The stories of some of the families who have played an important role in the history of the area and particularly in the history of Wainsgate: most of those listed below were prosperous and influential families, their wealth derived from ownership of land and property and from the labour of others – all have family interred or commemorated in the graveyard at Wainsgate.
Many of these families are linked by marriage: for example the Mitchell, Cousin, Fawcett, Appleyard and Riley families are all interlinked. I have started a Public Family Tree (Mitchell Cousin Gibson Fawcett) on the Ancestry website which attempts to show the history of these families and how they relate to each other.
Like this website, the Family Tree is very much a work in progress: if anyone has any additional information, documents, images or stories about the people involved, please let me know.
Click on the LINKS to find out more…..
The MITCHELL family
The MITCHELL FAMILY and WAINSGATE
The COUSIN family
The APPLEYARD family
The HOYLE family
F. & H. SUTCLIFFE
The MITCHELL family
HENRY MITCHELL was born at Boston Hill, Wadsworth on 17th October 1824, the fifth child of William Mitchell (1795-1828) and his wife Mary (daughter of William Cousin, originally from Oxenhope but later of Boston Hill). Henry was baptised at St.Thomas, Heptonstall on 12th January 1825, and the baptism record records his father William’s ‘Quality, Trade or Profession’ as ‘Gentleman’.
Henry’s father died in 1828 aged 33 (his widowed mother Mary later married John Newell, a widower and ‘Independent Minister’ of Midgley), and in 1846 he married Sarah Ann Cousin (1824-1900). His wife was the daughter of John Cousin (who had died in 1837 aged 33) and Betty (born Appleyard) who had died in 1824 aged just 21, a month after Sarah Ann’s birth.
In 1851 Henry and Sarah Ann were living at 10, Boston Hill, and the census records his occupation as ‘Worsted Manufacturer’ and hers as ‘Land Proprietor’. The couple had six children before Henry, like his father and father-in-law, died at a very early age: he died at Ibbotroyd on 30th April 1859 aged 34. His widow, SARAH ANN MITCHELL did not marry again, and died on 17th February 1900 aged 76. Her unmarried sister, MARY ELIZABETH COUSIN died the following day, aged 78.
The first of Henry and Sarah Ann’s six children was Mary Elizabeth, born in 1847. In 1871 her occupation is recorded as ‘Lady’, and in 1881 as ‘Income from Land’. In 1886, at the age of 38, she married Abraham Gibson (1827-1907) who was 20 years her senior, son of William Gibson and a member of the Gibson dynasty from Greenwood Lee near Heptonstall. They had one child, also called Abraham Gibson (1887-1956) who did not marry and had no known children. MARY ELIZABETH GIBSON died in 1927 aged 80.
Their second child, John Mitchell, died on 10th November1854 aged 5 years and 9 months.
Their third child was Emma, born in 1852 and like her older sister also recorded in the 1871 census as a ‘Lady’. In 1875 she married James Calverley (1850-1920), son of Huddersfield woollen manufacturer Titus Calverley. The couple had three children – a daughter Constance Calverley (1882-1948), who never married , and two sons, James Henry Mitchell Calverley (1883-1946) and William Calverley (1884-1947). EMMA CALVERLEY died in Huddersfield in 1936, aged 84.
WILLIAM HENRY MITCHELL was born in 1854 and his brother JOHN COUSIN MITCHELL in 1855. Henry and Sarah Ann’s final child, CLARA MITCHELL was born in 1859, the year of her father’s death. None of the three married or had any known children, and lived together at Boston Hill with only servants for company after their mother’s death. In 1901 the two brothers are both recorded as ‘Worsted Spinner, employer’ and Clara as ‘Living on own means’. In 1911 William is a ‘Gentleman, private means’ and Clara a ‘Gentlewoman, private means’. John is recorded as ‘Worsted Spinner, hosiery and weft yarns, employer, Old Town mills’. John Cousin Mitchell died in 1921 aged 65, Clara Mitchell died in 1923 aged 64, and William Henry Mitchell in 1928 aged 74.
The invitation card from 1902 has the only known confirmed images of the Mitchell siblings – William Henry Mitchell, John Cousin Mitchell and Clara Mitchell. The Census record from 1911 shows them living at Boston Hill in a house recorded as having 30 rooms, with just two domestic servants – one of them 22 year old Modesta Bergliot Brynildsen (also spelled Brynjelsen) from Bergen, Norway.
Henry and Sarah Ann Mitchell, their sons John, John Cousin Mitchell and William Henry Mitchell, their daughter Clara and Sarah Ann’s sister Mary Elizabeth Cousin are all buried in the Mitchell family grave at Wainsgate.
Two other members of the Mitchell family are interred or commemorated at Wainsgate: Sarah Mitchell (1822-1892), sister of Henry Mitchell, and their brother James Mitchell (c1826-1887), who died and was buried at Peshtigo, Wisconsin, USA. Sarah and James are commemorated on the chest tomb (CY369-271) of their maternal granparents, William and Mary Cousin. Also buried with her parents is Mary Newell (1800-1869) – born Mary Cousin, mother of Sarah and James, she married John Newell after the early death of her husband William Mitchell.
The MITCHELL FAMILY and WAINSGATE
Coming soon…..
OLD TOWN MILL / MITCHELL MILL
Coming soon…..
BOSTON HILL
The earliest recorded mention of Boston Hill that has been found (so far) is in 1821, in the baptism record of Hannah Mitchell daughter of William Mitchell (‘gentleman’) and his wife Mary (born Cousin). She was born on 7th January 1821 and baptised at St.Thomas, Heptonstall, on 23rd May. The abode of her parents is recorded as ‘Bostonhill, Wadsworth’.
William and Mary’s first two children were born at High Greenwood, Heptonstall – Susannah (1818) and John (1819). Their fourth and fifth children were born at Boston Hill – Sarah (1822) and Henry (1824), but their sixth and final child James (1826) was born at High Greenwood.
William Mitchell died in 1828, aged just 33- his abode was recorded as High Greenwood, Heptonstall and he was buried at St.Thomas parish church.
More coming soon…..
The COUSIN family
Coming soon…..
The APPLEYARD family
There are ten members of the Appleyard family buried at Wainsgate. Six of them are sons and daughters of William Appleyard (1767-1829) and his wife Mary (born Howarth, or possibly Howorth) who had nine children altogether. William Appleyard was an innkeeper (probably landlord of the White Swan and Shoulder of Mutton in Hebden Bridge), but his profession is also recorded as ‘Yeoman’ and ‘Gentleman’.
William and Mary Appleyard were buried at St.Thomas, Heptonstall as were two of their daughters – Mary Appleyard (c1794-1833) and Grace Appleyard (c1811-1846). Their youngest son Henry Appleyard (c1813-1861) was buried at St. Michael, Mytholmroyd.
Their daughter Betty (1802-1824), who died at the age of ’21 years and 355 days’, was the wife of John Cousin and mother of Mary Elizabeth Cousin and Sarah Ann Cousin (wife of Henry Mitchell). She is buried at Wainsgate with her husband (Plot FY255).
Their eldest child, SARAH APPLEYARD (1791-1877) never married, and her occupation is variously recorded as ‘Landed Proprietor’, ‘Landed Proprietress’ and ‘Property Owner’. When she died in 1877 aged 85 she was living at Holme House, Hebden Bridge, with her unmarried younger sister ANN APPLEYARD (1808-1884). Ann had also lived at Holme House with her sister and brother, and similarly had an income from land and property ownership. Following the deaths of her sister and brother, it seems that her neice, Mary Elizabeth Cousin, lived with her at Holme House. Sarah and Ann’s brother JOHN APPLEYARD (1795-1865) was also unmarried and derived his income from land and property. His probate documents describe him as a ‘Gentleman’.
WILLIAM APPLEYARD (1800-1871) lived at Magson House, Warley, and was variously described as ‘Farmer‘, ‘Landed Proprietor’ and ‘Gentleman’. In 1853 he married Anne Turner – she died less than three years later, and is buried in Halifax.
The fifth of William and Mary’s children to be buried at Wainsgate is JAMES APPLEYARD (1804-1886), who lived at White Lee, Mytholmroyd, and his recorded occupations included ‘Farmer’, ‘Tanner’ and ‘Landed Proprietor’. In 1832 he married Sarah Cousin (1805-1886), daughter of John Cousin Snr (1770-1838) and his first wife Betty (born Halstead), and they had three children: Mary Elizabeth died in infancy, William died aged 19, and Ann Appleyard died in 1908 aged 71. SARAH APPLEYARD died on 12th January 1886, aged 80 and her husband James died on 12th May, aged 82.
The five siblings are buried in the family plot at Wainsgate (A546-548) and commemorated with a simple polished granite headstone. Their brother James and his wife Sarah are buried in the same plot and commemorated with an identical headstone.
James and Sarah’s three children are buried in a separate plot in Fawcett Yard (FY252). MARY ELIZABETH APPLEYARD died in 1835 aged 1 year and 9 months, WILLIAM APPLEYARD died in 1855 aged 19, and ANN APPLEYARD died in 1908 aged 71.
ANN APPLEYARD died at Leyden Cottage, Rossall Beach, near Fleetwood on 28th January 1908, aged 71. She never married, and lived for most of her life at White Lee. In 1891 she was a ‘Lady, Landed Proprietor’, and in 1901, still living at White Lee, she was ‘Living on Own Means’.
Photographs by Geoff Matthews and Charlie Morrissey
Ann Appleyard is commemorated with a stained glass window, ‘erected by her relatives’, one of the five magnificent windows by Powell Brothers of Leeds. The window depicts Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ with her tears in the house of Simon the Pharisee:
‘And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head’ – Luke 7:44.
There is a metal plaque fixed on the wall above pew No.33, which is in the north west corner of the ground floor of the chapel, next to the entrance from the Sunday school lobby. The inscription reads:
‘This pew is the property of Ann Appleyard of White Lee, Mytholmroyd and her heirs for which she has paid to trustees the sum of £333. In memory of her relations who are buried in the adjoining graveyard – May 1900.’
The HOYLE family
Coming soon…..
F. & H. SUTCLIFFE
Coming soon…..
WAINSGATE GRAVEYARD PROJECT 