THE RACES

The Races and the Hunters came together with the marriage of Sarah Race and Alexander Boddie Hunter. When Jane Race married James Horner in 1815, the Races and the Horners were similarly linked. Their son Joseph Race Horner carried both names. Consequently, when Franz Hunter married Ione Chaddock-Lowndes in 1922, granddaughter of Joseph, the above family links were complete. The Races manufactured cloth in Horbury for centuries whilst the Horners lived in nearby Wakefield. My mother Ina grew up in Horbury where I spent many a summer holiday, and both she and her brother Alastair have Race in their names. Ina Elizabeth Race Hunter and Alastair Lowndes Race Hunter. Other relatives also have Race incorporated into their names but the most shining example was Race Hunter, the eldest son of Sarah and Alexander Hunter.

The Races have been established in Horbury, West Yorkshire for centuries. It has also been the home for several of the Hunters. Horbury is located some two miles west of the historic city of Wakefield, close to the M1 motorway, set upon a hill overlooking the valley of the River Calder. In the Domesday Book it was called Orberie. It has a number of notable medieval and Georgian buildings such as Horbury Hall, Nether Hall and Carr Lodge. The latter has a large public park. St Peter & St Leonard’s Church records provide us with many of the baptisms,marriages and burials referred to here. Its 19th century curate, Sabine Baring-Gould wrote the words of the famous hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers”. Novelist Stan Barstow was born here.

BEGINNINGS - From the North Riding to the West Riding

Ryedale in North Yorkshire

This is one of the more difficult starts to any branch of this Family History so far. We can start the Races with the marriage of Richard Race and Ann Abbott in 1680 - as I originally did. Then I discovered a Family Tree at familysearch.com which came as a complete surprise to me. My original premise that Richard Race was born circa 1659, and that he came to Horbury from nearby Altofts was challenged by this Family Tree. We both agreed on the marriage, the date of it, and of it being in Horbury, but the other Tree believed that Richard came from Wintringham in North Yorkshire, and that Ann was from Settrington, 6 miles from Wintringham, both in the Ryedale District.

To me, it doesn't make sense that they would marry in Horbury rather than Ann's Settrington home village, given that they were neighbours. Therefore, although I have decided to go with this new information, I leave open the possibility that it was a different Richard Race ( from Horbury ) who married a different Ann Abbott in Horbury. There were one or two candidates but none as likely looking as those from Ryedale. Therefore, for now, I will start the Races Family History in Ryedale, and in so doing, take the family back a further hundred years. One thing is certain, it was a Richard Race and an Ann Abbott who were the parents of Joshua Race and got my branch of the Races on the right road.

John Wright c.1573 – 1602

Talking of the 'right road, we must now start with a Wright rather than a Race - one might even say the "Wright" road because the Races could not be taken back as far as the Wrights could be. John Wright was born circa 1573 in Wintringham. On the 19 Nov 1594, he married Elizabeth (surname not known) in her home village of Plumtree, in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire. They had 4 children, all born in Wintringham : John Wright b.14 Oct 1596, Elizabeth Wright b.1599 John Wright b.1601– d.1602 , and Jane Wright b.1603. Perhaps the first John Wright also died young like his namesake later. Both have John Wright listed as the father. The other tree gives Edward Wright as a son born in 1595 and in Hartest, Suffolk, but I couldn't find him listed anywhere, and it does seem unlikely. John may have had a brother, Guy, born in 1577 in Wintringham, who had Alis born in 1599, and Jane born in 1600. John died in 1602 and was buried on Nov 16. Jane Wright, born a few months later, therefore, never met her father. It is Jane who we follow next as she meets our first Race. A Richard Race, also from Wintringham.

St Peter's Church, Wintringham Image from Wintringham Church St Mary's Church, Plumtree

All Saints, Settrington

Images at Wintringham Church

Richard Race and Jane Wright

Richard, born circa 1599, and Jane, grew up in the same village, and on 27 April 1624, they were married in Wintringham, at St Peter's Church. They had 6 children: Jane Race 1625–1635, William Race 1625–1694, John Race 1627, Elisabeth Race 1631–1631, Elisabeth Race 1632 and Anne Race 1634. I don't have any deceased dates for either Richard or Jane. It is William Race who we now follow.

William Race 1625 - 1694

William lived in Wintringham all his life. I have found no details of his marriage but his wife was called Dorothy. They had 3 children that I know of. Richard born in 1664, John who was christened 12 March 1667, but who died the day after, and Dorothy who was born in 1670. They were all born in Wintringham. William died in April 1694. Dorothy died about 1675. It's Richard who takes us on to the next stage, and who will relocate the Races to Horbury in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Richard Race 1664
Richard of Wintringham and Ann Abbott of Settrington married on the 4th of May 1680, not in Settrington but in Horbury ( see the Beginnings section too ) Maybe Richard was already working in Horbury, one of the major centres for the Wool Industry. Perhaps work demands made it better for Ann to join him there to be married rather than Richard travel back to the Ryedale area. Ann was born on 03 Feb 1654. She was the daughter of Matthew Abbatt, one of 9 children that I found, and all given this alternative spelling for Abbott.

Matthew's other children were: Robart Abbatt c.15 February 1652, Ann Abbatt b. 3 February 1654, Willyam Abbatt b. 21 February 1656, Francis Abbott b. 17 March 1658, Jane Abbatt b. 6 January 1661, Mary Abbatt c.16 April 1666 , Isabell Abbatt c.11 April 1669, and Matthew Abbatt c. 6 September 1663 - death:18 December 1672.

Richard and Ann had 4 children. Their eldest son, Richard, only lived to be thirteen. Ann was born in in 1686, and Mary in 1691 but no records have been found of marriages for them. Their brother, Joshua, was born in 1688 and baptised on the Ist of January 1689. It is he and his descendants who we must now follow.

Joshua Race 1688 - 1736
Joshua was a clothier by trade. There was a thriving wool industry in the area and Joshua and his family would have seen to all the stages of cloth-making up to the finishing. Then he would have taken his cloth to market and sold it to the cloth finishers. He also leased a small farm which was common practice among clothmakers with anything up to 15 acres. Poultry,pigs, a cow and an ass were usually kept. He may have employed outside weavers if business was good. This was,of course, several decades before the industrial revolution.

Joshua married Faith Mercer on the 27th July 1715 in Horbury. Faith was also from Horbury and born circa 1694. Their first child, John Race, was born the following year. Ann followed in 1718, and Joshua in 1721.

Tragedy then struck the young family with the death of Faith on the 25th of June 1723, leaving three very young children and Joshua a widower at thirty-four. He did the best thing in the circumstances and re-married. His Will tells us that his second wife’s name was Judith, and with Mary born late in 1725, the marriage must have taken place in 1724 or early 1725. Elizabeth Race followed in 1727 and Richard in 1730. There is no mention of Richard in the Will, so he must have died quite young. Hannah and Susannah were born in 1734 and 1736 respectively.

Four months after Susannah’s birth, tragedy was to strike again, this time leaving four young children without their father and three teenagers now without their birth mother or father. Joshua died on the 12th of July 1736 at the age of forty-seven, just six months before his son John married.

His Will was invaluable in giving us the name of his second wife as well as the names of their four children together. It is also a fascinating insight into Joshua himself and the etiquette of the period. Some extracts from his Will, courtesy of fellow genealogist Joe Twitchin:

"In the name of God Amen. I Joshua Race of Horbury in the county of York, Clothmaker being sick and weak in body but of sound and disposing mind and memory praised be God for the same do make and ordain this my last will and testament …..First I commend my soul unto the hands of almighty God who gave it me and my body I commit to the earth to be decently buried at the discretion of my executors herein after named ...

First I bequeath unto my son John the sum of five pounds… if he continue with my wife as an apprentice till that time, but not otherwise ….. the remainder of my personal estate and my tenant right term of years yet to come and unexpired Interest and Title which I have unto the farm I now hold by lease …. I give devise and bequeath the same unto my dear and loving wife Judith and my said son John In trust nevertheless and upon this conditionThat my said Son John Shall abide and continue with my said wife and asist her in the managing the trade looking after the land and educating and bringing up my children ….. one full halfe part thereof unto my dear and loving wife Judith and my four younger Children, Mary, Elizabeth,Hannah and Susannah equally to be divided amongst them…..

And as to the other halfe part of my personal Estate I give devise and bequeath the same unto my three Oldest Children. John Joshua and Ann equally to be divided amongst them, but in case any of my Children die unmarried it is my will & I do hereby order that the Share of him or her dying shall go to and be divided between or amongst the survivors of his orher brothers or sisters of the whole blood …… IN WITNESS whereof I have Hereunto Set my hand and seal this Eighth dayof July in the year of ourLord 1736."

An inventory of his possessions followed which included one horse and two cows located in the lead house; and a pair of looms and a cradle in the chamber house. Baby Elizabeth would never know her dad.

So Judith did what Joshua had done and re-married on the 24th April 1738. Her husband was David Marsden. They had a child, Sarah, born the following year in Horbury, christened on 10 June. John was christened 8 August 1742, and Jeremiah was christened on 11 June, 1746.

Cloth being pressed and packed ready for market

THE CHILDREN OF JOSHUA RACE 1688-1736

John Race 1716

It is Joshua’s eldest son John Race who continues our branch of the Races. He was baptised on the 6th of June 1716 and must have been devastated by the loss of his mother when he was just seven. Fortunately his father saw to it that John and his two younger siblings soon had a mother-figure in their lives again when he married Judith. John became a clothier, like his father, and on the 23rd of February, 1737, he married Elizabeth Spur in Horbury. His father had died the previous year, so neither of John’s parents met their daughter-in-law.

Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of John Spur, a Horbury man who had married Sarah Oxley, also from Horbury, on the 18th November 1713. Joseph was born the following year and Elizabeth in 1716. The Spurs had six children in all, but three of them had died in infancy. Sarah had died before her second birthday, and in 1727, Hannah and John had passed away within two days of each other. But they didn’t give up and their last child, Mary, survived childhood. So Elizabeth Spur, like John Race, had known her fair share of tragedy as she grew up.

Elizabeth and John had six sons and three daughters between 1738 and 1752. Both John and Elizabeth lived well into their eighties according to Horbury Parish records. It is interesting that their children tended to either marry later in life, or not marry at all. By contrast John and Elizabeth were both twenty when they married. We will meet John and Elizabeth's children later in their own section. But now to meet more of Joshua's children.

Anne Race 1718
No further information on Anne other than she was christened on the 30th August.

Joshua Race 1721
Joshua was christened on the 20th May 1721, named after his father. Interesting situation for him when his stepmother, Judith, re-married in 1738. He was by then sixteen and had seen first his mother replaced by a stepmother, then his father replaced by a stepfather. He married Mary Apathorp on the 18th August 1745 in Horbury. This suggests that Mary was also from Horbury but nothing else is known about her. Faith was born a year later, named after Joshua’s mother. Mary followed the next year, and Sarah in 1750. It seemed that the Horbury stork was out of boys, but then it remembered the family hadn’t got a John yet, so one was duly delivered in 1758. Hannah was born in 1763. Such was the mortality rate then, there may have been other children in between. We will meet John Race and his family after this section. We now continue the children of Joshua Race (1688)

Mary Race 1725

The first of Joshua’s children by his second wife, Judith. Christened on the 18th December. No further records.

Elizabeth Race 1727
Christened on the 10th June. May have married John Arlin on the 8th June 1747.

Richard Race 1730
Christened on the 18th May. Almost certainly died young because there is no mention of him in his father’s Will of 1836.

Hannah Race 1734
Christened on the 16th March. She may have married David Black on the 20th March 1763.

Susannah Race 1736
Christened on the 27th of March. Her father died just four months after her birth. No further records.

Rape Threshing

Making Oat Cakes

Bobbing Wheel 1826

John Race 1758 and Susan Craven 1761

John, son of the above Joshua Race (1721) and grandson of Joshua Race (1688) was christened on the 5th July 1758. He married Susan Craven on the 10th of August 1783.
There were two Susan Cravens born in Horbury within a year of each other. Craven was a common surname in the area. John married the younger one who was christened on the 17th of May 1761, daughter of Robert Craven, a clothier by trade, and Sarah Beaumont. Robert Craven, born in 1734, had married Sarah on the 4th April 1759. They had at least three children. Susan’s elder sister Ann born in 1760, and Sarah born in 1763 but who died the following year. Robert died in December 1804.
Susan Craven and John Race kept the Horbury stork very busy having at least eight children, symmetrically spaced apart every two years. Time to meet them.

THE CHILDREN OF JOHN RACE 1758 AND SUSAN CRAVEN 1761

William Race 1784
William was christened on the 31st of May. He was a clothdresser by trade and married Elizabeth Fox, aged 22, on the 23rd of April 1810 in Horbury. George was born the following year, and John in 1813.

Ann Race 1786
Their eldest daughter, Ann, was christened on the 29th January. She married Thomas Howorth on the 2nd of September 1811 in Horbury and moved to Mirfield, Thomas’ home town, not far from Wakefield. They had at least seven children born between 1812 and 1827. Joshua, Mary, Susan, Thomas, Ann, John, and Richard.

John Race 1788 and his Descendents
John was christened on the 6th of July. A clothier by trade, he married Ann when he was only twenty, and their first child, Richard, was born on the 4th of February, 1809.

Richard also became a clothier and married Phebe Mitchell from Ossett, born on April 1st 1816. Phoebe was the daughter of Benjamin Mitchell and Ann Schofield who had married on Dec 30th 1805 in Leeds. Initially, Phebe and Richard had four children, Ann born in 1845, George in 1846, Alice Jane in 1850, and William Schofield Race in 1853, and christened on Christmas Day. Following the death of Ann,they had another child in 1858 whom they also named Ann. They were an accomodating couple who were at ease with the extended family. Phebe’s mother Ann lived with them until she died aged ninety. Then Phebe’s widowed elder sister lived with them until her death in 1883. Richard lived into his eighties, dying in 1892. Phoebe died in 1895.

Mary was John and Ann’s second child, born in 1810. She lived in Mill Lane, Horbury and never married. Sarah was their third child, christened on the 1st of January 1814. No further information is known about her.

Joshua Race 1790
Other than his christening on the 4th of April, no other records have been found for Joshua. A Joshua Race died in the Horbury area in 1839, and this is probably him.

Mary Race 1792
Mary was christened on the 22nd of April and died a pauper at the age of seventeen. The parish records show many people classified as paupers at this time.

Jonathan Race 1794-1795
He was christened on the 30th of March, but sadly died the following year.

Robert Race 1796 See his own section below

Richard Race 1796 See his own section below

Wool-combers celebrate their patron saint St Blaise' Festival on Feb 3rd

Robert Race 1796-1846 and Descendents

Robert was one of twin boys baptized on March 27, 1796 in Horbury. He was a cloth drawer by trade and married Hannah, born 1803, from Wakefield, in 1833, setting up home in Northgate, Horbury. With Robert already thirty-seven and Hannah thirty-one, time was not on their side. Mary was born in 1834, and Joe in 1836. Margaret arrived in 1839, and Robert Junior in 1842. Sadly, Robert was not to enjoy fatherhood very long, passing away aged 50 on April 28,1846. Hannah worked as a charwoman, and teenagers Mary and Joe went to work in a woollen mill. Sarah Outhwaite lodged with them to supplement their income.

Mary married twenty-two year old coalpit carpenter William Braime in 1857. He was from Methley, one of nine children born to joiner William Braime and Rebecca Greaves. Margaret left to be married in 1860, and Joe followed suit. This left just Robert junior, working as a cloth weaver, with his mother at home. Sadly, he died on September 18, 1868, aged only twenty-six, leaving Hannah alone again. Meanwhile, William Braime also died, leaving Mary widowed with children Selina and Robert to bring up.

So Mary moved back to live with her mother Hannah in Horbury. The family all worked as mill hands with Selina leaving in 1878 to marry John Saville Gill. Robert joined his mother Mary in the woollen mill. If it was Poppletons Mill, they might have met the young Alexander Boddie Hunter who was about to marry Sarah Race. The 1891 census has Robert still living with his mother, now fifty-seven, at Northgate. Hannah had passed away in February 23, 1885, at the age of eighty-two. Robert married Mary Gosnay in 1898. Mary died in 1911.

St Paul's Church, Alverthorpe

Clothiers going to Leeds Market.

Richard Race 1796-1864 and Descendents

He was Robert’s twin brother and outlived him by nearly twenty years. Richard grew up in Horbury becoming a wool comber. He was just twenty when he married Mary Ann Briercliff on July 22nd 1816 at Saint John's Church, Wakefield. This was seventeen years before Robert would tie the knot. Ann was born in the spring of 1818 in Horbury, but it would be seven years before Sarah Ann would arrive in the summer of 1825.

By then the couple had moved to Alverthorpe in Wakefield, Mary Ann’s home town. Another three years passed before twins William and Jane were christened on the 28th of April 1830. William may have died very young. John followed the next year, and George in 1833. Susannah was born the following year and Mary in 1836. Four years later with Richard and Mary Ann both now forty-four, they brought Henry into the world, and the next year Susan. With ten children, it was now time to say goodbye to the Horbury Stork.

John Race, a wool dyer, married local girl Elizabeth Parker on November 4th 1852, and together with their daughter, Sarah Ann, lived with Richard and Mary Ann. Jane and Henry were also still with their parents. Richard passed away in 1864 and Mary Ann in 1869. John became an innkeeper in Westgate until his own death in 1880. Elizabeth moved to New Scarbro, Alverthorpe with her family of three, but died a year after her husband at the age of forty-nine. Poor Mary Ann, twelve, Emily, eleven, and Thomas just fifteen, working as a dairy boy, had lost both parents within eighteen months. The 1891 census shows each of them lodging at different places. Mary Ann with the Oades, Emily with the Lees and Thomas with the Cleggs. Mary Ann is now a dressmaker, but Emily is described as living on her own means. She married in 1893. Thomas married around 1896. The 1901 census showed 3 children for Thomas & Clara.

John’s younger brother, George, also in the wool industry, married Ann Blackburn from Sandal Magna in June 1857. Walter was born the following year. Ann’s mother Elizabeth and her younger sister Emma were also part of the household in Alverthorpe. George and Ann moved to Milton Street with Frederick, Alfred, and Harriet added to the family. Now in his forties, George became a shopkeeper of general provisions in Chapel Lane, Walter an iron moulder, and Frederick a tailor. Ann died in the spring of 1887 at the age of fifty-six but within two years George had re-married. Jane Elizabeth Bowers was from Wath Upon Dearne, and twenty years younger than George. They married at Silkstone Parish Church on the 14th of January 1889. They moved to Lawfield Lane, Wakefield together with Harriet. George passed away in 1906.

Henry Race worked as a mechanic, and married Harriet Hollings, eldest daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth of Alverthorpe, in 1866. They lived in Westgate Court with Harriet’s parents and her younger sisters. Lilly was born in 1867 but died in 1871. Minnie was born in 1870. The 1881 census shows the Hollings now in Ossett Road with no Henry resident, but his wife Harriet has changed her name back to Hollings, keeping Race as her middle name. The same had been done for Minnie. The census shows Harriet as married not widowed. Henry, however, does pass away in 1886. We’ll leave Richard’s family there.

Thanks to http://www.maggieblanck.com/Land/WE.htmlfor putting so many pictures out on the web. A wonderful website for Family Historians and those interested in the Yorkshire Weaving Industry and beyond. Bless you Maggie Land Blanck.

Wool-combers still celebrating their patron saint St Blaise' Festival on Feb 3rd

THE CHILDREN OF JOHN RACE 1716 AND ELIZABETH SPUR 1716

At last we return to our direct line of Races after looking at other branches of the family.

Joseph Race 1738-1801
Their first-born, Joseph, named after Elizabeth’s elder brother, is the one who continues our branch of the family. He married twenty-three year old Sarah Fozard on the 22nd of November 1767 with their first child arriving two years later, given the obligatory name of John. Sarah came from nearby Birstall and was the 5th of 13 children born to Thomas and Margaret Fozard. Margaret, born on the 24th of July 1717, was one of the Wormalds of Birstall, daughter of Isaac Wormald and granddaughter of John. Thomas Fozard (b.12 Nov 1704) in Burstall, married Margaret on June 18,1740. He was from nearby Adwalton.

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With Joseph Race, one of nine children, and Sarah, one of thirteen, it looked as if the stork might be paying more than a few visits to their household in Horbury. This may well have been the case because the 5 recorded births I found for them were spread over 18 years between 1769 and 1787. Or perhaps, they decided that fewer children brings a quieter life. After the birth of their second child, Sarah, in 1773, the family moved to nearby Sandal Magna, site of the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, during the Wars of the Roses. The battle is celebrated in the nursery rhyme, ‘the Grand Old Duke of York’. Richard, Duke of York, took his ten thousand men to the top of the hill (Sandal Castle)

Here Jane was born in 1783. Thomas and Joseph following in 1785 and 1787 respectively. More about their children later in their own section. Joseph was probably a cropper by trade, like his brother John and his son John. He was one of the benificieries of his bachelor brother Richard’s Will in 1797.
“….I do Give and Bequeath unto my Brother Joseph Race for and during the Term of his natural Life one annuity or clear yearly sum of Thirty one Pounds and Ten Shillings of lawful Money of great britain to be Paid to him by my Executors herin after named half yearly and the first payment thereof to begin and be made at the End of Six Months next after my decease…”

A nice little gift for Joseph as he approached his sixtieth birthday.

Sandal Castle Wall

John Race 1739
As Elizabeth had chosen their first child’s name, it was her husband John’s turn now, and after long deliberation, he went for ... John. Elizabeth was also happy with this choice as her own father and one of her brothers was called John. Thus the young man was christened John Race on December 1st, 1739. John was a cropper by trade. Cropping was one of the final stages in cloth production, and though difficult on the wrists, you could earn a good wage, particularly if you had your own cropping shop. No records have been found of John marrying or children for him. So we must presume that like Richard, he remained a bachelor.

Joshua Race 1741
Joshua was John and Elizabeth's third son in a row, so Elizabeth had to put the dresses away again while John mused on soon having his own cricket team here in Horbury. No records found of Joshua marrying, although a Hannah Race was born to a Joshua Race in 1763. She is more likely to be a daughter of Joshua’s uncle, also called Joshua. He died in August 1791 and the Transcription of Horbury Baptisms and Burials show him to have been a pauper, not uncommon for those times.

Sarah Race 1743
At last Joshua and Elizabeth could get out those dresses with Sarah’s entry into the world. She was the first of five Sarah Races to make her way onto the tree. She was christened on the 2nd September 1743. She married William Chapman on the 5th August 1770.
No records have been found thereafter.

Richard Race 1745-1797
Dresses back in the wardrobe and the cricket team up to four. Richard was born on the 15th April 1745. He was a manufacturer by trade. He never married; in his own words, “A bachelor In the Name of God Amen.” He died on the 25th May, 1797, and as with his grandfather Joshua, his Will gives us good information and insight. With no family of his own, the main beneficieries are his brother George and nephew, John. Perhaps he lived with George’s family. His brother Joseph (our branch of the family) and sister Anne are also remembered. Here is an extract from it:

“The Will of Richard Race of Horbury 1797…….. Manufacturer being weak in Body but of sound and disposing mind Memory and Understanding praised be Almighty God for the same…… I Give devise and Bequeath unto my Brother George Race of Horbury aforesaid Manufacturer and to my nephew John Race Eldest Son of my Brother George Race All my Freehold and Copyhold Messuages Cottages Lands Tenements and Hereditaments whatsoever situate lying and being in Horbury aforesaid or Elsewhere in the County of York with their and every of their Appurtenances the Copyhold parts whereof I have already surrendered to the Use of this my Will,

To hold the same to them their Heirs and Assigns for Ever as Tenants in Common and not as joint tenants Subjects nevertheless to and Charged and Chargeable with the payments of my Debts Funeral and tesyamentary Expenses and also to the Annuity and several legacies herein after mentioned. i do Give and Bequeath unto my Brother Joseph race for and during the Term of his natural Life one annuity or clear yearly sum of Thirty one Pounds and Ten Shillings of lawful Money of great britain to be Paid to him by my Executors herin after named half yearly and the first payment thereof to begin and be made at the End of Six Months next after my decease.

I also Give and Bequeath unto my Sister Ann the wife of Timothy Knowles the sum of One Hundred Pounds to be paid to her, her Executors………All the rest Residue and remainder of my personal Estate and Effects whatsoever and wheresoever and of what Nature or Quality soever I give and Bequeath the same and every part thereof unto my said Brother George Race and to my said nephew John Race.

James Race 1746
James was the 5th son, leaving Sarah still awaiting her first sister. Good news for the budding cricket team however. James was christened on the 14th of November. No more details on James, or whether he batted or bowled.

Anne Race 1747- 1821
With the birth of Ann in 1747, Sarah had a sister to go with her four brothers. Ann was christened on the 23rd October. She was one of the beneficieries of Richard’s will to the tune of one hundred pounds. She married Timothy Knowles on the 27th November 1768 in Horbury. Timothy, son of Joseph Knowles,was christened on the 14th December 1743 in Horbury, though records suggest he was actually born in Halton, Leeds. Timothy was very much a family name with his grandfather and greatgrandfather having it also.

Sally Knowles was their first-born in 1769 and John their second-born in 1771. Timothy, Ann, Elizabeth, and Susannah completed the list of known children. Timothy died on the 4th of August 1812, and Anne passed away on the 11th February 1821. We will return to the Knowles later because they marry into our direct line of the Races as well as this indirect one.

George Race 1749
George was christened on the 28th October and looked to be following in his bachelor brother Richard’s footsteps. He was a clothing manufacturer in true Race tradition. His fortieth birthday came and went and soon he was nearer to fifty than forty. Marriage didn’t seem to be on the cards for him. However thirty-year old Hannah Goodall had other ideas and on May 3rd 1795, she got her man. Richard Race, nevertheless, remained impressed with his brother’s fortitude in holding out so long and left most of his estate and effects to George in his will. Although very young, George and Hannah’s son John must have made a strong impression on his uncle because he is specifically mentioned in the will ...

"I Give devise and Bequeath unto my Brother George Race of Horbury aforesaid Manufacturer and to my nephew John Race Eldest Son of my Brother George Race All my Freehold and Copyhold Messuages Cottages Lands Tenements and Hereditaments."

John is referred to as their eldest son, but as far as I can determine he was their only son with Betty,their only daughter born in 1807. Rather a special birth with dad in his fifty-eighth year and mum in her forty-third.

William Race 1751
William was the sixth of John and Elizabeth’s sons. No more on William, other than he was christened on the 27th May.

Betty Race 1752
It’s not clearcut whether Betty was christened on the 24th June 1753 or the 25th April 1752. Either way she was the third girl in the family and the youngest child. It looks as if the Horbury Stork was not such a cricket fan after all. Like George before her, Betty took her time before marrying. The lucky man was Thomas Potter and the 26th of January,1789 was the date. In France, a revolution was about to take place but in Horbury, it was business as usual with the cloth-making and farming. I don’t know where Thomas was born but he was almost certainly not from Horbury, though this is where they decided to live. They became parents in 1791 when Betty junior saw the light of day and was duly christened on the August 20. No other children have been found and given Betty’s age at marriage, this was probably the case.

18th Century lathe machine tool

Leeds and the River Aire in the 17th Century

THE CHILDREN OF JOSEPH RACE (1738) AND SARAH FOZARD ( our ancestors)

John Race 1769
John was their eldest son born in 1769 and christened in March. By trade he was a cropper. Cropping was one of the final stages in cloth production; and though difficult on the wrists, you could earn a good wage, particularly if you had your own cropping shop. I doubt he was a great fan of William Cartwright and his new cloth frames, which from 1809 began to put the croppers out of business. The Luddite attack on Cartwrights Mill on April 11th was a historical landmark, and there were other incidents in the Horbury area. John, therefore, lived in interesting times. Later he became a Woollen Spinner.

He married Ann, born 1777, just before the new century dawned. The gravestone opposite records Ann's death on 13 July 1832, aged 55, as well as John's on 9 Nov 1856, and their daughter Mary's on 12 June 1883. Mary was born in 1810. There was another daughter, Ann, born in 1805. Neither married and two censuses show them with John in his old age.

Mary Race 1770
Mary was christened in December. Nothing else for her.

Sarah Race 1773
Sarah was Joseph and Sarah’s eldest daughter and was christened in April of 1773. She married Benjamin Mitchell on the 4th January, 1793 in Sandal Magna where the family now lived. Benjamin was thirty years old and from Horbury. Their first child was christened Joseph, after his maternal grandfather, on the 14th Sptember 1794 in Sandal Magna. Ann Mitchell was born on the 9th January 1796 and christened on the 23rd of February at the New Or Zion Independent Church in Wakefield. Whether or not Nancy, born on the 7th of December 1799 or Hannah born on the 2nd of July 1803, and both christened at the Ossett Green Independent Congregational Church both in Ossett, are their children is not certain. Their parents are recorded as Benjamin and Sarah, and Ossett is close to Wakefield.

Jane Race 1783 VIP
Jane Race is one of the key members of the family tree and quite unique. As a Race, she connects to the Hunter branch of the tree which will marry into the Races. So she was my great-great-great-grandaunt on this my mother’s paternal side. When she married James Horner on the 19th June 1815 at Saint John, Wakefield, she connected the Races to the Horners, and so she was my great-great-great grandmother on my mother’s maternal side. With the Horners connecting to the Chaddock-Lowndes, Jane was the link from the Hunters (via the Races) therefore, to the Chaddock-Lowndes. In short, Jane connects everyone!
Back to Jane in her original guise as a Race. She was born in 1783 in Sandal Magna—her parents new home—and christened on the 16th of November. Further details for Jane are in the Horners section under James Horner.

Thomas Race 1785-1860 VIP
It is Thomas who continues our branch of the Family Tree. He was christened Thomas on the 31st July in Sandal Magna, named after his maternal grandfather Thomas Fozard. So a new name was added to the Race collection. Thomas was a farmer of some thirty- five acres and on the 27th July, 1823, he married Mary Holt in Horbury.

The Holts like the Races were long-established in Horbury. Her father, William Holt, had married Mary Whitaker on the 14th August 1777 at All Saints, Wakefield. He was just seventeen at the time. William had been born late in 1759 ... a year that his parents Luke and Mary would, sadly, never forget. Their daughter Mary had died a month after her birth, and her brother Luke, a month later aged one. But with the birth of William at the end of the year, there was some light at the end of the tunnel. Eleven years later, Ann was born. Although William married so young, I have only been able to find two children for him. William born in 1779, and Mary born in 1783. Both went on to live long lives.

When Mary married Thomas Race, she was a month from her fortieth birthday and she wasted no time in starting a family. Her husband put farming thoughts to one side, and Thomas was born in 1824 and Joseph in 1825. I don’t know if Thomas’ father, Joseph was also a farmer, or whether Thomas started from scratch. Thomas junior and Joseph worked on their father’s farm which gradually increased in size. From now on in, the nineteenth century censuses play a key part in gathering information. The 1851 census has the family living at Horbury Green minus Thomas who had married. Joseph would remain a bachelor throughout his life.

Thomas died midway though 1860, and the 1861 census has Mary as head of house, living with Joseph. She passed away early in 1869.

Joseph Race 1787
Joseph named his fifth child after himself. He was christened on the 29th of July in 1787 in Sandal Magna. A Joseph Race married Sarah Inman on December 26, 1825 in Ecclesfield, Sheffield. A Joseph Race married Elizabeth Ellis in 1810 in Darton. One of these is probably him.

St Helen's Church, Sandal Magna

THE CHILDREN OF THOMAS AND MARY RACE continuing our direct ancestors

Joseph Race 1825-1901
He was christened on the 1st of January 1826 in Horbury, the younger of Thomas’ two sons. He worked at the family farm but while his brother eventually inherits the farm, Joseph is only referred to as a farm labourer in the census returns. He remained a bachelor and stayed with his parents. When his father died in 1860, he remained with his mother in Horbury Green until her death in 1869. Then he lived with his brother and sister-in-law Martha at Northfield House. Martha died in 1884 but Thomas lived until 1894. The 1891 census records Joseph’s nephew William and his second wife, Sarah, now living at Northfield House and in charge of the farm but no sign of Joseph and Thomas. Their whereabouts are yet to be established. Joseph died early in 1901.

Thomas Race 1824-1894 VIP
Thomas was born on May 13th, 1824, and Christened on the 20th of June. He worked on his father’s farm alongside his brother Joseph. He married Martha Stringer in February 1849. She was one of five children born to William Stringer and Sarah Knowles. Martha was born on January 18th, 1823 and christened the following day. She had a twin sister Mary (See Stringer section) Also note the tombstone photo at the foot of this page, which has Thomas, Martha and their son William Thomas.

William Thomas Race was born in 1849, and Sarah Elizabeth in 1856. Thomas continued to work for his father on the farm until Thomas senior’s death in 1860. As the eldest son, he now inherited the farm with Joseph working as a farm labourer. Their mother Mary died in 1869 at the grand old age of eighty-six. By 1871, the farm was sixty acres with four employees, extended to one hundred and twenty acres with seven employees by 1881. Northfield House was the family home; a place I knew well as a child in the 1960s.

William was their first child to leave and get married in 1874, to Elizabeth Sunderland. Sarah followed suit in 1878 when she married Alexander Boddie Hunter. More about both in their own sections. The 1881 census shows Joseph continuing to live with Thomas and Martha at Northfield House with servant Annie Gill. Their daughter Sarah’s eldest son, Race Hunter is staying with them. Sarah’s choice of christian name for him must have particularly pleased them.

Sarah had also presented them with their second grandson, Sherwood, the previous year. William had also given them a grandchild in 1876, Martha Ann Race. Both Martha’s name and her mother’s included in her little granddaughter’s. These should have been happy times for Martha and Thomas but fate decreed otherwise. Tragically their daughter-in-law, Elizabeth had died in 1879. This was to be a period of great loss for Thomas particularly. In 1882, little Martha Ann followed her mother Elizabeth to the grave, aged just five. Then his wife Martha passed away on June 17, 1884. He must have felt as devastated as poor William. A terrible void in his life made worse by his daughter Sarah moving to Germany in the late 80s. Little Martha Ann gone and now Race and his other grandchildren across the English Channel.
.

Exactly what he did after that is not known. He was still living at Northfield House in 1887 as recorded by White’s Directory.

By the 1891 census it is William who is head of house at Northfield with his second wife, Sarah. She was his cousin, the daughter of George Green (see elsewhere on this page) No sign of Thomas or his brother Joseph in this or any other census for 1891. Presumably, William had now taken over the management of the farm and inherited the family residence. Thomas died on March 30,1894 but his and Joseph’s whereabouts for that period are not as yet known. If ever a man knew the meaning of loss it was Thomas Race.

At this point, before moving on to William Race, we should put two families into context: the Stringers and the Sunderlands. The former played an integral part in the life of Thomas Race, and the latter, of William Race. We can also add the Greens who play an interestig part in our Family Tree.

Women collecting leeches for medicine

John Marshall 1765-1845. His mills below.

St Peter's Convent, Horbury 1885

THE STRINGERS

William Stringer 1798-1861 and Sarah Knowles 1797-1873

Martha Stringer’s marriage to Thomas Race in 1849 linked the Stringers to the Races and ultimately the Hunters, though she wasn’t the first Stringer to marry a Race as we will see. Martha and her twin sister Mary were the eldest children of William Stringer and Sarah Knowles of Horbury. They had married on the 22nd of August 1822. Sarah Knowles (also known as Sally) was the grand-daughter of Ann Race who in turn was the Great Aunt of Sarah’s husband Thomas Race. Thus Sarah was already related to her son-in-law Thomas. Sarah, born in 1797, was the daughter of John Knowles and Hannah Pearson.

William Stringer, baptised on 7 April, 1798, was a basketmaker like his father Benjamin. The Pigot's Directory of 1834 lists him. He also farmed and was involved with housing and property. Having had two daughters and two sons between 1822 and 1826, he and Sarah surprised everyone with the birth of Elizabeth in 1839. This gave them the pleasure of still having a child about the house, long after the others had married and moved on. The 1861 census showed them having left Stringer Lane and moved to Back Lane. Their daughter Mary’s child Maria was staying with them, as was Charles J M Fierville, a French Language Teacher and his wife Elizabeth, twenty years his senior.

William was nearing the end of his days and passed away a few months later on October 20, 1861. Sarah was living alone by the 1871 census, and died in the summer of 1873 at the age of seventy-five.

THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM AND SARAH STRINGER

Martha Stringer 1822-1884
See under Thomas Race for details

Mary Stringer 1822 and George Green 1822-1915 - The Stringers meet the Greens.

Mary was Martha’s twin sister, christened on the 19th of January 1823. She married twenty-three-year-old George Green, a book keeper, also from Horbury, in the Spring of 1846, and they set up home in Lidgate. We will return to William and Sarah's children later, but at this point, we will take a look at the Greens, and in particular Christianus Green whose family started the American branch of the Horbury Greens, and who would play a part in the lives of the Hunters in due course.

THE GREENS

I must start this section by acknowledging the wonderful research carried out by Howard W Green, great-grandson of Jesse Green of Horbury. I was slowly working through the Green's American connection using FamilySearch.com's excellent resources when I suddenly 'googled' Christianus Green. I didn't expect to find anything as comprehensive as Howard's very informative website. This shows the importance of using 'Google' as a genealogical resource as well as using specialist genealogy websites. Howard Green's information has turned this section into a far more detailed piece than intended, and many thanks are extended to him.

We start with George Green who was born on 24 January 1822, and christened on April 7. It was he who would eventually connect to the Stringers, Races, and Hunters. However we have an American adventure to undertake before we study George in detail. He was the youngest of seven children born to Christianus Green and Sarah Firth who had married in Horbury on the 4th of November 1804. Sarah was christened in Horbury on April, 4th 1779. She was the daughter of William Firth, born 1743, and Phebe Roberts, born 1745. More of Sarah, and of George's siblings later. Our focus is now on George's father.

The Great St Leger Stakes, Doncaster 1836 The-Shepherds-Arms-Nether Hall, Horbury

Christianus Green was born in Norton, Yorkshire in 1780, and christened on Christmas Day. He was the son of Thomas Green who was born in nearby Doncaster in 1757. There were two Thomas Greens born in Doncaster that year. One was christened on January 20, the son of Tommy Green, the other on January 3, the son of William. The latter had sisters named Ann, Betty, and Elizabeth, and both Thomases had brothers named John and Richard. Whichever is our Thomas, the trail ends there for now, with his mother unknown.

On August 20, 1778, Thomas married Martha Baraclough in Campsall. She was christened on April 7, 1760 in Campsall, the daughter of John Baraclough. John was born in 1737, the son of Rowland Baraclough, who had married twenty-year-old Hannah Dickinson on May 14, 1734 at Kirk Bramwith, Doncaster. She was the daughter of Johannis Dickinson.

Thomas and Martha Green started their married life in Campsall where John Green was christened on July 29, 1779. The following year, Christianus was born. Thomas was born in 1782, but must have died because another Thomas was christened on October 5, 1786. Similarly, two sons were named William, the first born in 1785, and the second in 1788. Their only daughter born in Campsall was Sarah, who was christened on January 12, 1784. Richard completed their family when he was christened on July 19, 1790. Thomas was a carpenter by trade, and also a Wesleyan Methodist.

Sometime before 1796, Thomas and Martha moved to Horbury, Wakefield, where Maria and Joshua were born and christened at St Peter and St Leonard church on December 04, 1796. Whether they were twins is not certain, though likely, because it is christenings not birth dates which Parish Registers record. Similarly, burial dates not dates of death are recorded. The move to Horbury led to Thomas and Martha's family doubling in size, although not without great misfortune. Ann became their third daughter when she was born the following year, and christened on December 04, 1797. Joseph was christened on October 07, 1798, and James on January 04, 1801. George brought their children to 12 in total when he was born in 1802, and christened on Boxing Day. Two years later, tragedy was to strike four times in a period of less than three months: 16-year-old William was buried on October 06, 1804; 3-year-old James was buried on November 19; 6-year-old Joseph was buried on December 01. Finally, on January 01,1805, 8-year-old Joshua was buried.

Christianus' marriage to Sarah Firth on November 04 was one ray of light during that dark period. He and Sarah presented Thomas and Martha with their second grandchild when William Green was born later in 1805. Their first grandchild, Alary, had been born a few months earlier to their eldest son Thomas and his wife Betty, and christened on June 2nd at St Peter and St Leonard's. But grandparents Thomas and Martha hadn't quite finished being new parents themselves. On May 26, 1806, four years after George's birth, and 27 years after their eldest child's birth, Martha Green was christened at St Peter and St Leonard's. So Alary and William had an aunt younger than they were.

Thomas and Richard Green became carpenters like their father, but Christianus became a weaver. He was also a devout Wesleyan Methodist. We are fortunate to have an interesting and detailed profile of him from the Wesleyan Recorder of 1899. “A local worthy of middle height, well-built frame, florid complexion, quick eye and close cropped hair, he was a man to arrest attention; and wearing, as he did on Sundays, kerseymere knee breeches and leggings, a white handkerchief, and broad-brimmed hat, he presented a striking and picturesque appearance. And his character corresponded; he was a man of mark and individuality, having an extensive acquaintance with men and things, and being able to speak well on most subjects, he was ever welcome in public and private, and for miles around his discourses were listened to with intense delight. In politics he was a liberal. A loyal subject, he nevertheless sympathised with those who were seeking reform both in Church and State. Christianus went to America in 1844, and settled in the State of Wisconsin. His moral and intellectual worth was at once recognized, and by resolution of those in authority his name was put at the top of the plan. He lived in the land of his adoption thirteen years, ever zealous for the best interests of the people, and died in 1857, a true Christian and an honest Radical reformer”.

Christianus and Sarah were still in Yorkshire at the time of the 1841 census for Alvethorpe. But they were about to change that. In March 1844, both now aged sixty-three, they decided to follow their sons to America, and start a new life of their own. They arrived in Dover, Wisconsin on May 14, and soon Christianus exchanged weaving for farming as the 1850 census for Dover recorded. His son John was living next door, having also turned from weaving to farming. Lots of grandchildren for Christianus and Sarah to get to know. It must have been a terrible blow for them when John died at the age of forty-eight leaving such a young family. They would have recalled the tragic events in Horbury at the time of their own marriage.

Then Christianus died on December 20, 1856, just seven weeks after John. Sarah and John's wife Caroline would have been a great comfort to each other, as well as to the children. Sarah passed away two years later on March 6, 1859. She was buried in the Weston Cemetery in Elizabeth, Jo Daviess, alongside Christianus. They had come along way since Horbury, and their children and grandchildren would be part of the building of a relatively new nation just as they had been.

Elizabeth, Jo Daviess County, Illinois Weston Cemetery in Elizabeth

The Children of Christianus Green and Sarah Firth

William Green 1805-1877

Christianus and Sarah's first child was christened William Green on August 11, 1805. He married Ann Wood in 1835, and they settled in Church Street, Horbury. William became a weaver like Christianus. Elizabeth was born the following year and christened on the 16th of September. She worked in a cotton mill, as did her brothers who became weavers like their father. Henry was born in 1841, James in 1844, and George in 1846. Sadly Ann died in the 1850s with her children still in their teens. The family moved to the Schoolyard and then the Ring of Bells Yard. William died in 1877.

Before we meet the sons who moved to the USA, here's some background to the area they settled in. Northern Illinois borders South Wisconsin with Iowa to the West. Wisconsin became a territory in 1836 with an appointed governor, and a population of about 12,000 inhabitants. Yorkville is a town in Racine County, Wisconsin, founded primarily by farmers immigrating from Cornwall. It was organized on February 7, 1842 and included what are now parts of Raymond, Norway, and Dover. Dover itself was first settled in 1836. Jo Daviess County in Northwest Illinois, was formed in 1827, and named after Major Joseph Hamilton Daveiss. It's known for its rolling hills and beautiful views. Galena is the county seat. Elizabeth, named after a brave settler Elizabeth Armstrong, is a village in Jo Daviess County. Weston Cemetery is in Elizabeth township. Previously, Weston was a seperate village. Minnesota borders Wisconsin on the West.

John Green 1808-1856

Christianus and Sarah's second child was John Green, born on the 24th of January 1808. He also became a weaver, though once he had settled in the US, he became a farmer. He married Caroline Stead of Netheroyd Hill, Huddersfield in 1842 in Elland, Yorkshire. She was the daughter of William Stead and Lucy Ann Stoney. Caroline was born on the 29th of September 1823. I understand that John was the first of the Greens to go to the USA. If his brother Jesse went in 1841, John must therefore have gone earlier, maybe alone, because his marriage above places him in Yorkshire in 1842.

John and Caroline's first child, George, was born in April 1843 in Wisconsin, according to the 1900 census, which is the only census which gives months of birth. Five other censuses support 1843 as his likely year of birth, all of which were taken in May or June. However the IGI recorded the year as 1842, and names the place Dover in Wisconsin. His parents are listed as John Green and Caroline Oden. The 1850 census on October 22nd recorded his age as eight, which supports the IGI date. If George was born between June and October in 1842, he would indeed be eight as the 1850 census suggests, and would still be seven as the other censuses record him. So no contradiction there.

The real mystery is why the IGI record George's mother as Caroline Oden rather than Caroline Stead. John definitely married Caroline Stead because her surname appears as the middle name of later descendants. Also her daughter Lucy Ann is named after her mother, Lucy Ann Storey. I investigated Caroline Oden further, and discovered a Caroline Oden from Yorkshire married a John Green on December 27, 1840 in Dover, Wisconsin. She was born in Yorkshire in 1821, the daughter of Richard and Judith Oden, who had married in 1818. This marriage date ties in with George Green being born in 1842. The 1850 census has Caroline as being aged twenty-nine. This points to Caroline Oden rather than Caroline Stead, who would have been twenty-six. The 1870 census has Caroline aged forty-seven, which points to Caroline Stead. Although censuses and IGI records are not totally reliable, there are nevertheless major contradictions here. I have found no death for a Caroline Green in circa 1842. Were there two John Greens from England living in Wisconsin? We must leave the matter open for now.

George Green became a carpenter, and married Frances Meakey in 1866 in Pecatonia, Illinois. They had three children: William Henry(who died in infancy) George Elbert, and Mabel Caroline. They moved from Jo Daviess County to Rock County, Minnesota during the 1880s. George died in 1910.

John and Caroline Green's second child was Lucy Ann Green. She was born on September 30, 1844 in Yorkville, Racine, Wisconsin, and named after her maternal grandmother. Lucy Ann didn't marry, and died on February 18, 1878 in Weston, Illinois. Howard Green's notes poignantly tell us: "Her gravestone in Weston Cemetery is shared by Christianus and Sarah on one side, Jesse and Martha, on another, Henry and Sarah on a third, and she and her parents on the fourth side."

Their third child was Henry Green, born in May, 1846 in Wisconsin. He married Harriet Theresa Brookfield of Sugar Grove, Illinois in 1881. They had two sons, Charles Henry Green and Howard Stead Green. Henry was a banker and a lawyer, and he died in Sterling, Illinois in 1912.

Frances Green was their fourth child, born on February 2, 1849 in Yorkville, Wisconsin. She married William Bennett, but died in childbirth on November 14, 1873 in Sterling, Illinois. Her daughter was also called Frances.

Emmaline Green was their 5th child. She was born in April, 1851, and married Warren Badger, from New York, in 1874 in Dixon, Illinois. They lived in Amboy, Illinois where Warren was a grocer. They had five children: Henry, Frances, John, Earl and Lucy.

John and Caroline's last child was Albert Stead Green born in Weston, Jo Daviess on the 9th of April 1853. He was a physician by profession, and Howard Green noted that he "attended his uncle, Jesse Green in 1887 when the latter received a fatal injury in a fall." Albert married twenty-seven-year-old Estella Josephine Wells of Ohio, daughter of Walter Chester Wells and Orlinda Sinclair Barrows, on January 6, 1881 in Warren, Illinois. They had five children: John A Green born in Oct 1881 Walter Chester Green, Feb 1883, Harry Leslie Green, Dec 1884, Frances Vassa Green, Feb 1880, and Frank W Green 1890 . They were all born in Wisconsin. The family had moved to Rockford Ward 4, Winnebago, Illinois by the time of the 1900 and 1910 censuses. Albert died on 01 Jun 1911 in Rockford, Illinois, and Estella in 1933.

Sadly John didn't live long enough to see his children grow up. He died on November 23, 1856 in Weston at the age of just forty-eight, a month before his father died. Caroline lived to be eighty-six, passing away on August 10, 1909 in Luverne, Minnesota ... where her son George lived.

Jesse Green 1810-1887

Christianus and Sarah's third child was another boy whom they christened Jesse on June 10, 1810 in Horbury. He married Martha Hanson on Christmas Day 1830 at Sandal Magna, which is just outside Horbury. Martha was born on November 09, 1809, and christened on March 04, 1810, the daughter of weaver James Hanson and Sarah. She and Jesse started their married life in Horbury where Jesse was a weaver like his brothers. Jesse and Martha's first child, John Hanson Green, was born in Horbury on June 29, 1831. He married Margaret Lowry from the Isle of Man, and they lived in Illinois where John farmed. They had six children: Benjamin, John Gilbert, Sarah, Rhoda May, Phoebe (named after John's maternal grandmother) and Daniel Homer. John died on May 3rd, 1909. In Howard Green's notes it says that John Hanson "Arrived in the U.S. in 1839 at the age of eight." I don't know the source, but it suggests that he stayed with someone other than his parents who were surely still in Horbury.

George Hanson Green was born on November 23, 1832, and married Mary Tredinnick. They had two children, Martha and Walter, and lived in Weston, Illinois, where George farmed. George died on September 1st, 1909, four months after his brother John. There is a nice newspaper biography of George's life towards the end of the Greens section, showing the respect that was held in. Also a picture of Washoe Valley, Nevada where he lived for 5 years.

Christianus was born on October 02, 1834. He was known as Christopher, and he married Catherine Winkless in 1857. They lived in Carson City, Nevada, and had two daughters, Frances Isabella and Lulu Martha. Christopher died on October 21, 1905. Mary died on June 11, 1892.

Jesse and Martha's first daughter was Mary, born on October 15, 1836. She married William Reynolds, also from England, in 1857. They lived in Illinois and had six children: Anna, Martha Ann, George, James, Sarah, and Jesse. Mary lived to be ninety-two.

Two more daughters followed for Jessie and Martha, both born in Horbury. Sarah, born in 1838, and Jane in 1840. Sarah married William G Mahaney and died in Wisconsin in 1917. Jane married Edward Boddy, and lived in Iowa where she died in 1927.

At this point, Jesse and Martha decided to emigrate to America. The history of Wright County, Iowa, has this entry, written about 1914, for Jesse: "Jesse Green was born in 1810, and was a native of Yorkshire, England. He was a son of Christianus and Martha Green. He came to America and settled in Jo Daviess county, Illinois, where he was employed for a time in the zinc mines near Galena, after which he bought a farm and for the remainder of his active life followed agriculture. Mr. Green was married in England to Martha Hanson, also a native of Yorkshire, and a daughter of James Hanson and his wife, both of whom lived and died in England".

Jesse and Martha left for the USA in 1841 and settled in Jo Daviess county, Illinois. The November 1850 census for Weston Village, Jo Daviess, Illinois, tells us that Thomas Green was Jesse and Martha's first American-born child in 1843. He may have died in 1860. Eldest sons John and George are recorded as farmers. Other census entries suggest that Weston Village was very much an immigrant community. Jesse was away from home at the time of this census. He was mining in Mathinias Creek, El Dorado, California, sharing accommodation with Welshmen, Thomas Griffith and Edward Vaughan.

James Green was the next born on March 06, 1845. He was the grandfather of Howard Green, and so made this part of the Family History possible. Interesting that he initially became a spinner, and like his father, he eventually went into Agriculture. He was also a committed Methodist, and a Justice of the Peace. He married Sarah Jane Combellick in 1869, and they had six children: Edith Naomi, Charles Cyrus, John Wilbur, Jesse Arthur, Dot Emaline, and Gilbert James. James died in 1919.

William H Green and Hanna M Green were Jesse and Martha's next children. The 1850 census records them as one year olds in November, so they were probably twins. Hanna married Robert Boddy (her sister Jane had earlier married Edward Boddy) and lived until 1921. They had three children, Millard, Lester, and Rena. The 1880 census has a Henry Green, aged 30, living with Jesse and Martha. I think this is William. He died in Iowa in 1922. David Green was born in 1852, but died the same year. Joseph Green was also born in 1852, living until 1943. He married Louisa Krell, and they had a son called Loras.

Jesse and Green lived in Winslow, Stevenson County for four years circa 1860. Jessie had become a naturalised U.S. citizen on 17 March 1853. They eventually moved to Council Hill, Jo Daviess where the 1880 census records both Jesse and his son, Henry (William) as nursery men. Jesse died on May 10, 1887 in Weston, Jo Daviess County, and Martha on October 29, 1889 in Christian Hollow, Stephenson County, Illinois.

Henry Green 1819-1892

Henry was born on February 13, 1819 in Horbury. The 1841 English census showed him living with Christianus and Sarah in Alvethorpe, Yorkshire, along with his brother George. He married Sarah Roberts on May 23, 1845. Sarah was born in Horbury on June 13, 1818, the daughter of William and Hannah Roberts. In the Autumn of 1841, Henry and Sarah moved to Galena, Illinois, where Henry soon made his mark. This was lead mining country, and Henry became a lead smelter and dealer. He and Sarah didn't have any children of their own, but they assisted Henry's nephew James in the bringing up of his children.

Howard Green's notes for Henry say: "Note on the back of photograph of Edith Naomi Green, granddaughter of Henry's brother, Jesse, states that she and her brothers, Cyrus and Wilbur, were born in the home of their father's Uncle Henry, and that she spent several years as a child living in the house of Henry Green. I don't know what circumstances led to this arrangement. Their father, James Green, would have been 25 years of age when Edith was born in 1870. A fourth child, Jesse, was also born in Illinois, in 1874. The youngest two children of James and Sarah, Dot and Gilbert, were born in Sheffield, Iowa in 1881 and 1884.

The 1870 census recorded twelve-year-old Enoch B Green also staying or living with Henry and Sarah at Elizabeth, Illinois. Enoch's relation to them was not recorded, but his father was born in Tennessee, and his mother in Illinois. So he was not their son, but presumably a relative. So Henry and Sarah, not having children of their own, were happy to have children in their house. James Green was superintendant of a 1900 acre farm during this six year period, and so the above arrangement was fine until he and Sarah moved to Sheffield, Iowa in 1877. Henry then turned his hand to farming as the 1880 census recorded. He was also a prominent figure in local politics, and became a state senator.

I found this reference to his political career: "James Rogers ... was, in 1875, appointed lay delegate to the Rock River Annual Conference, held at Joliet, Illinois, by which conference Hon. Henry Green, of Elizabeth, was appointed lay representative to the General Conference held at Baltimore in 1876." Of all the Jo Daviess's notable residents, Henry has the longest entry at the County's website. He also had "Hon" in front of his name.

Sarah died on February 07, 1892 in Weston, Jo Daviess County, and Henry died seven weeks later on March 27, 1892. They didn't have their own family, but they had each other.

Racine County, Wisconsin Galena, Jo Daviess County, iIllinois

Washoe Valley, Nevada

The Children of Christianus Green and Sarah Firth Continued

Henry Green 1812

Henry was born on July 13, 1812 in Horbury, but died sometime before 1819.

Sarah Green 1816-1823

Sarah was Christianus and Sarah's only daughter. She was born on September 15, 1816 in Horbury, but died in 1823.

George Green 1822-1915

Which is where we came in ... George Green of Horbury. Like his eldest brother William, he decided to stay in Horbury, rather than follow his father and other brothers to America. Why be a pioneer when you can be a bookeeper in Horbury. He married Mary Stringer in 1846. She was the twin sister of Martha Stringer who married Thomas Race in 1849. See both the Races and Stringers sections. Like his father, George was a strict Methodist, and brought his family up the same way. George and Mary had four successive daughters:
Martha, born in 1847, Sarah, christened March 28, 1849, Fanny, christened January 8, 1851, and Maria, born in 1852. Finally they had a son on November 21, 1856, with the birth of John Henry Green. George William Green was born the following year.
George and Mary moved to 16, Elmwood Street, Leeds in 1860 where George worked as a warehouseman. It was here that Thomas Edward Green was born in March 1861. Their last child Mary, born in 1861 or 1862, may have been Thomas' twin. Sadly she died in 1863. They then moved back to Horbury to Highfield House in Lidgate. George was now a carpet merchant. The 1881 census recorded George as a woollen manufacturer, George William as a rag merchant, and John Henry as a travelling salesman of wool. Thomas Edward had become a warehouseman. Martha was no longer at home, having married early in 1869. Maria had married Frederick Jagger on 14 March 1881. She lived to be 88, dying in 1940.
The 1901 census showed George and Mary still living at Highfield with just John Henry with them. The Cook family were also in residence. Fanny Green had remained single, and died in 1898, aged 47. I'm not sure which year his wife Mary died but she had certainly outlived her twin sister Martha by some twenty years. The 1911 census showed George now widowed, with John Henry still keeping him company. George lived until the Winter of 1915, reaching the grand old age of 93. John Henry remained single, and died in 1932.

1914-1918/ AND IN AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE OF/ GEORGE GEOFFREY MIERS-GREEN/ LIEUT. WEST YORKSHIRE REGT/ ATTACHED TO 5TH BATTALION K.O.Y.L.I./ KILLED IN ACTION NEAR BUCQUOY, FRANCE/ MARCH 28TH, 1918 AGED 27 YEARS/ BELOVED AND ONLY SON OF/ GEORGE W. AND FANNIE GREEN/ OF ELM LODGE, HORBURY/ AND GRANDSON OF/ GEORGE GREEN, HIGH FIELDS, HORBURY

George's daughter, Sarah, went on to marry his nephew William Thomas Race, son of Mary's twin sister, Martha (See The Races) George William and Thomas Edward both married into the Miers Family. John and Jane Miers lived in Scarcroft, Leeds, and raised a family of 11 children. John Miers was an oil merchant and employed 3 servants as well as sending his children to private schools such as Toxteth Park. His sons went into cloth manufacturing.

George William Green and Fanny Miers, aged twenty-five, were married at Wetherby District Registered Building in 1889. They lived at The Elms, Cluntergate, Horbury Junction, and later at Elm Lodge. They had 3 children. Geoffrey George Miers Green, born in 1890, became a wholesale clothier, and was a second lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment during World War One. He died in action in France on March 28, 1918. Eveline Mary Green, born in 1893, married John Gibson in 1919 in Doncaster and had at least one child, Joyce, born in 1923. Fannie Irene Green was born in 1898, and married Stringer Hunter in 1925. They had 5 children. (See Stringer’s section for further details )

Thus the Greens were genealogically connected with the Stringers, Hunters, and Races. It was George W Green, together with his cousin and brother-in-law Thomas Race, who visited Franz Hunter in Hopton during the 1920s. They persuaded Franz to move to Horbury, since life in Hopton had become somewhat difficult (see Franz's section on the Chaddock-Lowndes page) George lived to be eighty-one, passing away in 1938.

Thomas Edward Green, having lived at home until he was thirty-four, took a leaf out of brother George’s book and married twenty-seven-year-old Lillie Miers in 1895. They lived at Willow Green, Horbury Junction. He did experimental work with photography and, famously, refused to sell an invention of his to Pathe. Like George and Fanny, Thomas and Lillie had three children: Edward Valantine Green born in 1898, Alan Roy Green born in 1899, who married Olive Madeline Wilkinson in 1932, and Florence Mavis Green, born in 1904 who went on to play tennis for Yorkshire Ladies. Thomas died in 1943.

THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM AND SARAH STRINGER continued

John Stringer 1824-1876
John was christened on the 28th of November 1824 in Horbury and took up the traditional family vocation of basketmaking. He married Mary, who was also born in 1824, and also from Horbury. They set up home in Stringer Lane and started their family in the Summer of 1844 with the birth of Jane whose poignant story will follow shortly. Benjamin, named after his paternal great-grandfather, followed in the Summer of 1849, and Sarah, named after her paternal grandmother, was born on the 28th of March 1851. William became their second son in March 1852. He was named after John’s father and became a joiner by trade. With Ezekiel’s birth in 1856, a new name was added to the Stringers. Ezekiel became a railway clerk. George was born in 1859 and took up plumbing as his trade. This was one family who were not going to be involved in Horbury’s woollen/cloth industry. By the time John Henry Stringer was born in 1863, the family had moved to Cluntergate. John became a farm labourer. Rufus Arthur Stringer, born in 1866, was the last of John and Mary’s 8 children. The family had now moved to Millfield.

In 1876 the family suffered a great loss with the death of John, aged only fifty-two. Mary moved to Ward Buildings in Horbury together with William, Ezekiel and John. Rufus went away to Earnshaw Fish’s shop in High Street, Normanton to become an apprentice draper. He married milliner Emily Hutchinson of Tarvin, Cheshire in 1889 in Barnsley, and they moved to Main Street, Bingley and then on to Stamford Street, Ashton-Under-Lyme, and finally Chorlton. They had two girls, Lena and Eveline, and two boys, Harold and Leonard. Sadly, they lost their father when Rufus died in 1906, aged only thirty-nine.

Mary Stringer had died in 1894. Ezekiel remained a bachelor and moved to Huddersfield where the 1911 Census recorded that he was still single, while William moved to Wakefield. John had moved to Rotherham where he was living with his Nottinghamshire wife Anne.

Jane Stringer's Story, and that of her daughter Annie Mary and Henry Percival Dawson

As one looks through the censuses and BMD records, one begins to see beyond names and dates, and realize that this information also tells human stories of what our ancestors went through in their lives. Jane Stringer's life tells such a story, which becomes more poignant as events unfold.

Jane Stringer, John and Mary’s eldest child, married 25 year old John Spawforth Barker, a solicitor from Shitlington, in June 1871. They settled in Wakefield Road, Horbury and Ann Mary was born in 1873. John Francis in 1877, and William Arthur in October 1880. Kathleen was their last born in 1885.

John Spawforth Barker's father, John, an attorney’s clerk, had died in 1849, aged just 25, leaving his wife Ann, a widow at 25, to raise John, Harriet and Thomas with the support of her brother Thomas Haigh. Ann Haigh, born 1824, and John Barker had married on Oct 3, 1845 in Wakefield. John Spawforth Barker did live a little longer than his father, but died on the 22nd of March 1886, aged just 40, leaving Jane in a similar position to her mother-in-law Ann. Except that Jane had four children to bring up, three of them less than eight years old. The 1891 census showed them living in West Leeds, minus Annie who was now married. Alfred Weatherby, 32, from Somerset, was boarding with them. For 6 years, Jane had done the best she could, and at last there came along someone to share her life.

Amos Abell, a former draper, and now farmer from Leicestershire, was also widowed. He married Jane in 1892, moving to the delightfully named Co-operative Street in Horbury. Jane suffered another family loss the following year when her son John Francis Barker died at the age of sixteen. As if she hadn’t suffered enough, there was more to come with the death of her daughter Annie’s husband, Henry Percival Dawson in 1895, aged only 35.

Henry's story is as poignant as Jane’s. He was born in Wakefield in 1859 and had lost his father, William, at an early age. They lived in the village of Muker. Henry and his mother, Louisa, went to live with her parents Thomas and Sarah Depledge (the 1871 census records Louisa as his step-daughter but I think it's an error) Thomas had married Sarah (Bradley) on June 15, 1829 at St John's, Wakefield. Thomas, formerly a clerk in a cotton market, was now a wheelwright. Thomas died early in 1872, and Louisa died the same year, aged only 40. Poor Henry was just 12 years old. He had lost his father, then his grandfather, and now his mother. He became an architect and surveyor, and was just 20 when he married his Welsh bride, Edith Laura Pullin, in 1880. However fate struck again and she died in 1888, just 28 years old. They had no surviving children from their marriage.
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Henry married Annie Stringer in 1890 and a daughter, Marjorie, was born in 1891. They lived at Highfield Road, Horbury and employed 15 year old Ada Bickerdike as a live-in servant. Henry was an Architect and Surveyor to Horbury Local Board and Patent Agent. Sadly Marjorie died young but then in 1895, Mabel Depledge Dawson was born. Fate finally dealt poor Henry the ultimate blow a few months later, leaving Annie a widow and Mabel without a father.

Annie and Mable went to live with Jane and Amos in Horbury. Jane's daughter Kathleen, also part of the household, was now an apprentice dressmaker. Jane’s son, William, went into service at the Charlesworths in Greetland near Halifax. In 1903, Annie married thirty-two year old Ernest North at Hovingham All Saints, Ryedale, Harrogate. Ernest was one of nine children, the son of John and Lavinia North. There was another family loss for Annie when Mabel died in 1908 at the age of 12, and for her mother Jane, too when Amos passed away. Ernest was not with Annie in the 1911 census and may also, therefore, have passed away. William Arthur was still living in Halifax.

Any Family History will have losses and misfortunes, but Annie and Jane's losses were rather more than most. Along with Henry Percival Dawson, they went through a series of tragedies unparalleled in this Family History or any others in my experience. God bless you and your loved ones.

Thomas Edward Green

Hovingham All Saints, Ryedale, Harrogate Swaledale by Paul Harley

Joseph Stringer 1826-c.1897

Of all William and Sarah’s children, Joseph’s story is the strangest, leaving unanswered questions. He was born on September 17, 1826, and christened on Christmas Day 1826 in Horbury. Like John’s family, the wool industry wasn’t for him. Nor was basketmaking. Instead he took his articles and became a solicitor in true Horner fashion. The 1851 census shows him visiting the Cuttles at their farm in Wintersett. On August 5, 1852, he married Jane Ann Craven Lee of Purston, near Featherstone. Jane had been born in 1830, the daughter of William and Ann Lee.

Joseph and Jane settled in Church Lane House, Twitch Hill, Horbury, where Herbert Stringer was born in 1856. Rosa was born in September of 1860. The 1861 census shows them living together as a family with servant, Mary Ann Thorpe. From then onward the mystery begins. In 1862, their third child, Joseph was born, and in 1867, their fourth child, John was born. Both are born in nearby Ossett from which one would deduce the family have now moved to. However,the 1871 census, shows Jane still living in Twitch Hill with Rosa, Joseph and John as well as her mother Ann. Husband Joseph is living in Ossett Green together with fourteen year old Herbert and housekeeper, Christiana Rodgerson, aged forty-two. Had the family moved to Ossett where presumably Joseph worked, and then moved back to Horbury, with Joseph and Herbert staying on?

The 1881 census shows the same arrangement continued except that Herbert, now a Solicitors General Clerk, is lodging in Batley with Selina Brierley. Joseph junior has become a grocer’s apprentice. He is lodging with the Senior Family in 1891,and Herbert and his wife Ann have started their own family in Whittakers Street, Batley with two year old daughter Maude. Jane is with them, described as married and living on her own means. So Joseph is still not with his wife.

Herbert and Ann are at Soothill Lane, Upper Soothill with six year old son Herbert for the 1901 census. Maude is away at Lytham, along with Aunt Rosa and Uncle John Stringer. Jane is living in Harrogate with Ann Simpson. Herbert and Ann have moved to Prospect House, Ossett by the time of the 1911 census. Herbert had changed vocation and was now an estate agent. Maud was still living with them together with Herbert Junior. Rosa, still single, now lived at Manor House, Tithe Barn Street in Horbury. John H Stringer was a travelling salesman of cattle medicine and living alone. Jane, now eighty-one,was still alive and living in Warrington with Sarah Keeown. Joseph died in the summer of 1885 at the age of sixty. Jane died in 1902, at the age of seventy-one.

Commercial Street, Batley 1906 Commercial Street, Batley 1908 Commercial Street, Batley 1909

THE PARENTS AND SIBLINGS OF WILLIAM STRINGER 1798

Having looked at the descendents of William, and therefore the cousins of my Great-Grandmother Sarah Race, we turn to William’s parents, and his brothers and sisters.

Benjamin Stringer c.1764 and Ann Ash 1760

Benjamin was born circa 1764 in Wakefield. He was the son of John Stringer, and he had a younger brother Francis. We’ll come back to Francis later. Benjamin married Ann Ash on the 13th of September 1789 in Horbury. Ann was born in Horbury and christened on the 25th of January 1760. She was the eldest child of three born to Matthew Ash and Ann Thornes who had married on the 19th of March 1759. Ann's sister Hannah had married Thomas Carter the year before her own wedding, on the 18th of December 1788. Their only daughter, Sarah Carter was born in the Summer of 1789. Hannah died in 1812, just before her fiftieth birthday. Ann’s brother, Matthew was christened on the 18th of January 1766. Either he or his father died on the 1st of November 1784.
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Benjamin was a basketmaker by trade and is listed in the Pigot's Directory of 1829 as living in the Aubrey area in Wakefield. Benjamin and Ann had four children that we know of. The eldest was John Stringer born in 1790 in Horbury, and Betty followed three years later. No more information on them other than christening dates.

Nancy, their 3rd child, born in 1795, married Joseph Chambers, a shoemaker from Darton, near Barnsley, on the 10th of September, 1827 at Kirkburton. Joseph, the son of Richard and Betty Chambers, was 45 and Nancy was already 31. So they wasted no time in starting a family, and Joseph Junior arrived the following year. He became a shoemaker like his father. William was born in 1828, and a year later Ruben. Their last child, James, completed the family in 1835. The KirkBurton Stork didn’t seem to deal in girls. The 1851 census showed Nancy widowed, so Joseph had died sometime in the 1840s. An entry for 1848 in the Huddersfield area looks likely.

Benjamin and Ann’s youngest child was William Stringer himself.

Francis Stringer 1769

Francis was born in 1769 and christened on the 24th of June at All Saints Church in Wakefield. As Benjamin’s brother, he was, therefore, the Great-Uncle of Martha Stringer. Whereas his brother’s side of the family became basketmakers, solicitors, farmers etc, Francis followed in the footsteps of the Races and became a weaver. However he and Benjamin did both marry Horbury girls and each then settled there.
Rachel Thornes became a June bride when she married Francis on the 9th of June 1794 in Horbury. She was christened on the 3rd of May 1772, the daughter of William Thornes and Rachel Hirst who had tied the knot the previous year. She had a brother called William and a sister called Nancy. Benjamin Stringer also had a Thornes connection, it being his mother-in-law’s maiden name.

Francis and Rachel’s time together would be less than five years, but first they had a son George, christened on the 29th of November 1795, and then twins in 1798. They christened them Joseph and Mary on the 4th of March in Horbury. A good start to their married life. However tragedy was to strike twice for Francis. First, Rachel died in the winter of 1798 at the age of twenty-six, and then Joseph died on the 26th of May 1800, aged two. What became of Francis or little Mary after that I don’t know, but we can have a look at George in more detail. Losing his mother when he was two, and then his only brother when he was four, was a very traumatic start to his life. He left Horbury and made his way to Silkstone where he became a miner.

THE SILKSTONE STRINGERS

George Stringer 1795-1868 and Ann Padget 1800-1871

George Stringer married Ann Padget on the 14th of February 1820 in Silkstone. Ann was born in the village of Pannal, near Harrogate, the daughter of James and Martha Padget. She was christened on the 4th of May 1800.

George and Ann made their home in Silkstone, a village in the foothills of the Pennines between Barnsley and Penistone. The Silkstone coal seam is at its shallowest in the Silkstone area, and mining was an important local industry. Here George and Ann raised their five sons and three daughters. The sons followed their father into the coal mines. George died in 1868 or 69, reaching a fair age, all things considered. Ann went to live with her daughter Martha and her husband Christopher Dalton. She died in the summer of 1871.

Martha Stringer, born in 1828, had married Christopher from Skelmanthorpe, in 1849; the daughter of a miner and now wife of a miner. Mary, Eliza and Selina suggested that the Silkstone Stork favoured girls, but then Albert, Walter, George, John and Ezra evened things up. Martha and Chris also raised their grandson Willie. Christopher died in 1889, and John and Ezra supported Martha and Willie until her death in 1903. They were all miners and remained single, still living together in 1911.

John Stringer was George and Ann’s eldest son, born in 1820. He became a miner like his father and married Grace Mellor in 1842. She was five years younger than John, the daughter of Benjamin and Julia Mellor, also of Silkstone. They raised nine children, showing much creativity in their choice of names. Ellis, William, Coniah, George, Jonas, Henrietta, Ezra, Annabell and Clemantine. Quite rightly they won the Silkstone Stork’s Golden Nameology Award.

Annabell, herself, was to retain the award for the family when she got together with Dennis Bailey and came up with: Adelaide, Leonora, Wilfred, Clementine, Ellis, Herbert, Elizabeth, Walter, Alice and Horace.

All of John and Grace’s sons went down the mines. By 1891, only eldest son Ellis still remained with John and Grace. John died in the spring of 1895, and Grace in the winter of ’98. Ellis remained alone in the family home.

George and Ann’s youngest son, Israel, was born in the spring of 1839. He and his wife, Mary, from Blandford in Dorset, were married in 1867, and Amy was born early the following year. Ernest was born in 1870 but died two years later. Seymour, Edith, Howard and Rose completed the family by 1884. Howard had died aged one. Israel then left the mines and moved his family to Church Street, Elsecar where he became a grocer. His son Seymour married Harriet Cooper in 1894, and he named their first son Ernest, in memory of the brother Seymour never knew. He continued as an assistant grocer in Israel’s shop. Amy married James Dent, a colliery electrician from Dodworth where they settled. Israel died in 1911.

Charles was six years older than his brother Israel and also a coal miner. He married 18 year old Emmeline Harrison in 1854 in Barnsley. They started married life at Emmeline’s parents home in Jackson Square, Dodworth where Joseph Harrison was a linen weaver. Three other miners were also living there. Ada wasn’t born until August 1860, and George in 1863. The 1871 census shows them still living with Joseph, but his wife Rebecca had died. They moved to 42, High Street with Dick, christened 21/01/1872, and Nora completing their family. Emmeline supplemented the family income as a dressmaker. Ada married Walter Ward from London and they settled in St John’s, Hackney. Dick, still in his teens, also moved to London and lived for a while with Ada and Walter. He was now working as a solicitor’s clerk, a long way from the Yorkshire coalfields. Time to start a family and Sara Ann Bibbye from Islington duly obliged.

Dick and Sara moved to 134, First Avenue, Manor Park (a few streets from my own home) and on the 24th of September 1900, Alfred Richard Stringer was born. Lily followed the next year and George on the 14th of July 1904. William Lewis Stringer was born on the 16th of June 1911. He would go on to marry three times. Dick died on the 21st of September 1924 at the relatively young age of fifty-two, but he had established a branch of the Silkstone Stringers in East London and on the doorstep of the creator of this website. :o)

Dick's sister Ada died in the spring of 1899 in Edmonton. Her widower, Walter re-married within a year. Slightly unusual but his new bride was none other than Ada’s sister, Nora, 17 years younger than Ada. They moved to Huddersfield. Nora's parents, Charles and Emmeline were still alive at the time and one wonders what they made of it all.
I have no more information on George and Ann Stringer’s other children and how they fared in life. So we leave the Silkstone Stringers there and also the Stringers Section.

Dodworth Elsecar Park and Bandstand

THE SUNDERLANDS

John Sunderland c.1775 and Elizabeth Green c.1778

There were two John Sunderlands born in Horbury in the mid-1770s. One was christened in February 1774 with his father given as John and the other was christened in May 1775 with his father given as Robert. Our John was a weaver by trade while the other was a clothier.
The latter married Martha Chapman and had several children, one of whom was named Robert. From that we can deduce that our John is the one born in February 1774, son of John Sunderland. He married Elizabeth Green on the 21st of January, 1801 in Horbury.

Both the the Horbury Parish Records and the IGI record this marriage, the latter giving Elizabeth’s birth as about 1778 in Horbury, but neither have an entry for her birth. Elizabeth may well have been the sister of Christianus Green whose son George married into the Stringer Family (see The Stringers)

They had four children, most of whom were to play important parts in the lives of the Races. Only John went on to have children of his own, so John and Elizabeth had but two grandchildren. The descendents of John and Elizabeth had little luck regarding children, and the name Sunderland from this branch died out with George’s passing in 1896.

As with their births, no conclusive records have been found for when John and Elizabeth died. They don’t appear in either the 1841 or 1851 censuses. The latter shows Frances and George living together, presumably, still at the family home. John is now married. So it would seem both parents have now died. Yorkshire BMD indicates that John may have died as early as 1839 and if not, sometime in the 1840s. Elizabeth most likely died in 1849.

THE CHILDREN OF JOHN AND ELIZABETH SUNDERLAND

David Sunderland 1804-1806
Their first born, David, was christened on the 15th of July 1804. His parents’ joy at having their first daughter in 1806 was short lived with the death of David a few months later.

Frances Sunderland 1806-1874

Frances was christened on the 13th of April,1806, and like her brother George, it seemed that she was not destined to be married. The 1851 census shows them living together in Northgate, Horbury with Frances now 45 and George nearly 40. However a change was just around the corner. Henry Douthwaite, a sadler in Horbury, became a widower that year, following the death of his wife Elizabeth who hailed from Chelsea in London. With three children, ranging from ten to sixteen, Henry looked around him to see if there was a mature dependable woman not yet married. Enter Frances who was only too happy to take on such responsibilities. They were married in 1854. Frances was now 48, and although she didn’t have any children with Henry, she helped to raise his daughter Ann. With Henry’s other children, Henry and Elizabeth, soon to make their own way in the world, the couple were happy to welcome Frances' brother George to share their home in Lidgate, Horbury.

I think the late John and Elizabeth Sunderland would have smiled to see that their daughter Frances had finally found a partner, but she hadn’t forgotten other family ties and had kept her strong bond with her brother George. This arrangement was still in place at the time of the 1871 census which also showed Frances’ neice, Elizabeth, staying with them in Horbury. It was here that Elizabeth met William Race. Frances died in 1874, shortly before her niece’s marriage to William. Henry had already passed away. So both had died in their sixties, and their time together had been relatively short. But it remains one of the more endearing unions in our family history. Bless you Frances and Henry.

George Sunderland 1812-1896

In some ways, George mirrored the life of Joseph Race. George also farmed, was a younger brother in the family, lived with a married sibling and remained a bachelor throughout his life. He also can’t be accounted for, like Joseph, in the 1891 census, although both men were still alive. They also, but at different times, lived with William Race, who will dramatically enter these pages soon. Uncle Joseph and Uncle George.

George was born towards the end of 1812 and christened on the 22nd of November. He was the last to leave the family home in the 1850s but then he followed his sister Frances to her new home with the Douthwaites. He was probably the sort of guy that one just liked to have around. Following both Frances and Henry’s deaths in the 1870s, he made his home with William Race, and his wife and daughter. He was no longer a farmer now but a shoemaker. He would be witness to one of our family’s saddest times when William lost both his wife and only daughter within the space of three years. More about that in William’s section. George was no doubt a shoulder for his nephew-in-law to lean on.

Quite what became of George after that is not known. Perhaps with William re-marrying in 1886, it was time for George to move on.

He was now seventy-four. He lived for another twelve years; finally passing away in 1896. He was the last Sunderland to carry the name from his branch of the family.

John Sunderland 1810

John was born in Horbury and christened on the 29th of April, 1810. He was the middle child of John and Elizabeth and their eldest living son. He became a builder and moved to Blackley in Lancashire to marry Elizabeth Greenhalgh. She was born on the 24th of May, 1814, the daughter of John and Ann Greenhalgh. They were married at Manchester Cathedral on the 6th of September 1849. The 1851 census records a daughter, Louisa Sunderland, aged nine months, but I found no other records of her. She must have been born in the middle of 1850. Elizabeth was born in the spring of 1852, and their only other child, Martha was born in 1856. The 1871 census has Elizabeth staying with her Aunt Frances in Horbury. Three years later she married William Race and moved to Horbury, her father’s home town. The devastation felt by John and Ann when first their daughter, and then their grandaughter Martha Ann died is hard to imagine. See William Race’s section.

The 1881 census shows John, now 71, and Ann, 67, living alone. What became of their remaining daughter Martha is not known. Of the four Sunderlands we’ve looked at so far, only Martha was now representing the next generation. John was living at 11, Chapel Lane, Blackley, when he died on 11 April, 1889. His will recorded him as a carpenter, and his personal estate was £1,872. Ann survived him, and was one of his will's executors, along with blacksmith William Jackson. Ann died later that year at the age of 75.

Interesting to note that James and Hannah Procter were from Blackley. By the time that John Sunderland moved there in 1849, the Procters had moved on to Entwistle. However John's wife Elizabeth was born in Blackley, a year after Hannah Dawson. Perhaps they knew each other or were even schoolmates. We now return to the last of the Races, and for one reason or another, William Race was just that.

William Thomas Race 1849-1930

William was born in Horbury in 1849 and christened on the 15th of July. (See also under THE CHILDREN OF THOMAS AND MARY RACE) He was the only son of Thomas and Martha Race. He grew up on the farm, working alongside his father and Uncle Joseph. On October 1,1874, at West Parade Chapel, Wakefield, he married Elizabeth Sunderland. She was born in Blackley but had spent time in Horbury where her father, John, had grown up. William brought Elizabeth back to Horbury where they lived at Willow Grove in Cluntergate, close to Northfield House in Daw Lane. Martha Ann was born in 1876. William and Elizabeth now had a daughter, and Thomas and Martha Race had their first grandchild.

However tragedy was to strike poor William twice. Firstly, on 13th May 1879, Elizabeth died at the age of twenty six, leaving him a widower and little Martha Ann without a mother. The 1881 census shows 31 year old William Thomas living with his 5 year old daughter and George Sunderland, Elizabeth’s uncle, at Cluntergate. William is still described as a farmer’s son. The household has a housekeeper, 26 year old Maria Elizabeth Coates.

Then in 1882, Martha Ann died too, at the age of six. In the space of three years, he had lost both his wife and his daughter. Two years later, his mother died at the age of sixty. Things could only look up after all this, and they did. In 1882, he married again, but he and Sarah, who was thirty-seven like himself, didn’t have children. She was his cousin, daughter of George Green and Mary Stringer, the sister of William's mother Martha Stringer.
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William’s parenthood had been a short-lived one. Interesting that the 1891 census shows a George Sunderland boarding with them at Cluntergate, but not ‘our’ George who would then be eighty. The new George was just forty-four and keeping the George Sunderland flag flying! But who was he? Our George was a bachelor. Was he related to George or indeed William's wife Elizabeth? A mystery because it's too much of a co-incidence for a completely 'new' George Sunderland to suddenly appear in William's household. Also, the 1911 census records Mary Jowett as William's daughter. She is actually the daughter of Thomas Jowett of Durham. Cute and also poignant that William regards her as a daughter.
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With the passing of Thomas Race in 1894, William and Sarah moved to Northfield House, the Race’s ancestral home. Here they were to live for the next thirty-five years. Having no children himself, William took an interest in his sister Sarah Hunter’s family of six boys who had returned from Germany in the early part of the 20th Century.

It was William, along with George W Green, father-in-law of Stringer Hunter, who visited his nephew Franz in 1928. Franz’s father had died the year before and his mother, William’s sister Sarah, had died in 1919. William decided to give Franz some fatherly advice. They suggested he and his family move from Norfolk to Horbury, in order for the children to receive the sort of education that Wakefield Grammar and Wakefield Girls High School could provide. Whether he also knew of Franz’s fathering of Kenneth Rickwood out of wedlock, I don’t know. If he did, then the latter was the main reason for his visit.

William was now approaching 80, and considering who to leave his property and possessions to. He had no living children from either marriage. His own parents had only two sons with Joseph having remained a bachelor. His branch of the Races were few and far between. The Sunderlands similarly. David, Frances and George (there he is again!) had no children. His Uncle John had lost Elizabeth (as he had) and his other daughter, Martha, had passed on. The Races and the Sunderlands' branches had come to an end.

There really only was his sister Sarah’s family, the Hunters. Even they had been decimated by the war with Race, William and George dying. This left just his three nephews, Stringer, Sherwood, and the aforementioned Franz. Sherwood had his own company based in Northumberland and Cornwall, and Stringer already had a good residence in Horbury. Therefore Northfield House ( see below) was left to Franz but on the understanding that it was for life and to be inherited by Franz’s children. The rest of his property and possessions were to be divided equally between all three nephews.

William Race died on May 4,1930 with no Races to succeed him. His wife Sarah died the same year. One of our family’s special people. Franz’s children Alastair and Ina each had Race as their middle name. As much in memory of their great uncle as of their grandmother Sarah.

A huge thank you to my sister Jane for these photos that she took, and others elsewhere at this website.