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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Derbyshire => Topic started by: fridayschild on Saturday 25 January 14 15:11 GMT (UK)
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After years of wondering what became of him I have found that my 3x Great Grandfather Robert Taylor (born Charlesworth, Derbyshire c.1804) died on March 13th 1875 in Burnley, Lancashire. I looked through the records of the Municipal Cemetery and also the local churchyards but could not find out where he was buried. I looked at the parish burials on Find My past and was amazed to find he had been buried in Charlesworth on 17th March.
What I can't get my head a round are the logistics of transporting a dead body all the way to Derbyshire. I presume they must have used a horse drawn hearse but as he only had 1 son and 2 daughters and they were employed as cotton weavers I would have thought the expense would have been too much.
It is the first time in all the years that I have been tracing both mine and my husbands family trees that I have come across this
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Were the family living in Burnley?
Charlesworth is only a few miles from Manchester!
So it's not really "all the way to Derbyshire" ;D ;D
Nearby Broadbottom (now in Greater Manchester) had a railway station since 1845.
The station is a mile and a half from Charlesworth. So perhaps transported by rail?
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The family had moved to Burnley from Derbyshire via Ashton Under Lyne in the mid 1860's. The railway had reached Burnley by then so they could have taken him by train, I just can't imagine them loading him into the freight carriage. :)
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, I just can't imagine them loading him into the freight carriage. :)
Why Not :-\
Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey had it's own railway station and was used to bury people from London from the 1850's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookwood_Cemetery
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If he wanted to be buried "at home" what better way to transport the body?
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Roads in Victorian times were not nearly as good as they are now, and railway travel was far swifter (and less bumpy). According to this article, many railways had purpose-built hearse vans:
http://www.festipedia.org.uk/wiki/Hearse_Van
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I have someone who died in Liverpool who was taken all the way to Rhuddlan in North Wales to be buried - a much longer journey than Burnley to Charlesworth.
As he was an ex-Marine Engineer on Packet boats that travelled up & down the North Wales coast I can only suppose he was taken by one of these boats - perhaps as a favour by old mates.
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My 2 x g.grandmother died in Manchester where she had moved to live with one of her sons after her husband's death, but I was surprised to find she had been buried in Penistone, Yorkshire alongside her husband. So her family took her from Manchester to Yorkshire for burial - and in December at that. I guess they must have gone by train or else they'd have had to travel from Manchester to Derbyshire and then over the
Snakeoops Woodhead Pass to Yorkshire not very easy at the time with a coffin in the vehicle even though it is only about 25-30 miles.
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After years of wondering what became of him I have found that my 3x Great Grandfather Robert Taylor (born Charlesworth, Derbyshire c.1804) died on March 13th 1875 in Burnley, Lancashire. I looked through the records of the Municipal Cemetery and also the local churchyards but could not find out where he was buried. I looked at the parish burials on Find My past and was amazed to find he had been buried in Charlesworth on 17th March.
What I can't get my head a round are the logistics of transporting a dead body all the way to Derbyshire. I presume they must have used a horse drawn hearse but as he only had 1 son and 2 daughters and they were employed as cotton weavers I would have thought the expense would have been too much.
It is the first time in all the years that I have been tracing both mine and my husbands family trees that I have come across this
In 1758 my grt x 6 grandad was taken from the Haworth area back to his original village of Heptonstall for burial (in the PR as now of "Haw") . This would probably have involved, like many Heptonstall burials even of the very poor, being carted up a very steep cobbled road on the side of a hill known as The Buttress. How on earth did they do it ? But they did :o
They must have had to keep shoving wedges under the cart back wheels or something to climb this
http://thehelloftheworth.blogspot.co.uk/p/4.html?m=1
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Coffin/Corpse Roads
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpse_road
"..Corpse roads provided a practical means for transporting corpses, often from remote communities, to cemeteries that had burial rights, such as parish churches and chapels of ease.[1] In Britain, such routes can also be known by a number of other names: bier road, burial road, coffin road, coffin line, lyke or lych way, funeral road, procession way, corpse way etc. Such "church-ways" have developed a great deal of associated folklore regarding wraiths, spirits, ghosts, etc.....Many of the corpse roads have long disappeared, while the original purposes of those that still survive as footpaths have been largely forgotten, especially if features such as coffin stones or crosses no longer exist. Fields crossed by church-way paths often had names like "Church-way" or "Kirk-way Field", and today it is sometimes possible to plot the course of some lost church-ways by the sequence of old field names, local knowledge of churches, local legends and lost features of the landscape marked on old maps, etc. One of the oldest superstitions is that any land over which a corpse is carried becomes a public right of way."
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I agree that the Railway would almost certainly have been the simplest and most logical way to move a body. Remember: there was at that time a lot more concern in most people of families being "laid to rest" together, often in family plots or vaults, and I believe that some felt that that was preferable to being buried nearer where they died, (where they did not have family graves,) or in Municipal Cemeteries. Are other members of the family in the same place in Charlesworth? Parents, spouses or children can be an especially firm tie
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I assume the burial was at Top Chapel (St Mary Magdalen Independent Chapel). Many people born in Charlesworth (including some of my relatives) were buried there even though they spend their adult lives in other areas.
As for taking people some distance for burial, a 3xGreat uncle of mine died at Edale, 2nd January 1854, whilst visiting friends. The roads at that time were impassable to ordinary vehicles owing to the snow, so the coffin was tied to a ladder and sledged by that means to Glossop, where he was interred.
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Have you considered the body being transported by canal
this method was used all the time by Canal boatmen I have relatives who died in
London & their body was fly boated (Non Stop so as not to pay lock & area tolls ect)
to Northampton & Warwickshire. Cotton weaver company's often used canals for goods
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The route was well served by the M6 of the day:
(http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/sites/default/files/pennbrid_overview3.png)
The old Packhorse route -
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Hello! I'm new to this site so I apologise in advance but I am looking to connect with Fridayschild as I believe we are related. My grandmother was Myfanwy Simon, brother of Alfred Simon who was killed in WW1. I am trying to connect with relatives. I can't seem to send a private message to anyone so I would be grateful if anyone knows fridayschild could let them know I am looking? I contacted the Loyal North Lancashire site yesterday (8th Nov) and they are going to do an article on Alfred and have a photo of him. Thank you!
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Hi
I'm in Cumbria and we have loads of coffin routes over the fells, used from very early times back to horse drawn vehicles or even on foot.
I also know of two people who were returned more recently by train, one across Cumbria in the very early twentieth century when the mourners were also invited to go by train, the other quite close family in the 1940,s from the west Lancashire coast to Salford when the family just sat with the child's coffin on a normal train I think in an area near the guard's van. It just had to be done.
Best wishes
Emms :)
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Hello! I'm new to this site so I apologise in advance but I am looking to connect with Fridayschild as I believe we are related. My grandmother was Myfanwy Simon, brother of Alfred Simon who was killed in WW1. I am trying to connect with relatives. I can't seem to send a private message to anyone so I would be grateful if anyone knows fridayschild could let them know I am looking? I contacted the Loyal North Lancashire site yesterday (8th Nov) and they are going to do an article on Alfred and have a photo of him. Thank you!
Hi Heather and welcome to rootschat ;D
You need to have 3 posts, which you now have and you can then PM , they should also get a notification each time someone answers their post ( unless they haven't ticked to receive one)
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If your deceased ancestor was taken somewhere for burial by rail between 1851 and 1871, in the Manchester, Lincoln and Sheffield area, he may well have been attended by my great great grandfather!
During those years, census and employment records info I have gathered tells me he was Passenger Agent and Clerk In Charge of Freight at those Railway Stations! Lived on the premises with his family!
Cheers
Jeanne 😄
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I have a cousin - twice removed - who died in St Helier, Jersey in 1876.
Brought home to Darwen, Lancashire for burial. Via train for most of the way, but then there was the ferry across the Channel of course. Quite a distance in total.