John Gregory’s Family
John Gregory emigrated as a Mormon, together with his wife Mary Ann, nee Dunkerley, to the United States in 1845. Mary Ann had worked in the cotton industry of Oldham, but John was a coal miner from Tonge at Middleton. Information researched by Penny Green and other data in my possession has now provided some background about John Gregory's parents and his five brothers and three sisters. The boys were all involved in coal mining, a subject not previously described on this site.
From correspondence that took place between the descendents of John Gregory in California and those they had left behind in England, we know the names of a number of John’s siblings, such as Alice, Ann and Beatrice.
This provides sufficient confidence to identify the family on the UK censuses of 1841 and 1851 and the information that can be gleaned from these sources indicates that John’s father was Robert Gregory who was born at Westhoughton, situated between Wigan and Bolton in Lancashire, in about 1791 (in WNW of adjacent map). His wife, Alice, was also born at Westhoughton, perhaps on that side of the village towards Lostock, but there are discrepancies about her year of birth. The 1841 census shows she was then 44 (born about 1797), that of 1851 says she was 47 (so born about 1804) and the 1861 census splits the difference and has her aged 60, so born about 1801! Perhaps she was one of those people who didn’t know her real age – I remember one Lancashire woman who, when asked, used to say ‘I’m as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth’.
Penny Green believes that the marriage reference is one at Manchester Cathedral on 20th January 1813 when the witnesses included a George Gregory, perhaps Robert’s brother. Robert was described as a ‘spinner’. If this is the correct marriage then Alice is more likely to have been born about 1797 than about 1804. Robert may have worked in a cotton factory operating one of the early cotton-spinning machines, most probably a ‘mule’, or he might simply have hand-operated a domestic-based spinning jenny. In view of later information I am inclined to favour the latter possibility. The marriage record shows Alice’s maiden name as ‘Cunliffe’.
We cannot be sure if Robert and Alice were in Westhoughton at the time, in April 1812, when the early power-loom factory of Rose and Dunscough was burned down by a mob of rioters, variously motivated by food and work shortages and protesting against the power looms that they saw as taking away the jobs of the handloom workers. Three men and a boy were executed for this incident.
The 1851 census data and an IGI entry suggest that Robert and Alice left Westhoughton about the time of their marriage and were living at Cheadle in Cheshire (in south of map) when their fourth child, James, was born about 1825. However they had apparently returned to Westhoughton by 6th June 1830 (when Beatrice was christened). By 1832, when their next child (Thomas) was born they had moved again and were living at Pendleton, near Salford. They were still there two years later but when their last child (Ann) was born, probably on 10th May 1837, they were living at Tonge Lane in Middleton, three or four miles west of Oldham. Thereafter the village of Tonge was to feature persistently in the Gregory family history.
It seems likely that Robert and Alice always worked in textiles. In the 1851 census, at Tonge, both were described as ‘Hand Loom weaver Cotton’, an occupation that had been rewarding when Robert was born in about 1791, but which was badly disrupted by the French wars from 1793 to 1815 and then by the increasing encroachment of the power loom from the 1820s. During the whole of the nineteenth century, until their virtual extinction in the 1880s, the lot of the cotton handloom weavers deteriorated; only the older weavers hung on to the bitter end. For the period 1818 to 1822, when Robert and Alice were still at Westhoughton, sixty-five percent of all fathers in the district were handloom weavers.
However, besides cotton working (and silk working, which paid better than cotton and was therefore increasingly adopted by the handloom weavers), another significant occupation at Tonge in 1841 was coal mining, for the area was situated on the Lancashire coal field, (as, indeed, were the settlements of Westhoughton and Pendleton). The demand for coal in Lancashire was growing, fuelled, especially, by the huge increase in the number of steam engines that were then being erected to power not only cotton mills but also all the supporting infrastructure, including engineering works, foundries, water-pumping installations and the railways. From an annual output of about 3.4 million tons in 1836 production increased to about 8.5 million tons in 1857 and 11 million tons in 1859. This was produced from 416 collieries, 381 in Lancashire and 35 in Cheshire, an increase of 26 in only two years.
Output was mostly classed as ordinary bituminous coal. It came from about 75 different seams, some of which ran across the whole area, although they had local names. The coal was considered of good quality although many of the seams were 'extremely thin'. The minimum thickness considered economic was only one foot, which must have been very difficult for the miners to work. However there were also seams that were five or more feet thick. In general the workings were 'not greatly troubled with water'. Faults in the area displaced the coal as much as three thousand feet.
It was said that: "Generally speaking, the Lancashire coal-field, abounding as it does with such a numerous succession of seams, presents very few ... mining difficulties.. The sinkings are moderatley deep; the quantity of water inconsiderable; and the seams lie at convenient angles, and of eligible thickness for economical working." There were innumerable shafts, including one at Tonge Lane close to where the Gregory family lived.
As the plight of the handloom weavers of Lancashire worsened there was no incentive for young men to take up the occupation of their fathers. Indeed, although dirty and dangerous, it is clear that comparatively good money could be earned in the expanding coal mines, as emphasized, for example during a second period of rioting and loom-breaking in 1826.
“The colliery owner William Hulton, giving evidence to the 1827 Select Committee on Emigration, spoke of cases of distress, which “I could not have conceived to exist in a civilised country. It was “almost incredible,” he said, to see the difference between the comfortable state of the miners in Hulton and the misery of the hand-loom weavers, who lived “over the hedge” in the adjoining township of Westhoughton. There, half the 5,000 inhabitants were “totally destitute of bedding and nearly so of clothes” and six per cent were in a state of famine”.
It was in the coal industry that the sons of Robert and Alice Gregory earned their livings, at least by 1841. The census of that year describes the occupations of Roger, John, James and Joseph as ‘Coal Miner’ and of Richard as ‘Collier’. Generally, it seems, a 'collier' was a face worker, actually hewing coal from the seam. Roger may well have been working in the mines from the 1820s, for children of less than ten years of age were often employed underground at that time. Conditions in the mines were never likely to be easy – the mine might be hot, or cold and very wet, and many of the coal seams were narrow. The miners had to provide their own lighting – even after the invention of the safety lamp in 1814 candles were often used – and shifts were often long. Aspin quotes a miner who was questioned about the cleanliness of the miners. Many of them did not wash their bodies – only their ‘neck, ears and face’ and ‘their legs and bodies are as black as your hat’.
Legislation slowly began to improve the lot of the miners. An Act of 1842 on the employment of children and another promoted soon after by Lord Ashley prohibited the employment of women and girls underground and of boys under ten.
By 1851 Thomas Gregory had joined his brothers in the mines and at the age of 18 was working as a coal drawer (or hurrier). His work probably involved hauling coal along underground tramways (see drawings). This was sometimes achieved by use of a chain that passed through the drawer's legs and was attached to their waist by a leather belt. In earlier years much of the coal had been hauled in this manner on sledges; women and girls had taken part in this activity (see drawing). One man, John Rushton, began work as a boy of thirteen in 1846 at the Cinder Field Pit at Walkden, south of Bolton.
“His first job, he wrote in later life, was to push a basket of coal which was hauled by his uncle by means of a belt and chain. Explosive gases were an ever-present threat:
“Our coal-getters worked with candles and on one occasion one of our men observing the flame on his candle, noticed the presence of gas. He immediately cried, “Candles out! Gas is upon us!” The other men instantly obeyed. With all possible speed we secured our clothing and not waiting to dress, hurried to the shaft in the darkness”
Once a coal-getter’s candle did ignite the gas. “It was a mere flash, but sufficient to cause a shock and a smarting as if he had received a stroke from a birch rod..
Most mine owners showed little interest in their work people, but others were more enlightened. It is impossible to know what John Gregory and his brothers went through as they earned their daily bread, but they must have been tough men, inured to hardship. Fortunately, so far as we know, none of them died down the mines – at least not while they were young.
It seems that the Gregory girls were spared the rigours of the coal mines. Instead they found employment in the burgeoning cotton factories of the area. In 1851 Beatrice was a winder in a cotton mill, a job that entailed operating high-speed machines which passed yarn from one set of bobbins to another. Esther and Ann operated power looms to weave cotton cloth. You can read an account of processes in the cotton industry here, and an account of the Regent cotton mill of Failsworth here.
We know very well that John Gregory married Mary Ann Dunkerley, a cotton worker, in 1844 and that the couple emigrated as Mormons to the United States in 1844, but what became of John’s siblings?
Roger may have been born in 1816. His wife was called Mary and was five years older than him. She appears to have been Mary Hoyle, the wedding taking place on 4th April 1836 at Manchester Cathedral and Roger was then shown as a ‘miner’. Neither he nor Mary was able to sign their name. In 1841 they are listed at New Road, Tonge (Roger shown as a Coal Miner), living together with Roger’s brother, Richard. Roger does not appear on the UK 1881 census (nor, indeed, on the US 1880 or Canadian 1881 censuses). I have not searched for him on the 1861 or 1871 censuses.
Richard was born about 1821. He seems to have married Betty Smith on 16th December 1840 at Manchester Cathedral. In 1841 he was living at New Road, Tonge. He was then recorded as a ‘collier’ and Betty as a silk weaver. The census shows that at that time silk weaving was more common than cotton weaving at Middleton and it was also common in neighbouring Chadderton, Failsworth and Droylesden. Information from a Mormon hand-written document provided by Todd Murray suggests that Richard may later have gone to 
Australia. Richard does not appear on the 1880/81 censuses and I have not looked for him on the 1861 or 1871 censuses.
I have little information about James. The 1861 census indicates that he was born at Cheadle in Cheshire in about 1824/25. In 1841 he was a coal miner, aged 17, living at Tonge. He may have married Mary A. Nuttall at St. Peter’s, Bolton, in 1848 and had a daughter called Beatrice who was ten years old in 1861. James was then widowed, the likely death of his wife being registered at Lever, Bolton, in 1851, perhaps in child birth. In 1861 James and his daughter, Beatrice, were living with James’ mother, Alice, on Oldham Road in Tonge, next door to his sister, Ann. James was still a coal miner.
Joseph Gregory was born about 1827 in Lancashire and on the 1861 census is listed as being a coal miner, married to Margaret and living at Tonge with three children, John, Ann and Margaret. I have not looked for Joseph on the 1851 or 1871 censuses and have not found him on the 1881 census. Joseph’s son, John, may be shown on the 1881 census, born in and living at Tonge, a cotton operative, married to Jane and with two boys, Joseph and William.
Beatrice Gregory was born in about 1830 at Westhoughton (although the 1871 census says she was born at Tonge). In 1851 she was a cotton winder and seems to have married Joseph Brown in 1856 at St. Mary’s 
church in Oldham. Joseph appears to have been from Warwickshire and the 1861 census shows him as a brick maker’s labourer. By the time of the 1871 census Joseph had died, leaving Beatrice with three children, Thomas (aged 14), Elizabeth Ann (aged 8) and Fanny (aged 5), all born at Tonge, living at Tonge Hall Street. Beatrice was a cotton winder and Thomas a cotton piecer, which means he worked as a helper to a mule spinner.
In 1872 Beatrice married Thomas Marsland, probably a widower, at Christ Church in Chadderton. On the 1881 census Thomas and Beatrice were living at 12, Castle Street in Tonge, and he was a coal miner. The couple had evidently combined the two families as Elizabeth Ann and Fanny are shown together with three Marsland girls. Elizabeth Ann and Fanny were working in the cotton industry.
Elizabeth Ann and Fanny are mentioned in a letter of 4th February 1884 written by Alice Kent (see below) to Harriet Eliza Gregory who was in California.
Beatrice seems to have died in the first quarter of 1889 in Oldham.
Thomas Gregory was born in about 1832, according to the 1851 census at Pendelton (in Salford), however this cannot be confirmed on the IGI. He was a coal drawer, meaning that he was probably hauling coal along underground tramways (see drawings above).
The wording of the letter from Alice Kent on 4th February 1884 to Harriet Augusta Gregory (‘Cousin Hattie’) suggests that Thomas may have travelled to the United States. The US 1880 census lists only one plausible ‘Thomas Gregory’, a widowed man with three American-born children living in Manhattan, New York.
Esther Gregory was born about 1834 in Pendleton (Salford). In 1851 she is shown as a cotton power-loom weaver. I cannot find her on the 1881 census and have no further information about her.
Ann Gregory was born about 1837 at Tonge and on the 1851 census appears as a cotton power loom weaver. She married John Kent in 1859 at St. Michael’s church, Tonge.
John Kent may have been the son of William and Margaret Kent who were living at Tonge Lane in 1841 with seven children, including one called John who was born about 1834 (as expected from later census data if he is the husband of Ann). William was a clogger.
The 1861 census shows John and Ann Kent on Oldham Road in Tonge, next door to Ann’s mother, Alice. Both John and Ann were handloom weavers, John working with cotton, Ann with silk. They had one daughter, Rachel. Anne’s sister Beatrice lived nearby.
By 1871 the couple were still on Oldham Road in Tonge, both were shown as cotton weavers and they had six children. Living next door was another Kent family, possibly relatives.
The 1881 census found the family at 1, High Field in Tonge and both were cotton weavers. By then they had seven children living at home, Rachel, John T., Alice, Esther, Samuel, Richard and William. Rachel and Esther were cotton weavers, John was a minder, Alice was a dress maker, Samuel and Richard were scholars and William was a child at home.
The letter written by Alice Kent on 4th February 1884 to her Cousin Hattie (Harriet Augusta Gregory) in California (it can be read by scrolling down to Item 2 here) shows that the Kents were then living at 294 Tonge Lane. They were still there when Alice sent Hattie another letter on 23rd October 1885 (see Item 3). The Kent family appear to have been managing quite well, in spite of difficulties in the cotton trade, as Alice then had a piano. She was a dressmaker and reported 'I have plenty to do'.
The 1891 census finds the family at 304 Oldham Road, Tonge. John was still a cotton weaver, and the oldest six children were all working in the cotton industry.
Penny Green says that the family were still living at Tonge in 1901.
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Penny Green who contacted me via this site and is related by marriage to the Dunkerley family. Penny has about twenty years experience of family history research and produced data about the Gregory family at such a rate that I suspect she used magic.
References
For information on the Lancashire coalfield I have used the following sources:
Ansted, David Thomas, 1856, Elementary Course of Geology, Mineralogy, and Physical Geography, London, John van Voorst - Hull, Edward, 1861, The coal-fields of Great Britain, Chapter 13, page 121 'The Lancashire Coalfield'.
- Taylor, Richard Cowling (1789-1851), Statistics of Coal.