My great great grandfather, John Schofield, was born on the 22nd June, 1822 in Edenfield and was the second living son of Thomas and Hannah Schofield as mentioned in the last post.
On the 13th March 1849 he married Elizabeth Carline at St Mary's Parish Church in Bury, both being of full age (that is, aged 21 years or more). They both lived in Edenfield and on the marriage certificate John's father was confirmed to be Thomas, occupation carrier, and Elizabeth's was John Carline, farmer.
Perhaps here is a good place to mention that I have, over the course of many years, been unable to confirm Elizabeth's origins, despite many trawls through various parish registers for places named by Elizabeth as her places of origin in various censuses throughout the nineteenth century. When she married it would seem that she brought two daughters with her: Ann, born some time around 1842 in Bracewell and Jane, born around 1847 in Stock, Yorkshire. Bracewell and Stock are both small habitations about 2.5 miles east of Gisburn on the Yorkshire side of the Lancashire/Yorkshire border. As in the case of their mother I have been unable to discover any birth records for the girls, even bearing in mind that their surnames may have been different with different fathers if born out of wedlock. Many years ago, I requested the parish registers from the Mormon Library in Salt Lake City by way of a branch in Cheltenham and pored over the barely legible handwriting of the registers but could find no correlation between names, dates and places. Even in today's more instant world of online access I have failed to discover anything more. It was only by chance that I discovered that Elizabeth's eldest daughter was married in 1871 to William Woodburn because Elizabeth was living with them at the time of the 1891 census after her husband John had died. Hoping that this might reveal the origins of Ann I sent for the marriage certificate only to find that Ann's maiden name was Smith and her father William Smith, a clerk. Again further searches revealed no individuals by that name in the right part of Yorkshire. I have surmised that if Ann and Jane were born in those small hamlets their birth must have been recorded elsewhere, sadly the civil registration records are next to impossible to find as there are no entries for Carline, and Smith ... well I need say no more. I did find some possible leads to Carlines in Lincolnshire, but as Elizabeth makes no claim to that county for her origins I could find no conclusive evidence. On successive censuses her place of birth is recorded as [Holton Tree?] (1851), Clapham (1861 and 1871), Ingletree (1881), Ingleton (1891) all in Yorkshire. A possible clue is in the name of a farm, Holly Tree Farm on Merwith Lane, Bentham which is close to Clapham and which was known in the eighteenth century as Hollin Tree.
As for Jane I have found no clue to her origins or, indeed, as to what happened to her after the census of 1861 when she would have been around 14 years old. Presumably she married but I have no firm leads as to the name she married under - maybe Smith again?!
After Elizabeth and John's marriage, however, they continued to live in Edenfield until about the mid 1850s. On the 20th January 1850 their first son was born, Thomas Carline Schofield and on his birth certificate his father's occupation was stated to be grocer (like his father Thomas) whereas on their marriage certificate it was timekeeper (presumably in a mill). In the census of 1851 John and Elizabeth's address was The Smithy, Edenfield and his occupation, again, was grocer. In 1852, on the 1st July, their daughter, Mary Ellen, was born followed on the 15th March 1856 by son John (my G Grandfather) who was born surprisingly in Stone Bridge, Colne and his father's occupation was commercial traveller, presumably in flock or cloth of some sort.
Probably at the end of their time in Edenfield, another daughter was born, Harriet on the 23rd July 1858 when John was recorded as working as a farm labourer. A clue to the change in his work at this time can be gleaned from a newspaper snippet of the 1st of September 1858 in the Bolton Chronicle which refers to people called to the Insolvency Court in Lancaster who included, "John Schofield, Edenfield, grocer, draper and manufacturer of cotton sheets".
The family moved to Wams Hole in Musbury which was geographically a collection of dwellings near to the present railway station master's house at Helmshore, Haslingden. They are recorded here in the 1861 census where John was occupied as a cotton [over]looker in a nearby mill - a sort of foreman keeping an eye on the mill workers. There were a number of mills nearby, some cotton and some wool, the nearest would have been Bridge End Mill, but as he worked in a cotton mill it could likely have been Albion Mill. The farmhouse known as Top o' the Meadow Farm was previously known as Whams Hole Farm.
However, John and his family did not stay here for long because when daughter Hannah is born on the 13th September 1863 the family are living in Bent Gate Cottages in Haslingden and John is again working as a general dealer.
[To be continued]
