The Fletchers of Oxenhope, Scarborough and Folkestone

Showing Oxenhope (nr Haworth) where the Fletchers came from, and Midgehole, Wadsworth, Heptonstall which was Dixon / Sutcliffe country (the name Sutcliffe is common in Yorkshire). An 1852 map of Oxenhope is shown below.

The map above and the comments come from the interesting "Oxenhope and Leeming - Conservation Area Assessment" which is easy to find on the web and download as a PDF document. The report includes a large number of photos of the built environment including one of the Brooksmeeting Mill.

Shaw Lane October 2009 - winding away past Brooksmeeting Mill (the white windowed cottage on the left of the road was home to the William Dixon family including young Maria Dixon in 1851 before she married John Fletcher at the end of the year), then Coldwell / West Shaw (houses on the right and census return below), Shaw and Uppertown (Oxenhope) (where John Fletcher lived with his wool comber brother Thomas in 1851).

The 1841 census sheets for the Shaw Lane area show 4 Fletcher households (17 people) in West Shaw and Cold Well. In October 2009 the Oxenhope postmaster told us that he did not know of any Fletchers living in the area then.

1841 - Fletchers at Cold Well (Shaw Lane, Oxenhope) - misleadingly labelled Haworth in the census. See above.

LINK

Includes Thomas Fletcher (woolcomber), son John (17 no occupation stated), father (we think) Old Thomas (stuff (=worsted) weaver) and his wife Grace, and two other Fletcher woolcomber / stuff weaver households.

1841 - Sutcliffes and Dixons at Midge Hole and Lower Mill, Wadsworth

LINK

Includes two families...

At Midge Hole (now Midgehole) is John Sutcliffe (50 year old cotton spinner), his wife Elizabeth (also 50), and 6 children (aged 11 to 20).

Lower in the return (at Lower (Town) Mill) is another John Sutcliffe (aged 35 - possibly a son), and

William Dixon, 31, power loom manager, living with wife Susan (30 and a daughter of John Sutcliffe) and 4 little Dixons aged between 2 and 8, including Maria (3) who will marry John Fletcher later.

Next to the Dixons is cotton spinner Titus Gawkrodger, his wife, 10 children and servant - not related to anyone here but a fascinating name!

In occupation terms the cotton industry Dixon / Sutcliffes were a higher in the food chain than the wool industry Thomas Fletchers.

1845 - The railway comes to Scarborough

but it takes over 50 years for the town's retail centre to move west to Westborough (where the railway terminus is).

PROCTER DOCUMENTS ARE NOW ON A SEPARATE PAGE

1851 - Old Thomas and Grace Fletcher

1851 - Young Thomas

LINK

are still alive (both aged 83) - Thomas described as a "proprietor of houses" - presumably the three next to his in Cold-Well containing other Fletcher families.

Young Thomas is being looked after by his daughter Sally.

1851 - John and Elizabeth Sutcliffe still at Midge Hole

LINK

John (60) is described as a Cotton Spinner employing 14 men, 14 boys, 40 women and 15 girls, and farming 30 acres of land

1851 - John Fletcher moves up the hill, the Dixon family move a bit west to work at another cotton mill called Brooksmeeting, some of whose buildings are still there in West Shaw Lane.

LINK

John Fletcher has moved to Uppertown (Oxenhope - see map) with brother Thomas and is working as a Tin and Iron Plate Worker - maybe including in the cotton mill where wife to be Maria works.

The Dixon family has moved west to Brooksmeeting Mill in west Oxenhope (W Shaw Lane). Dad and the girls (including Maria (13)) are all working in cotton power loom weaving. John's cousin Thomas is living nearby.

JOHN AND MARIA FLETCHER

by Adrian Fletcher

My great great grandparents, John Fletcher (1824 - 1894 (69)) and his wife Maria Dixon (1837 - 1911 (74)), were a remarkable couple.

John was born into a family of wool combers, a shitty (literally) occupation at the bottom of the feeding chain in what was a marginal part of the world (the West Yorkshire crofters). He obviously decided to break out of this life, and learned a trade - described as tin and iron plate worker and gas fitter (plumber and welder?).

The Dixons' cottage at Brooksmeeting Mill (built 1826, for sale in October 2009) - see also the Shaw Lane photo above.

William Dixon was Manager, and his family including Maria was living here (1851 Census link) before she married John Fletcher in December 1851.

Builders' plate on the Brooksmeeting Mill cottages

On Monday 29 December 1851 John (28) married the 14 1/2 year old Maria Dixon. She was a local girl (Brooksmeeting Mill - photo of her family house above) but they chose to get married in the distant and massive (1500 seats) new Wesleyan Methodist "Chapel" in Keighley, long before the days of the Oxenhope to Keighley railway (opened 1867).

The Keighley (pron Keefly) Mosque - built in the mid 1800s as a Methodist Chapel - photographed 2009.

John and Maria made the long road journey here to get married at the end of December 1851.

After their marriage John and Maria lived in Lowertown (now part of Oxenhope), which would have put him near to the big Lowertown Mill (below, as converted into residences) which was probably a good source of work.

Oxenhope (Lowertown) Mill

Lowertown Mill - photographed 2009

There was another mill (Denholm) just up the next hill, and the Brooksmeeting Mill back down Shaw lane, and no doubt several other mills within walking / working distance.

Denholm Mill

Denholm Mill - photographed 2009

John and Maria's first child, Mary, took nearly four years to arrive, but they made up for the delay with a vengeance. By 1877 the Fletchers had 12 children aged between 0 and 22.

Then something decided them to move to Scarborough - a seaside spa resort on the distant East side of Yorkshire - in the final years of the 70s. Having sampled both Lowertown and Scarborough one can see their point, but it would have been a much bigger decision than breaking out of wool combing.

In Scarborough they lived in 14 (with shop) then 39 North Marine Road - both houses were still there in 2009 .....

39 North Marine Rd (above mid-right) is now the Thornhurst Hotel

At some stage John moved his Ironmongers' shop to 20 North Street (since demolished, but the "Black Swan" next door is still there)

North Street follows the route of the old city wall, and T junctions with what is now the main (pedestrian) shopping drag - named Newborough here then Westborough a little bit further along. When John Fletcher set up his ironmonger shop here, the Newborough gate or bar still existed on this junction, one of only two entrances through the wall around the medieval port town.

Maria had children 13 and 14 in Scarborough in 1881 and 1884 - by which time she was aged 47 and had been birthing for one year short of 30! At no stage in the various censuses are they shown as having a servant - there were no doubt enough kids for that task, though son Frank Edward got the message and had servants before even starting his family in distant Folkestone!

John Fletcher's North Street ironmonger business is listed in the Bulmer's Directory of 1890 and the Hagyard Directory of 1892. He died in Scarborough in 1894 aged 69, leaving an estate of £771 11s 2d.

9 Trafalgar Square (black window surrounds - photographed in 2011)

where Maria lived after the death of John

Maria, 14 years' younger, lived on at 9 Trafalgar Square, just off North Marine Drive, looked after by a spare daughter or two. She died there in 1911 aged 73. Maria and John are both buried in the Manor Road Cemetery, Scarborough (grave P 18 - 25) - the gravestone has fallen over and broken in two, but the inscriptions are clear.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

EMILY JANE

DAUGHTER OF

JOHN & MARIA FLETCHER

LATE OF OXENHOPE

DIED NOV 24 1882, IN HER 17^TH YEAR

“THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD”

ALSO OF THE ABOVE

JOHN FLETCHER

BORN FEB 13 1824

FELL ASLEEP JAN 25 1894

“THE ETERNAL GOD IS MY REFUGE”

ALSO OF

MARIA

WIFE OF THE ABOVE

WHO WENT HOME MAY 30 1911

“UNDERNEATH ARE THE EVERLASTING ARMS”

ALSO THEIR DAUGHTER

SUSAN ANNIE

DIED MARCH 6 1939

AGED 71 YEARS

And if you think that a bit of get up and go is genetic, you will not be surprised to learn that John and Maria's 6th child, Frank Edward (my great grandfather), married a well off Scarborough draper and silk merchant's daughter, Elizabeth Procter, and moved to Folkestone (Kent) as a "Music Professor". As soon as they were set up in a house there they employed one, then later two, servants.

Years later nobody in Folkestone ever talked to me about their Yorkshire roots (my paternal grandfather Frank Rex would have had 20 or so Aunts and Uncles from Scarborough) - what a shame.

Adrian Fletcher - January 2012

1851 (29 December) - John Fletcher (26) marries Maria Dixon (14) (John Sutcliffe's granddaughter).

LINK

in the huge (1600 seat) and newish Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Temple Row, Keighley - a long way from Oxenhope in those pre railway days. The chapel is now a mosque.

1852 William Dixon, ex cotton mill manager and father of Maria Fletcher, publishes a tract entitled -

LINK

"The thinking man's friend, or a series of religious dialogues designed as a confutation of infidelity - Halifax, 1852". He also dabbled in poetry.

Source: John Albert Green, "Bibliography of the Town of Heywood", 1902

1861 - John Fletcher with his new wife Maria (Dixon) and young family at Lowertown / Goose Green, Oxenhope (see map).

LINK

John Fletcher (37, b1824) Tin & Iron Plate Worker & Gas Fitter - with wife Maria (Dixon) (23) and their first 4 children. Also John's apprentice, 19 year old Joseph Heaton, and luckily for us, John's Sister-in-Law Mary Jane Dixon (16 year old cotton weaver) who led us to Maria's maiden name.

1861 - John's cousin Thomas Fletcher

LINK

living with wife Mary Ann and lots of kids in west Shaw Lane, Oxenhope. Photo of their gravestone lower in page.

1861 - John's dad Thomas Fletcher still at Cold Well (Oxenhope), with grand-daughter Mary (maybe one of John's children).

LINK

Thomas (61 year old widower) is still working as a hand wool comber whilst his only companion, his grand-daughter Mary E Fletcher, aged just 8, is described as a spinner in a worsted factory.

1861 - John Sutcliffe (75) at the Prospect Mill, Ovendon

LINK

John Sutcliffe, Maria's grandfather, is now a widower aged 75 (likely to be more accurate than the 1841 census which was rounded to nearest 5 years) and mill proprietor - Prospect Mill, Ovendon (north of Halifax - site still there). John Sutcliffe and Son are recorded as the mill proprietor in other records - the mill employs 63 (pairs of) hands. Still living with him in Prospect Place are son William (42 and "the Son"), unmarried daughters Alice (39) and Harriet (34). Married daughter Susan Dixon is staying with them and it is through our census search for her that they were identified as ancestors - stroke of luck! Note that the mill itself, a "Providence Chapel" and associated day school are also recorded.

1861 - William Dixon & Family in Heywood (Lancashire)

LINK

except for wife Susan who is staying with dad (above).

1863 - John Sutcliffe dies at Prospect Mill

LINK

22 December 1863

1864 - Frank Edward Fletcher born 28 February

LINK

Frank Edward, son of John and Maria, was born on 28 February 1864 in Lowertown (later to be incorporated in Oxenhope by command of a railway company).

1867 - Keighley (pron Keefly) and Worth Valley Railway (KWVR) opens.

The railway was funded by mill owners and led to the redefinition of the location of its southern station to "Oxenhope", which embraced Uppertown, Lowertown etc, most of which appear on earlier censuses as part of "Haworth".

1871 - John (47) and Maria Fletcher with 7 children at Goose Green / Lowertown.

LINK

As part of the general naming confusion Goose Green was part of a farm overrun by Lowertown - which in turn became part of Oxenhope. There's nothing green about it today - just terrace houses and unsealed roads.

1871 - William & Susan Dixon

LINK

and 2 Daughters with a shop at 39 Bridge St, Heywood (Lancashire).

1881 - John and Maria Fletcher and 10 of their children at 14 North Marine Road, Scarborough.

LINK

The John Fletcher family has moved east from the windswept moors, bleak mills and crofters cottages of West Yorkshire to the bracing sea air of seaside and Victorian spa town Scarborough, and John (57) is an ironmonger, helped by Frank Edward.

Scarborough is now best known for the song about its 6 week medieval trade fairs which ran from the Feast of the Assumption (15 August) to St Michael's Day (aka Michaelmas - 29 September) every year from 1253 to 1788 - "are you going to Scarborough fair?". Obviously this was a pretty big deal - not many commercial institutions last for 500+ years - but we have been unable as yet to find out anything about it.

From the late 1600s Scarborough became a fashionable spa town (coupled with fully clothed sea bathing from bathing "huts" wheeled into the waves to maximize privacy) for the for the well-heeled. The coming of the railway in 1845 opened the town to a much wider Victorian seaside going audience.

Outside his day job, Frank Edward (17) must have found himself a seriously good music teacher somewhere because in 1889 he is described as a professor of music (and he is also married to Elizabeth Procter and living in Folkestone, where he had moved some time between the censuses).

The Fletcher Ironmongery later moved in from North Marine Road to North Street, Scarborough, which was as luck would have it but a short walk away from the Procter Drapery in Westborough !

Number 14 Marine Road, left and above far left, is still (2009) an ironmonger / paint shop. Trams only ran from 1904 to 1931.

1881 - William (70) & Susan (69) Dixon

LINK

and grand-daughter Emma living at their shop at 41 Bridge St, Heywood, Lancashire. William dies in February 1887 aged 77 leaving behind a few tracts.

1889 - Frank Edward Fletcher (25) marries Elizabeth Procter (23).

One of our "Holy Grails" would be a Procter / Fletcher family group wedding photo ??? !! They would have existed .... Please come in for a glass of champagne if you are out there.......

This earlyish photo of Frank Edward was taken in Glasgow

- what was he doing there?

LINK

On Wednesday 24 April 1889 in (a corner of) the huge (1,800 people capacity) Centenary Wesleyan Methodist "Chapel", in Queen Street, Scarborough.

thanks to the Scarborough Library for this image

Today's grim looking and impenetrable chapel is an early 1900s rebuild after a major fire in next door Boyes store.

1890 - Frank Rex (later Jimmy) Fletcher birth certificate

LINK

Frank Rex was born in Folkestone on 9 January 1890 - his father appears on the certificate as a Professor of Music and had moved to Folkestone some time prior to 1889.

1890 - Scarborough

Newborough Bar (Newborough / North St) looking East from Westborough towards Old Scarborough c1885

The 1890 Scarborough Post Office / Bulmers Trade Directory lists both Procter, Jsph, Draper & Milliner, 108 Westborough, and Fletcher, John, Ironmonger – 20 North Street. In 1890 the Victorian Newborough Gate or Bar, whose predecessor was one of the two gated entrances to the old town, is demolished, the Westborough / Newborough roads are seamlessly joined and North Street is opened up. Mind you, the bar had obviously been no barrier to Frank Edward's romance with Elizabeth Procter.

1891 - Susan Dixon (Sutcliffe) living with

LINK

daughter Sarah (Taylor) in Rochdale, where she dies in 1893.

1891 - Frank Edward is living at 6 Brockman Road, Folkestone.

LINK

Frank and Elizabeth are living with little Frank Rex (1) and a servant - a luxury Frank had never known before.

1891 - John Fletcher (now 67) and Maria (54) and 6 children are living in 39 North Marine Road, Scarborough.

LINK

Between 1855 and 1884 Maria has had 14 children. John dies in 1894 aged 70. He is buried with Maria in Manor Rd Cemetery in Scarborough - grave P 18-25.

39 North Marine Rd (left and above right) is now the Thornhurst Hotel

1891 - Back in Oxenhope, Thomas Fletcher,

LINK

John's cousin (and mostly a woolcomber though in 1861 he was a stonemason's labourer), is a widower living in Oxenhope with daughters, a son-in-law and grand children. He is to die in 1895.

Gravestone of John's cousin Thomas (1824-1895 (71)) and Mary Ann (1823-1879 (56)) Fletcher, and two of their daughters Mary Grace and Priscilla, in the Parish Church of St Mary, Oxenhope (built 1849), where the graveyard is perched precipitously above the main road in Uppertown. Nearby (photo below) is the grave of Thomas' father James Fletcher (1802-1862 (60)) and his wife Sarah (1801-1877 (76)). John Fletcher defected to the Wesleyan Methodists before 1850. There are possibly more Fletcher gravestones in the Methodist cemetery in Lowertown, but we did not know of its existence when we visited in October 2009.

1892 - Hagyards Trade Directory, Scarborough

13 ironmongers in Scarborough, including Fletcher, John, 20 North Street – just down the road from the Procters the Draper & Milliners at 108 Westborough – easy courtin' distance.

January 25 1894 - John Fletcher dies in

Probate

Scarborough aged 69. He is buried with Maria (died 1911) in Manor Rd Cemetery in Scarborough - grave P 18-25.

NOTE THAT PROCTER DOCUMENTS ARE NOW ON A SEPARATE PAGE

1901 - Maria Fletcher and two daughters are

LINK

still in Scarborough - 9 Trafalgar Square (close to previous North Marine Road house). Maria (63) is described as living on own means.

1901 - Frank Edward and family now at 20 Brockman Road, Folkestone.

20 Brockman Rd (left - semidetached) Folkestone - the Victorian church at the end of the road is next to the Victorian railway station.

LINK

The support staff has been expanded to include a domestic governess as well as a maid, and one child (Frank Rex, Adrian's Grandfather) is off at boarding school (Kent College, Canterbury). The dapper Frank Edward must have been in reasonable demand as a music teacher and probably Elizabeth the draper's daughter, who also photographs as a striking and simpatico person, came with a reasonable Draper's dowry.

1901 Census - Frank Rex (11)

LINK

is a boarder at Kent College (Methodist school - still operating) near Canterbury. In those days there was a railway line between Folkestone and Canterbury.

1911 census - Maria Fletcher now being looked after

LINK

by one daughter (Susan Annie) at 9 Trafalgar Square, Scarborough, just a stone's throw from 9, North Marine Drive. In 2011 the house had a cared for but unrenovated look - it's the only one that has not had an extra storey added.

Maria is to pass away a couple of months later on 11 May 1911, aged 73 and survived by 12 of her 14 children. Good strong stock!

She is buried with husband John (and later Susan Annie the last remaining daughter-carer) in Manor Rd Cemetery in Scarborough - (now horizontal) grave

P 18-25.

A transcription of the gravestone's wording has been shown earlier.

1911 Census - Frank Edward and family still at

LINK

20 Brockman Road, Folkestone.

1911 Census - Frank Rex (Jimmy by now) lodging at 12 Mildmay Rd, Islington (no longer there).

LINK

Frank R (Jim) (21) has been a student at England's oldest medical school - the London Hospital Medical School - since 1907. He was the United Hospitals heavyweight boxing champion.

Fletcher documents and photos from the 1900s are continued here