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FLETCHER CHRONOLOGY AND DOCUMENT LINKS

(the Procter information has been given its own page here)

LINKS TO DOCUMENTS & PHOTOS RELATED TO FLETCHERS, DIXONS, SUTCLIFFES, ...

Recent Ancestors (with Portraits)     Fletcher / Procter ancestor chart     Procter chronology and document links     all bmd links

Ancestors of Frank E and Elizabeth Fletcher

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Chart linking four generations of Fletchers, Procters, Dobsons, Stringers, Dixons, Sutcliffes

Pre 1841 Fletcher, Procter and Stringer events -

Fletcher - Procter ancestor chart

Map of West Yorkshire today (Google)

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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 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.

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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

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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 station is).

NOTE THAT PROCTER DOCUMENTS ARE NOW ON A SEPARATE PAGE

1851 - Old Thomas and Grace Fletcher

1851 - Young Thomas

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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

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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.

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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.

 

The Dixons' cottage at Brooksmeeting Mill (built 1826, for sale in October 2009) - see also the Shaw Lane photo above.  Maria was living here before marrying John Fletcher in 1851.

The Keighley (pron Keefly) Mosque - earlier a Methodist Chapel - 2009.  John and Maria made the lengthy journey here to get married at the end of December 1851.

 

JOHN AND MARIA FLETCHER   My great great grandparents, John Fletcher (1823 - 1894 (71)) and his wife Maria Dixon (1837 - 1911 (74)), were a remarkable couple.   John was born into a family of wool combers, an shitty occupation at the bottom of the feeding chain in what was a pretty 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?).   Builders' plate on the Brooksmeeting Mill cottages   On Monday 29 December 1851 John (28) married the young (probably 13  possibly 14) 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).   After their marriage John and Maria lived in Lowertown (now Oxenhope), which would have put him near to the big Lowertown Mill (below) which was probably a good source of work.      There was another mill (Denholm - below) just up the hill and the Brooksmeeting Mill down Shaw lane, and no doubt several others within walking / working distance.      Their 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.   39 North Marine Rd (above right) is now the Thornhurst Hotel   In Scarborough they lived in North Marine Road (both houses they lived in are still there) and John set up an Ironmonger shop at 20 North Street (no longer there, but the next door pub is), which T junctions off what is now the main (pedestrian) shopping drag - named Westborough (no "street" - they are very particular about that).  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 a family!   John's North Street ironmonger business is listed in the Bulmers Directory of 1890 and the Hagyard Directory of 1892.  He died in Scarborough in 1894 aged 71.  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 74.  They are both buried in the Manor Road Cemetery, Scarborough (grave P 18 - 25).   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 he was set up in a house there he employed two servants.    Years later nobody in Folkestone ever talked to me about their Yorkshire roots, what a shame.   Adrian Fletcher - July 2010

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

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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 publishes a tract entitled -

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"The thinking man's friend, or a series of religious dialogues designed as a confutation of infidelity - Halifax, 1852".  As can be seen from the link he also dabbled in poetry.

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

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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

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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).

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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

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John Sutcliffe 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)

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

1864 - Frank Edward Fletcher born 28 February

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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.

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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

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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.

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The John Fletcher family has moved east from the windswept moors and bleak mills 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 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 (29 September) every year from 1253 to 1788 (500+ years) - "are you going to Scarborough fair?".  From the late 1600s Scarborough became a fashionable spa town (coupled with sea bathing) for the for the well-heeled.  

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

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and grand-daughter Emma living at their shop at 41 Bridge St, Heywood, Lancashire - our last census contact with these great great great grand-parents.  William dies in February 1887, Susan probably also dies in the 80s..

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.......

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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 (Jimmy) Fletcher birth certificate

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

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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.

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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 (sadly no photos yet!).

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

1891 - Back in Oxenhope, Thomas Fletcher,

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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.

1894 - Q1 - John Fletcher dies in

Scarborough aged 69.  He is buried with Maria 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

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

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.

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The support staff has been expanded to include a domestic governess as well as a maid, and one child (Frank Rex) 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 interesting person, came with a bit of a Draper's dowry.

1901 - Frank Rex (11)

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

1911 - Maria Fletcher now being looked after

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by one daughter at 9 Trafalgar Square.  She is to pass away a couple of months later in 1911, aged 74, survived by 12 of her 14 children.  Good strong stock!  She is buried with husband John in Manor Rd Cemetery in Scarborough - grave P 18-25.

1911 - Frank Edward and family still at

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20 Brockman Road, Folkestone.

1911 - Frank Rex (Jim) lodging at 12 Mildmay Rd, Islington (no longer there).

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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.

1913 - Dr Frank Rex Fletcher

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admitted to British Medical Register on 24 June 1913.  MB, BS 1913 from London Hospital Medical College.

1913 - Frank Edward Family Photo c1913

PHOTOLINK

presumably taken in Folkestone.

1914 - Jimmy joins the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC)

and starts off by getting the job of Medical Officer (MO) to the 2nd / 3rd County of London Yeomanry (The Sharpshooters) who despite their natty title were to spend the war in England without doing any shooting at all. 

1915 - Frank Rex Marriage - Sunday 15 August

PHOTOLINK

CERTIFICATE

Frank Rex (Jimmy) (25) - marries Ethel Henrietta Florence Burton (also 25) in the drab Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene, (Old) Milton, Hampshire.  Why there?

September 1917 - Captain Jimmy Fletcher

seems to have spent three years as MO to battalions who had opted to stay in England.  As of mid 1917 he was the MO of the 2/5 Royal West Kent Regiment who were then camped happily with their horses at Barham windmill (above) near Canterbury (in fact they were so irrelevant that they were disbanded later in the year).

Jimmy Fletcher had presumably decided to make a more significant contribution to the war effort without going so far as a Field Ambulance on the Western Front like his brother-in-law Charlie Burton or my other grandfather Jimmy Sproule.  In mid-September 1917 he set sail on the Union Castle Line's "Durham Castle" for a (leisurely) voyage round the Cape to Basra, and thence up the River Tigris to Baghdad (February 1918).  Happily he also bought himself a new camera, and we have the negatives of several hundred photos he took in Africa, Mesopotamia and India over the next 6 years.

Farewell at Barham Camp 10 Sept 1917 - Ethel Fletcher (wife), Elizabeth Fletcher (Procter) (Mother), Jimmy Fletcher, Gwen Fletcher (Sister).

1917 - 1919 Mesopotamia

We have a special page in preparation to do better justice to the dozens of photos we have

Basra - November 1917

Coffee Shop at Ashar - November 1917

Hospital ship number 12 - May 1918

Amira Grain Bazaar - August 1918

Proclamation Day Salute, Indian Foot Regiments and Cavalry - 23 November 1918

23 April 1918

Michael James Rex Fletcher is born back in London.

1919

Frank Rex (Jimmy) (29) - moves on from Baghdad to Rawalpindi via Bombay and the Taj Mahal (8 May 1919) in Agra. 

1919 - On to India (modern day Pakistan)  ......

after the end of WWI (November 1918) Jimmy Fletcher goes regular in the RAMC, and in 1919 is moved on from the Tigris River to the British Military Hospital at Murree Hill, 40 miles from Rawalpindi, where Ethel and Michael join him a bit later.

Capt Frank Rex (Jimmy), Michael James Rex (4) and Ethel Henrietta Florence - "Clifden, Murree Hills, August 1922"

They stay there till 1923 (with more photos to come) then return to a posting in Aldershot.

1925 - 1928 - Doctor Dr Major F R Fletcher

Does two stints in Freetown, Sierra Leone.  The first one (without family) ends on 13 September 1926 with his return to Plymouth on the ship "Appam".  He is promoted to Major shortly afterwards on 28th September.  The second one (with Ethel but not 9 year old Michael) has departure August 1927 on the Accra and return to Plymouth on the "Abinsi" on 29 April 1828.  In amongst all of this he becomes a specialist in Gynaecology and Midwifery and does a doctorate (awarded in 1928) back at London Hospital Medical School (thus becoming a "real doctor").  Also becomes MRCP London.

This hand coloured photo portrait of Frank Rex Fletcher in London University doctoral robes was probably done later in the 1930s.

Fletcher family on the shingle of Folkestone beach late 1920s - Elizabeth, Ethel, Frank Edward, Frank Rex (Jimmy) and Michael in front.

Early 1931 Major Jimmy Fletcher (41) retires from the army and becomes a GP in Folkestone.

1935 - Dr Frank Rex (Jim) Fletcher and Ethel now in long term Folkestone residence - Dene Court (Ingles Rd) - the left half of the house below.

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Frank Rex (Jimmy), son Michael (Adrian's Dad to be) and Ethel outside Dene Ct, Folkestone, 1937.

FRF (49) Called up for WW II duties September 1939 to 1945.

ARMY CAREER

October 1968 - Ethel Fletcher (Burton) (78) passes away.

May 1974 - Frank Rex (Jim) Fletcher (84) passes away.

OBITUARY

18 May 1974