Heward in Holme/Holmfirth

[Holmemoss]

Thank you, Wyjan, and I apologise for the delay in response but I have been away.

I am trying to find a connection between the various Heward families; I think they all must be related somehow but cannot find the connection.

[Wyjan]

Hi Holmemoss
I know where you are coming from and I am trying to do the same with my Holmfirth area names of Haigh and Mellor. In sheer desperation I have collected every surname from both the Kirkburton and Almondbury transcriptions, non conformist transcription of the area, the Hearth Tax, anything I can lay my hands on. Your surname of Heward I would think might be a bit easier to sort out. I wouldn't normally advocate starting at the earliest and moving forward but it might be one way of trying to connect your family.
Looking at the Hearth Tax of 1672 there is a James 'Howard' in the Holmfirth area which could be a variation on the name. Good luck with your search. -j

[drodgers34]

Hi Holmemoss.

Vry much agree Heward and Howard were interchangeable back then. Your John seems to be at Holmewoods in 1941 where families I consider all to be related are enumerated as Howard and Heward. I thing the local dialect would have had the pronunciation 'heward' so the enumerators would have gone with that, for whatever reason. I also think Haywood Hayward and hawood Haward could link in.

Not sure if it will help but I have your John heward here

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:John_Howard_%28155%29

In a site where I have tried to link in all inhabitants of holme in the census

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/HolmeVillageHome

I note also that John James and mary howard very common so its hard to seperate them in the PRs

[Holmemoss]

Thank you for the comments and, once again, my apologies for the delay in response. I have not been at home; alas not a holiday.

Even in my father's childhood in the 1930s, people in Holmfirth called the people in Hade Edge 'lumpers' partly because of the broad accent so unravelling Heward and Howard is not going to be easy.

[drodgers34]

My grandma said 'own' not Holme and apparently 'Holne' was the ancient pronunciation.

Plenty of historical clues in those broad accents

Any more of those "Lumpers" type stuff, Holmemoss ? My grandmea had a verse which said "Holne Pienets. marsden XXX and XXX behind-wallers. I think pienets is a name for small game birds

[Holmemoss]

I shall ask my father the next time I go to see him. I can't ring him as he is now almost totally deaf.

However 'pienet' is a magpie.

Does XXX mean she was cursing or just that you can't remember what she said?

[bykerlads]

Just coming back on-line after being away.
What is all this about my Hade Edge people being called "lumpers"? I've never heard this before. Though I have to admit that I've been told that, as a child who spent the first 3 years of its life at H.Edge, my broad Yorkshire speech was difficult to understand for people in Holmfirth when we moved down there!! ( I soon learned the value of refining my pronounciation at primary school, grammar school and then university, though)
As regards Holme, it was always pronounced "Own" in our family in Holmfirth- no doubt to distinguish it from the word "home".

[Holmemoss]

According to my Dad and he is talking about the 1930s, people living in Holmfirth viewed those in Cartworth, Hade Edge, etc., as - how shall I put in politely - unsophisticated.

As they lived in the lumps (hills to the uninitiated) above Holmfirth they were referred to derogatorily as lumpers.

[bykerlads]

I do recall my mother (Holmfirther) saying that before she married my father (Hade Edger), some of the local old women told her not to because he'd never have any money as his family had "some gypsy in it". She was very blond + pretty, he very dark and handsome in a Heathcliffe sort of way.
His colouring in fact came from his father (Underbanker).
The old crones proved to have been wrong: mum and dad did very well for themselves, having started married life " with not a spare halfpenny to scratch their backsides with".