperholme. He became a belt maker then a leather merchant. He married dressmaker Elizabeth Ann Robson (c1874 - ?) 27 October 1898 and they had one child, Thomas Robson (1899 - 1967). Thomas was a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I and there is story from his wife’s nephew that he crashed and a joystick went into his stomach! He survived the war. The family lived in Towngate, Hipperholme, which qualified William to vote in elections. It is not known when William or Elizabeth died although it is possible it was before World War II.

Edith Hannah Matilda (1872 - 1875) was known as ‘Annie’. She was born 15 August 1872 and died 14 May 1875, aged 2. She was buried 17 May, in St Matthew’s Chapel, Lightcliffe, in plot B71. 

Next: Abraham Schofield Turner

Footnotes

[1] ‘Illustrated History from Hipperholme to Tong’ by James Parker (Percy Lund Humphries & Co, 1904).
[2] Headstone transcription and burial information from the Friends of St Matthew’s Churchyard (http://www.lightcliffechurchyard.org.uk/)