A family tree of the main characters can ge accessed here.
The Narrative
Richard Tuson was born towards the end of the Napoleonic wars at Longton, an extraordinary mediaeval village close to the coast of the Irish Sea and south of the River Ribble. Longton is well named, for in the time of Richard it was a ribbon village stretching for about three miles east-west, yet was only one property deep, the houses backing onto long narrow gardens and fields that closely mirrored the old common-field structure. To the west lay the salt marshes, to the east the old wetlands of the mosses where the villagers could dig peat and harvest rushes or willow for local use. The village life was centred on agriculture and supporting trades, such as that of the smith and wheelwright, but many, if not most, people also took part in cotton hand-loom weaving using yarn provided by the great spinning mills of Preston, Penwortham and other nearby towns. The land was given over to mixed farming, raising cattle, sheep and other animals, and growing oats, some wheat and root crops for human consumption and animal fodder.
Richard was brought up on his father’s farm, the second son of a yeoman family that had been in the area for several generations. He must have 
acquired all the skills of the farmer, known the hard labour and long hours of work at all times of the year, and taken part in village customs and activities as the seasons changed. In 1835 when he was 24 Richard married Elizabeth (Betty) Wilding a sweet young thing of 18, who was born at Horwich, south of Chorley. She was the daughter of Richard and Ann Wilding[1] who were also of Longton, so the couple may have known each other for much of their lives before they decided to ‘tie the knot’. The marriage took place at Penwortham parish church and produced, in good Tuson fashion, a numerous family. The youngest child, William, was born when Betty was 44 years old and was my great grandfather. The complete family is listed following:
1. James (12/1/1837 – 29/4/1892)
2. Catherine (16/2/1838 – 26/2/1838)
3. Catherine (24/12/1838 – 1897?)
4. Richard (13/1/1842 – 1/6/1890?)
5. Ann (1/8/1844 – 1914)
6. Margaret (17/7/1846 – 14/4/1847)
7. Margaret (5/6/1848 – 1/4/1910)
8. Margery (8/12/1851 – 1926)
9. Isabella (20/3/1856[2] – after 1930?)
10. Henry or Harry (27/4/1859 – 1898?)
11. William (5/5/1861 – 1/7/1927)
The surviving children, shown in bold type, comprised four boys and five girls.
It appears likely that after they married Richard and Betty stayed in Longton and that Richard worked on his father’s farm, because their first son was born there in 1837. However when Catherine was born the following year they had moved to neighbouring Hutton and I suspect the family may then have lived in the easternmost of a row of nine cottages, known at the time as ‘Tuson Row’ (see photo) and probably then new-built by Richard’s father, Jamesiv. The population of the area was then expanding, on the back of rising incomes derived from the widespread adoption of cotton weaving in the villages. The cottages of Tuson Row were tiny – just two rooms upstairs and two down – and must have provided little space for families, although some of them were certainly used for handloom weaving in both 1841 and 1851. By the time of the 1841 census Richard was definitely living there and, surprisingly, was working as a tailor! Why he should have made the transition from farming to tailoring is not known, but perhaps he wanted an easier life. There would have been no shortage of cotton cloth for tailoring because large amounts were being produced locally by the handloom weavers. As both the population and prosperity of the area increased during Richard’s lifetime he perhaps felt it was a job with a future.
The family circumstances would have been helped when, in 1845, Richard’s father Jamesiv died leaving a considerable estate for which Richard and his brother George were the executors. Among the assets was ‘Tuson Row’. Although known on the 1841 and 1851 censuses by that name it became ‘Hutton Row’ in 1861 and, curiously, ‘New Row’ in 1871. Today the cottages are known as ‘Hutton Row’. Jamesiv left his land and farming assets to his oldest son, George but he left the nine cottages, three each, to his sons Richard, William and James. James inherited those in the middle, William those in the west and Richard those in the east. The Hutton tithe schedules of 1846 and 1848 indicate that the easternmost cottage had a significantly larger garden than the others, and Richard also received £110 from his father – then an important sum. The 1851 census tells us that Richard and his brothers William and James, and their families, were all living in the cottages they had inherited from their father, the remaining cottages being occupied by other families, presumably as tenants paying rents to the three brothers. William and James were then agricultural labourers, perhaps working on the farm of their brother, George, but Richard, already with three young children, was still a tailor.
During the next few years Richard’s family continued growing but it was becoming evident that the rural population of Hutton and the other villages of the area had begun to decline. This was caused by increasing mechanisation of cotton weaving such that power-looms were taking over most of the work leading to increasing unemployment among the handloom weavers in the villages. People had little choice but to move where the work was and the rural population both reduced and aged. What weaving still found its way into the villages was more complex and poorly paid. Perhaps it was this combination of factors that persuaded Richard to return to the land. In any case by 1856 at the age of 45 Richard was farming once more. In 1851 his property was a modest 16 acres, located at New House Farm on Lindal Lane (see map above), still in Hutton. In about 1863 Richard and Betty saw their oldest child, James, marry and about a year later they must have been delighted to become grandparents for the first time with the birth of a boy named after his grandfather.
Probably about March 1865 Richard and Betty left Hutton and moved with their family to Brindle where, in 1871, they were leasing 69 acres at Holt Farm from the Brindle Estate, owned by a branch of the Duke of Devonshire’s family[3]. The fact that they were able to obtain such a lease shows that Richard had a good reputation and could be trusted as a tenant by the local gentry. It appears that their son James and his family also lived with them.
Brindle is a pretty village situated five miles southeast of Preston and about ten miles due east of Hutton. It was well known for handloom weaving and was one of the last bastions against the power loom. Other Tuson families also lived in Brindle. Today Holt farm comprises a stone-built house, which has been extended at least twice, two old stone-built barns that were probably used by Richard, and some more modern buildings as shown in the photos.
The farm land is situated about 150 feet above sea level, is currently hilly pasture used for cattle rearing and may have been very similar in the mid nineteenth century.
While at Holt Farm Richard and Betty saw the birth of four further grandchildren, three for James and his wife Mary Bamford and one for Catherine, who had married George Singleton in 1868. However in October 1870 the family’s fortunes seemed to change. The first event to shake them was the death of James’ wife, Mary, leaving four young motherless children. From then on the family must have relied increasingly on Betty, but worse was to follow, for on March 27th 1871, just six days before that year’s census, young Richard, the first grandchild, died. The census date must have virtually coincided with the boy’s funeral and on that night the whole family, including Catherine and George Singleton and their baby, were assembled at Holt Farm.
Richard did not long enjoy the lease at Holt Farm, for he died there the following year, aged 61. It was probably a painful death (‘stricture of the bowels, 
33 or 34 hours’), attended by his family. His youngest son, William, registered the event in Chorley. William was to see plenty of his loved ones into the hereafter before his own time came. Betty was left with six unmarried children at home, plus James, widowed and with three young children of his own. She must have been a strong lady to cope.
After Richard’s death Betty was unable to keep the lease on Holt Farm, but was not prepared to give up farming altogether. We know nothing of the first years of her widowhood but by the time of the 1881 census she was established on a seven acre farm at ‘Bank House’ in Clayton Le Woods[4]. It is located about two miles west of Holt Farm and the family group, besides Betty, comprised her daughter Margery, her son William, and grandchildren Henry and Margaret (who were the children of Margaret Bamford and James). Elizabeth was then 64 years old, Margery (25) probably helped at home, William (13) was a clogger’s apprentice, Henry (also 13) was a cotton weaver and Margaret (11) a scholar.
Betty’s final move followed soon after. She died in 1884 of ‘morbus cordis’ – heart disease[5], resident at ‘89 Botany’[6] in the town of Chorley, just a few miles south of Clayton-le-Woods. Once again it fell to William, her son, my great grandfather, to make the registration.
The Context of Richard and Betty’s Lives
Richard and Betty’s lives were lived fair and square in the nineteenth century. They were brought up within the traditions of a rural economy, and farming formed the background to their lives. However, developments in industrial cotton spinning (and printing) provided an additional and important source of income to the villages of the area and the rat-a-tat of the handloom weaver’s shuttle must have been a constant rhythm.
Richard was born into a prosperous family and enjoyed the confidence of his father who appointed him as joint-executor of his will. It is unlikely therefore that he ever experienced hardship in the first half of his life and he must have been a good ‘catch’ for Betty when they married in 1835. About that time he opted, somewhat surprisingly, to become a tailor, a profession he followed for more than ten years, living in the easternmost cottage of Tuson Row in Hutton. Although handloom weaving was soon to go into decline, finally unable to compete with the power loom, Timmins has argued that this did not happen until towards the end of the 1830s[7]. However the evidence of population figures from Hutton suggests that by 1840 the decline was beginning to make itself felt for rural depopulation had set in. By the time that Richard’s father, Jamesiv, died in 1845 therefore, and already with a family of four to feed, it is likely that the family’s circumstances were greatly helped by the inheritance of three of the cottages in Tuson Row and a significant cash sum.
Perhaps the family financial position was deteriorating to such a degree that by 1861 Richard had decided to return to farming, first at Lindal Lane in Hutton, later at the larger property of Holt Farm in Brindle, leased from the local gentry. Both farms were probably oriented to animal-rearing, producing meat and dairy products. Irrespective of the increasingly difficult plight of the handloom weavers, the rapidly expanding town populations must have provided a ready market for food products.
Richard and Betty raised nine children, most of whom married and produced the blessing of grandchildren. Their family lives were not, however, unvisited by sorrow. Apart from the deaths of at least two children as infants they also had to cope with the premature death of their first daughter-in-law, followed soon after by the death of their first grandson, Richard, aged seven. This left them to help raise three of their grandchildren. Their efforts were further frustrated when Richard died and Betty had to soldier on at a much smaller property at Clayton-le-Woods. Some years later, in 1884, she too passed away.
Richard and Betty saw various booms and busts and though they probably got through without ever feeling deprivation they must have known times of anxiety as the handloom weavers struggled for work and food, and trade fluctuated. They would certainly have talked of the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s and the Cotton Famine of the 1860s during the American Civil War, when thousands could find no work and were dependent on soup kitchens and other acts of charity (see figure). It was during their lifetimes too, from the 1840s, that the railways appeared, revolutionizing transport of people and of goods. They must eventually have been aware that England was moving into an age of increasing prosperity and liberalism and felt that their children and grandchildren had the hope of better lives than their own generation had experienced.
Overall, Richard and Betty probably did quite well. They raised a family of nine children off the land by providing the food that the great urban centres of Lancashire needed, whether in times of feast or famine, and they perhaps came through the hard times without experiencing hunger themselves.
The Family
What happened to Richard and Betty’s numerous family? After considerable research, and a little help from friends, I now have at least some information about all the siblings. I shall be delighted to be contacted by descendents of those mentioned below:
James Tuson
William’s oldest brother, James, was brought up in Hutton at his father’s cottage in Tuson Row. He had a comparatively generous education for he was still a scholar at age 14. He then attended Penwortham Sunday School seven years as a scholar and eight as a teacher, leaving in 1865 after being presented with a bible ‘as a token of esteem and regard … and with ‘appreciation of his long and useful service’. The 1861 census described him as a ‘School Master’. In 1863 he married Margaret Bamford at Penwortham church and the following year their first son, Richard, was born.
The presentational bible was probably given to James on the occasion of the family’s move to Brindle, where three other children, Jane, Henry and Margaret Elizabeth, were born. In October 1870 Margaret Bamford died and young Richard died six d
ays before the 1871 census. James was then an ‘agricultural labourer’ working for, and living with, his parents at Holt Farm. In 1872 Richard, James’ father, died and James was left as the man about the house.
Two years later James re-married, to Isabella Dewhurst, widow of Joseph Walmsley with whom she had two children, Robert and Mary. The wedding took place in Whittle-le-Woods and the couple had six children together, the first called Richard after James’ father and as a substitute for the boy who had died. The other children were Edward, Elizabeth, James, William and Harry, all of whom, with the possible exception of Elizabeth, survived into adulthood. At least four married and had children.
On the 1881 census James was shown as an ‘unemployed labourer’ (with five young children at home) and according to one of his grandchildren he had problems with drink. Times were perhaps very hard. He died in 1892 and is buried at St. John’s in Whittle-le-Woods. Isabella died in 1923.
In later years someone, evidently female, who signed herself ‘E. Tuson’ and was probably the niece of James’ brother William, lived or worked at Harris Orphanage at Fulwood in Preston (post card of 21/5/1913). The most likely candidate for this enigmatic ‘E. Tuson’ appears to be Elizabeth Tuson, the daughter of James and Isabella Tuson. The Harris Orphanage was a charitable foundation and is shown in the figure.
Catherine Tuson
Catherine lived at Tuson Row in Hutton until at least 1851 when at age 12 she was still a scholar. In 1861 she was helping in the home at New House Farm on Lindal Lane in Hutton and probably moved to Brindle with the family in 1865. In 1868 she married George Singleton, about twenty years her senior, who was born at Goosnargh and seems to have been a schoolmaster, later a stationer. By 1881 they were living in Preston, George was a newsagent and they had three children, Elizabeth, George and Alice. In 1891 the whole family still lived in Preston, Elizabeth working as a dressmaker, George as a coachman and Alice, aged 11, still at school. Both Catherine and George seem to have died in Preston, Catherine in 1897, aged 58, and George in 1900, aged 81. By the time of the 1901 census young George was married and had a son; his two sisters were living with their brother’s family.
It appears that someone in the Singleton family, perhaps George, had a daughter, called Annie, who was in contact with my great grandfather’s (William’s) family in 1910. Alternatively this Annie might have been Alice, who, according to the 1891 census, may have been called 'Alice Elizabeth Ann'.
Richard Tuson
Richard appears on the 1851 census at Tuson Row as a scholar, aged nine, and on the 1861 census at New House Farm on Lindal Lane in Hutton as a ‘Farmer’s Son’. I had considerable difficutly finding what happened to him subsequently, but as a result of this website I have now been contacted by a living relative and Richard therefore becomes one of the siblings for whom I can best account.
In 1868 he married Jane Stones at St. Michael with St. John and Holy Trinity church in Blackburn. He was eventually buried in Failsworth cemetery on 1st June 1896. Why he should have gone to Failsworth is not known, but it raises the intriguing possibility that he arrived there before his younger brother, William (see below). He and Jane had at least one child, Richard, who was evidently living at 9, Schofield Street in Failsworth in 1924 (he is mentioned at that time in Williams's will). This Richard maried Carrie Grindrod of Manchester in 1902 and the couple had three children, Richard, Carrie and William, in 1903, '05 and '07 respectively. The first two were born at 'Bucklow', which was later split between Manchester, Trafford and Stockport. Carrie, the mother, died when William was born, these events being registered in Prestwich, and it seems Richard subsequently remained a widower until his death in 1956. He was apparently a coal merchant. His oldest son, Richard, married Winifred May Conry and they had at least one child, called, perhaps predictably, Richard, in 1935. It is this Richard who has contacted me. He too married and has children.
Ann Tuson
We are on fairly certain ground with Ann. In 1851 she was a Scholar in Hutton, aged six and probably moved with the family to New Farm in Lindal Lane and then to Brindle with the family around March 1865. She showed a propensity for teaching and in 1861 was a 'pupil teacher' in Hutton. In 1870 she temporarily became the stand-in teacher at Brindle school , where she 'provided a heavy diet of scriptural teaching flavoured with a belief in the waywardness of children and their need for frequent chastisement'. She was unable to maintain order and resigned in May 1871, as explained in an interesting article on the website of Brindle Historical Society[8]. Later that year a new, permanent schoolmaster, took over.[11]
Ann evidently took her talents elsewhere for the 1881 census shows her to be a school mistress at Garstang in Lancashire. A career change must have followed for the snapshot from the 1891 census shows her living with her brother William in Failsworth, near Manchester, as a Hospital Nurse, of which more later under the account of William’s life (click here). Ann was still nursing in 1891, this time as a Sick Nurse at Goosnargh Hospital near Garstang. She remained single all her life and it is easy to imagine her as a no-nonsense sort of woman. A death reference in the December quarter of 1914, at Preston, 8e, 754, aged 70 appears correct.
Margaret Tuson
Margaret appears at Tuson Row in 1851, aged 2. In 1861 she is a scholar living at New House Farm on Lindal Lane in Hutton and ten years later is a Farmer’s Daughter at Holt Farm in Brindle. She appears to have married James Ramsbottom in 1874 in the Chorley area and by 1881 was living in a Grocer’s Shop at 98 Botany Brow in Chorley. The couple then had five children – Joseph, Isabella, Elizabeth, Richard and Edward.
In 1891 James bought the tenancy of the Bay Horse Inn and farm at Whittle-le-Woods (see photo) for the substantial sum of £82, including the cattle, horses and farming equipment, and moved the family there. The family ran the pub for so long that it became known as 'Rammy's' and while there had six more children, James, Harry, John, Margaret Elizabeth, Margery and Ann, although Margaret and Margery both died in infancy[12]. The family remained at the Bay Horse until at least 1901, when James was described as an ‘Innkeeper and Farmer’. By 1901 Joseph and Isabella had left home and several of the others were working in cotton manufacture.
The couple did not long survive for James died in 1903 and Margaret in 1910 both at Whittle-le-Woods.
One of Margaret’s sons seems to have had a daughter called Annie Ramsbotham who lived at the Bay Horse Hotel. The family of Margaret’s youngest brother, William (my great grandfather), made a visit there in 1912. Other family members that Irene recalled were Kitty (a ganddaughter of James Tuson by his second marriage with Isabella Dewhurst) and Peggy, who was older. Jim Tuson (William’s son) used to drive to the Bay Horse Inn by car and stopped at the Sea View Hotel which was run by Kitty's parents, James Tuson and Ada Elizabeth Tuson nee Desoer (see photo).
Margery Tuson
Margery first appears on the 1861 census as a scholar living with the family at New House Farm on Lindal Lane in Hutton. In 1871 she was at Holt Farm in Brindle, a Farmer’s Daughter, and in 1881 she was with her mother, Betty, at Bank House farm in Clayton-le-Woods. In 1889, aged about 38, Margery married David Mason who, in 1891, was a 'stationery engine driver' - presumably at a cotton mill, in Clayton Le Woods. The couple seem not to have had any children of their own, but in 1891 were providing lodgings for two nieces and a nephew, besides caring for baby James Tuson, son of Margery's brother William, then only three months old. David seems to have died only four years later. Margery remarried in 1898, to George Rowley and the couple appear on the 1901 census at Leyland Lane in Whittle-le-Woods. George came from Staffordshire, was 30 years old and worked as a domestic gardener. Margery lived until 1926.
Isabella Tuson
I have a copy of Isabella's birth certificate, at Hutton, in 1856. Thereafter, like her sister Margery, she appears on the 1861 census as a scholar living with the family at New House Farm on Lindal Lane in Hutton. In 1871 she was at Holt Farm in Brindle, a Farmer’s Daughter. In 1880 she married James Margrove of Brindle and in 1881 they were living in Brindle village and James was a railway clerk. A move to Blackburn must have followed for they had two sons, respectively Richard Tuson and James Harry (perhaps referred to as 'Harry'), born there in about 1886 and 1893, but by 1901 the family had moved to Preston. They were then living in Ecroyd Road, James was described as a ‘Superannuated Railway Clerk’ and Richard was an ‘Errand Boy Bookshop’.
Possibly Isabella was the “Aunt Bella” whom my mother Irene and others used to visit. It seems they then had a shop at Eccles and the visitors used to sleep on the floor. Irene thought that Aunt Bella and her husband reached their Golden Wedding anniversary (see photo). She also thought that Bella’s husband, (who Irene thought was probably called James), suffered from shell shock in the First World War. Irene thought that it was he who took Mary and her (in successive years) to Ypres to see Uncle Jim’s grave. James seems to have played the organ[9]. Isabella died in 1932 and is buried in Brindle churchyard.
I subsequently found out that James Harry Margrove fought in the First World War and was killed on 5th September 1918. His war number was 36809 and he was a member of the 2nd/5th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment, son of James and Isabella Margrove of 16 Granville Road, Pendleton, Manchester. He was buried in the Aire Communal Cemetery[10]. Irene probably went to visit the grave, with James Harry’s father, James Margrove, whom she called ‘Uncle Jim’ as there is a faded photo of the grave in an old album. Eccles is about seven miles west of Pendleton.
Henry Tuson
Henry also makes his first appearance on the 1861 census at New House Farm, Lindal Lane, Hutton. In 1871 he was at Holt Farm, Brindle, aged 11 and a scholar probably putting up with the stern teaching of his sister Ann. Perhaps he was well pleased by the appearance of Samuel Marshall who soon established an excellent reputation.
After the death of his father the following year Henry probably had to find work and in 1881 he was a groom living at High Field Farm in Brindle, where the farmer was Robert Blackledge. He married Elizabeth Berry of Brindle in 1885 and by 1891 was a Farmer living in Holt Lane. He and Elizabeth then had four children, Richard, Elizabeth, Margaret and William. I have been unable to find Henry on the 1901 census but have found a death registration that fits his age at Chorley in the first quarter of 1898.
William Tuson
William was my great grandfather. After his father died he became a clogger, married, had three children and moved to Failsworth near Manchester. His story is the next to be told on this site and can be read here.
Written by Philip Dunkerley.
This page was last modified on Thursday, August 28, 2008
Footnotes & References
1. d. 11/4/1849
2. A typed document, believed to be copied from an old family bible, referred to as ‘the Register’ mentions, in addition to Isabella Tuson, an Isabella Wilding ‘departed this life August 7th 1857.
3. Information kindly provided by Steve Williams of the Brindle Historical Society. Today Holt farm is owned by the Aspinalls and leased to tenants.
4. The 1881 census shows ‘Bank House’, but the Ordnance Survey maps of 1848 and 1894 show ‘Buck House’. Looking at the manuscript of the 1871 survey, the place that corresponds to ‘Bank House’ of 1881 has a farm property apparently called ‘Bark House’, of 7 acres occupied by a widow. ‘Bark’ could be read as ‘Bank’, less likely as ‘Buck’. Given its position in the sequence of properties visited by the enumerator, the type and acreage and the fact that it was being farmed by a widow I have little doubt that it is the ‘Bank House’ property occupied by Betty Tuson and family in 1881.
5. On http://www.bignell.uk.com/glossary_of_old_names.htm morbus cordis is explained as “Heart disease. A catch-all phrase for death by natural causes when the exact cause was not evident.”
6. Also known as ‘Botany Bay’ or ‘Botany Brow’.
7. Timmins, G. 1993, ‘The Last Shift’, Manchester University Press, ISBN 0 7190 3725 5, Chap. 4.
8. http://brindlehistoricalsociety.org.uk/features/samuelmarshallfeature.htm
9. Irene had vague recollections of some member of the family with a toy and/or sweet shop in the Stockport area and thinks this might have been James and Bella.
10. Details available on the Commonwealth War Graves website, http://www.cwgc.org/debt_of_honour.asp.
11. The photo of Brindle church is from http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Brindle/home.html.
12. Information provided by Kath Hargreaves from a memorial at St. John's in Whittle-le-Woods, by e-mail on 20 Nov 2002.