Family:Elliott Pilkington and Anne Warburton (1)

Excerpts from Memories of Village Life: A Memorial to Derek Pilkington

By Chris Aspin (Author) , John Simpson (Author)

Paperback: 36 pages Publisher: Helmshore Local History Society (November 1992) Language: English ISBN-10: 0906881064

One copy is currently available in paperback on the Amazon website for $354.40, US Dollars 12/19/2013 Paperback: 36 pages

Excerpt:

The story of the lost lands had been passed on by Pilkingtons of an earlier generation, but there was no written account. Lord Derby was cast as the villain. Though the details were vague, the bitterness was great.

With his interest in his ancestors aroused, Derek took from the family bookcase “The History of the Pilkington Family of Lancashire,” a weighty tome written by Lt.Col. John Pilkington and published at the turn of the century. This is the story of the aristocratic Pilkingtons, who gave their name to the Lancashire Township better known today as Whitefield. Of particular fascination to Derek was the account of Sir Thomas Pilkington, who supported Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Having ended the day on the losing side, he forfeited his Lancashire estates to the Earl of Derby. Was this the source of the family grievance? Could the tale have been passed from generation to generation for nearly five centuries? Was it possible, Derek wondered, that he and the other Helmshore Pilkingtons were descended from a family that had been among the most illustrious in the country? For the next forty years he sought the answer. In a later chapter John Simpson summarizes Derek’s considerable research and shows how close he came to his goal.

Let us look at some of the Pilkingtons who deserve more than their short entry on the family tree.

One day in the 1860s, John Holden, of Haslingden, climbed the slopes of Hutch Bank. He was so inspired by the panorama before him that he composed a set of verses in the local dialect. Holden, better known as John o’Cop Dick’s, was a most unusual - possibly a unique - poetaster. He could neither read nor write. He would have been forgotten had not a group of townsmen paid for the printing of his effusions. His Lines Suggested on a View of the Town of Haslingden and the Localities includes the following:

Theer’s Marquss o’Pilkington: He’s a teanship o’ his own. Bud wheer he geet his title fro’ I think it’s hardly known.

Here we have one local character discussing another. Mentioning in print for the first time that comer of the Alden Valley still called the Township of Pilkington. Though the district has no boundaries and is not marked on any map, it may be described as the family home together with adjoining moorland, which Robert Pilkington, otherwise “Rough Robin”, tried to appropriate in the early years of the nineteenth century. His son, Elliott, the “Marquss”, spent much of his life in this out-of-the-way spot. A later chapter by John Simpson provides a detailed account of the Alden settlement.

Here, as an introduction, let me quote from the Ramsbottom Observer, of June 4, 1895. The article is about the re-arrangement of the districts responsible for the registration of births, marriages and deaths. It mentions that Fall Bank Farm (Spring Bank, as members of the family usually called it) “is situated in a hollow behind Musbury Tor and has a rather curious history.”

It is supposed to have been erected on land re-claimed from the moor. It was built by the grandfather of James Pilkington, one of the members of the Ramsbottom District Council. Old Mr. Pilkington - lucky man! -somehow never had a visit from the collector of rates. For two or three generations the farm was unassessed. This immunity from rates and taxes was not without its accompanying difficulties. When the farm had been occupied for some time, a death occurred in James family. He went to Ramsbottom and called upon Mr. Wolstenholme, the then registrar, to obtain a certificate. He was, however, informed that, as his house was not in the Holcombe sub-district, the death could not be registered there. He then visited in turn the registrars of Edenfield, Haslingden and Edgworth, with the same result, and returning to Mr. Wolstenholme, informed that gentleman unless a certificate were made out for internment, he would dig a grave on his own land and bury the body there. Wolstenholme thereupon granted a certificate. From that time until now the farm has, for registration purposes, been included within the Holcombe sub-district. Some years ago, it was purchased by Mr. W. J. Porritt. Since then its name is found on the rate books of the Haslingden Union.

When the Census of 1881 was taken, the enumerator who filled in the form for Fall Bank included the information that the farm was called ‘The Township of Pilkington and that “the owner pays no rates to any authority.” Some ten years earlier, the place had entered the official records when the enumerator of the 1871 Census wrote “Township of Pilkington” as the birthplace of four of the people then living there.

It was certainly no accident that “Rough Robin” chose to settle where he did. Fall Bank was just inside the boundary of Tottington Lower End. More than two miles of desolate moorland separated the Pilkingtons from their nearest neighbors. The family was either overlooked by the men who administered local government or, were assumed by those officers, to be in the neighboring township.

There was a more practical reason for the choice of Fall Bank. Robert Pilkington was. a whitster, or bleacher. He came into Alden from Edgworth to start his own business. The trade in those days required open land on which the cloth could be laid out to whiten by the action of the sun, air and water. Pilkington is more likely to have enclosed part of the moor for a bleach croft than for any agricultural purpose. The remoteness of the site was also a factor. The theft of cloth - croft-breaking - reached alarming proportions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries even though it carried the death penalty. In the obscurity of The Alden Valley, Pilkington must have felt reasonably secure. His business, centered in a three or four-story works by the river, seems not to have succeeded. He is said to have sold out to a Bury firm. Fire later destroyed the building and only the foundation stones remain. To return for a moment to the family tree. Rough Robin was the illegitimate child of Mary Pilkington, who was born at Musden Head in 1743. One of Derek’s notes says Mary was ‘banished to Edgworth for the birth of her son’ in 1761. It was not until 1765 that the boy was baptized at Haslingden Parish Church. Robert lived with his mother, married in about 1784 and came back over the moor to build Spring Bank in 1807.

Many of “Rough Robin’s” descendants carved a niche for themselves, some quite literally. Working with stone was a Pilkington skill that extended over several generations. I remember accompanying Derek to the garden of Alice Whittam’s home at West End, Helmshore, to seek a chunk of Pilgrims’ Cross. Reuben Pilkington (born 1820) had cut a cryptic reminder of the Plug Drawing Riots of 1842 upon the base. Reuben, one of Robert Pilkington’s many grandchildren, probably witnessed the stirring events of August 12. Mobs of unemployed and hungry workers stopped the mills in Haslingden and other Lancashire towns by drawing the boiler plugs to allow the water to escape. Crossing Holcombe Moor soon afterwards, he stopped at the stone to chisel the message RP 12A 1842 REMBER (Reuben Pilkington. 12 August, 1842. Remember). Pilgrims’ Cross, first mentioned in a charter of 1176, was one of a number of siting stones on the ancient track. There may be some truth in the legend that pilgrims traveling to and from Whalley Abbey prayed and rested there. Vandals smashed the base stone in 1901 and threw the pieces into a bog. Sylvester Whittam, of Woodbank, Helmshore, later acquired the largest piece. On the assumption that he took the stone with him when he moved to West End, Derek decided to go in pursuit. Mrs. Whittam had located the stone in the rockery by the time we arrived.

When the present sturdy monument to the ancient cross was placed on the moor in 1902, it fell to another of “Rough Robin’s’ grandsons, James, of Holcombe, to be responsible for the lettering. This was done once the huge blocks of stone were in position on the moor. James’s son, Thomas expertly carried out most of the work. The arduous task brought on a chill and led some five years later to a fatal illness.

On a later occasion I went with Derek to Holcombe to recover another stone James had carved. We found it lying upside down at the rear of Douglas Street. On it were two short poems - To My Sisters and To My Brothers – Thomas Pilkington (I830-1902) set down after settling in Texas. For many years the stone was at Spring Bank Farm. James took it to Holcombe when he began to build Douglas Street. Though illiterate, he had a good eye and a steady hand. He carved inscriptions on many gravestones, copying the letters and numbers set out by his son.

Among several other members of the family to enter the stone trade were Warburton Pilkington (1849-1917) and Warburton’s grandson, Charles Edward Pilkington (1904-1984). Warburton built both Pilkington Terrace (now part of Broadway) and Granville Street, Helmshore. Charles Pilkington, who made his home in Rawtenstall, was a monumental mason for more than 50 years. Among his work is the lettering inside Holcombe Tower of a long extract from a speech made by Sir Robert Peel after the repeal of the Corn Law.

According to the Abbotts, “Rough Robin’s” son, Henry, worked on the turnpike road between Haslingden and Blackburn via Guide in 1810. At some other time he won a wager by climbing on to the walls of Lancaster Castle and making a complete circuit.

Of the more recent Pilkingtons, we may mention Derek’s grandfather, James, who was the Helmshore postmaster for 34 years. He devoted much of his spare time to voluntary work in the village. James often read telegraph messages while talking with his customers. One April morning in 1912, he surprised those waiting to be served by remarking that the Titanic had gone down. Everyone thought he was joking for Helmshore people, like everyone else, believed the great ocean liner was unsinkable. But the Titanic, on her maiden voyage to America, had struck an iceberg and was at the bottom of the Atlantic. James Pilkington read the news in a Morse Code message from a Post Office colleague.

James became a village institution. He ran the Post Office (now The Paper Shop) in Helmshore Road until 1927. Just before Christmas that year, he left a sick bed to take the place of a postman who was unable to go on his rounds because of an accident. The result was a severe chill, which led to his death a few days later. He was 57. By his death, said the Haslingden Guardian, Helmshore “loses a man whom everybody knew and trusted. He was a faithful public servant, not only in his office, but out of it also, for two score of years.”

In James’s time, the community spirit in Helmshore was at its strongest. Along with most villagers, he was willing to accept positions of responsibility in local organizations and to devote much of his leisure to them for little or no financial reward. As a teenager, James was among the first members of the Blue Ribbon Club, which was formed during a temperance campaign in the 1880s. He supported Helmshore Prize Band throughout his life and was secretary for many years. In addition, James was a leading member of both the Liberal Club and Springhill Wesleyan Chapel, where he was a Sunday school teacher and superintendent.

“The service given to Helmshore by Mr. Pilkington during the war was inestimable,’ said the Guardian.“ His knowledge and assistance was everybody’s service. Considerable numbers of parcels intended for the men at the front passed through his hands. His knowledge of the Post Office rules and regulations enabled him to do many a good turn to anxious mothers and wives who were sending fairings to their loved ones in camp or at the seat of war. He busied himself, too, in preparing claims for pensions for those who had been bereaved of their breadwinners. The large-number of letters he has left behind him testify to the diligence and thoroughness with which he did this entirely voluntary work for others.’

To James Pilkington, we owe some of the earliest picture postcards of the village. He commissioned the first professional set in the early part of the century. His later attempt to popularize Gossware golf balls with a Helmshore coat of arms was less successful.

Chapter 3 PILKINGTONS OF LOMAX (From the Internet via David Pilkington)

”Lomax.” The Pilkingtons had been lords here since 1351, having originated in Pilkington, a parish near to Bury on the south. They ruled until 1485 when in the Wars of the Roses they cast their favor and fate with the House of York. Doing so they went against their own House of the Dukes of Lancaster. Their estates were forfeited and the then chief Pilkington was beheaded. From then till now the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, have held this and other Lancastrian manors.

In 1435 Sir John Pilkington was chosen collector of the subsidy granted by parliament levied on the inhabitants of the Hundred of Salford. The report of the collection was made out under his direction. He titled it “Particule accompti de Johannes Pilkington, mil,” but failed to give the names of the inhabitants of whom he had collected the tax. Only the sums and names of the places appear in the roll of parchments now in the Record Office. No estimate of the individual wealth of the Lumhalghs living in Bolton, Bury, Pendleton, Wigan or else-where in the Hundred of Salford can thus be had, nor data as to their increase in numbers since 1333 and 1381.

The “de Whytell” added to the name of Thomas del Lumhalghe in the 1435 rent-roll merely shows that he lived three miles south of Bury in what is now Whittle, a hamlet in Unsworth Parish. Whittle was in later years formed (partly) out of Pilsworth. From this fact it is likely that the Lomaxes of Pilsworth are descendants of Thomas of Whittle. Whitaker’s History of Whalley (p.225) mentions the family in Pilsworth, particularly “Richard Lomax, gentleman, of Pilsworth – “the owner of a freehold estate at Burnshaw (Beaconshaw) Tower, in the Vale of Todmorden, which by deeds is proved to have been possessed by the family from a very early period.” Burnshaw Tower was a fortified house, thirteen miles northeast of Bury, now barely traceable. Richard Lomax, gentleman, acquired Clayton Hall, by marriage, about 1740, with Rebecca Heywood, the heiress to the estate. This line of Lomax attained to affluence and high social position. Clayton Hall continued in the Lomax possession for several generations. On July 4, 1815, Richard Grimshaw Lomax, the resident thereat, was granted a coat-of-arms, viz:--“Perpale and sable, on a bend engrailed with plain cotises ermine, three escallops gules. Crest-issuant out of a crown vallory or, a demilion argent, charged on the body with three escallops between the bendlets and holding between the paws an escallop gules.” (This bearing has no reference to any Lomas, or Loomis, before 1815, and to none other since then, save the direct descendants of the said grantee).

No Lomas of Bury or in Lancashire rose to knighthood, to manorial lordship, or to armorial honors up to 1560. Hence, none figure in the records illustrating such important families. The registers of baptism, marriage and burial at Bury are not now extant prior to 1590. The manor records are not accessible. The only personal items obtainable of the family at Bury warranting mention are the wills of: Christopher Lomax of Bury 1590 James Pilsworth 1588 James Bercle 1592 Jeffery Heap 1590 (in Bury parish) John Pilsworth 1587 Oliver Walmsley 1593 (in Bury parish) Owen Preston 1593 Richard Pilsworth 1587 Margaret Prestbury 1588 John Gloributts in Bury 1606 Isabella Heap 1592 Bury parish John 1576

With 24 more Lomas and Lomax wills of later date; all are original wills filed in the probate registry of Chester, Cheshire; and there are ten other wills dated 1587 to 1677 filed in the Archdeaconry Court of Richmond, Lancashire, and now deposited in Somerset House, London.

Apart from Pilkington, the family also held property at Rivington from an early date. The branch of the family there included James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham from 1560 to 1576. James is chiefly remembered for his work on revising the Book of Common Prayer in 1559 and for endowing Rivington Free Grammar School in 1556. The Pilkingtons who began the famous glass works may also be descendants of the Rivington branch, but their ancestry cannot be traced with any certainty before the early seventeenth century.

‘Corne & barlie sowne’ with a relatively high value of £28. Some of the farm produce such as beef, butter, bacon and cheese appears in the inventory. The household produced its own cloth, since there were looms, spinning wheels and combs as well as yam and cloth valued at 40s. The total value of Ralph’s inventory was over £200, making him one of the wealthiest tenant farmers in the Edenfield area at the time of his death.

Ralph and his wife had no children, and it was through his brother, Edmund, that the Pilkington line continued. Edmund kept an interest in the property at Chatterton up to his death in 1615, but in 1582, he was the tenant of another farm on the neighboring Lumb Hall estate belonging to the Rawstorne family. This farm was at Broadwood Edge, perched about 900 feet above sea level on the edge of Holcombe Moor- and looking down into the Irwell valley. There were actually three farms at Broadwood Edge, the most northerly of which was occupied by the Pilkingtons. Ultimately, it became known simply as “Pilkington’s” and remained so until it was demolished in the 1870s, even though the last Pilkington to live there had died in 1708. This was Thomas Pilkington, who, like his ancestor Ralph, had an inventory of his goods drawn up after his death. The contrast between the two could not have been greater, however, for Thomas’s inventory totaled only ℒ18 Os 6d. His most valuable possessions were two “Milch Cowes” worth L5, but most of his belongings consisted of a few sticks of furniture (a bed, chairs, chests, shelves, pots and pans) and books valued at 5s.

Although Thomas’s death severed the family’s ties with Broadwood Edge, other Pilkingtons had left many years previously to establish their own households elsewhere. In the late 1630s, Francis Pilkington (Thomas’s uncle) leased a farm at Musdenhead at the top of the Musbury Valley, near Helmshore, and thus began an association with the area that lasted many generations. The Pilkingtons seem to have leased two separate farms on the boundary of the medieval deer park and eventually bought a third farm there. This was Bailiffs Rake, or Nettle Hall, the ruins of which are still standing. Its fields are steep with thin, sour soils, and it can never have been an easy farm to work. Eventually, the family moved to farms elsewhere in Musbury which were lower and more sheltered than those at Musdenhead, but in the meantime they acquired a piece of property that was to be for ever linked with them.

Until the early seventeenth century, most of the Alden Valley (lying on the opposite side of Musbury Tor to Musbury Valley) was a common pasture shared by the landowners in the Manor of Tottington. From about 1621, it was divided up and passed into the hands of individual owners. Each person received a share in one of the four “doles” in Alden (lowmost, middlemost, highmost and Foebank) in proportion to the amount of land they already owned elsewhere in the manor: the more land they had, the greater their share of Alden. In fact, many of the shares were too small or too far away from the existing farms to be of any use, and a flourishing land market quickly grew up as shares were exchanged or bought and sold. This was a good opportunity for individuals who had no original right to land in the valley to buy property there. Francis Pilkington, of Musdenhead, was one of these, and he made his first purchase of two tiny pieces of Foebank dole in 1655. This land was at the head of Alden on the north side of the brook and part of the area that was to become “The Township of Pilkington.” Francis later added to his initial purchase, for, by 1676, he had just over two customary acres (about four statute acres). Unlike some of his neighbors (such as Christopher Cronkshaw, who built Cronkshaw Fold), he was never able to acquire enough land in Alden to create a new farm, though he went to the trouble of enclosing the small area he did own. Shortly before his death, Francis sold his land. It was left to his great-great-great grandson, Robert, to regain the property and make a new farm there.

Robert Pilkington (1761 - 1847) was the illegitimate son of Mary Pilkington and Robert Lees, both of Musbury. There is a family tradition that Mary was banished to Edgworth for having a child out of wedlock, and the family certainly had ties with that area. Robert was living at Edgworth when his children were born. One of them, Reuben, died there. The Blackburn Mail for January 28, 1794, reported: “On Saturday last a child belonging to Robert Pilkington, of Edgworth, was shockingly burnt by its clothes accidentally taking fire that it died the next day.” The record of the baptism of Robert’s youngest child, Elliott, in 1806 (apparently born when his mother was 52) tells us that the family were at Broadhead. There is a later tradition that connects the family with this place. For many years a chimney stood alone in a field at Broadhead and was said to have been built by Pilkingtons in the expectation that a railway would pass through the land. The chimney was intended to be evidence that a mill was being built, thus increasing the size-of the hoped-for compensation. The railway never came but the chimney remained in the field until struck by lightning in 1945 or’46. Robert made the first move away from Broadhead in 1801, when he paid ℒ12 for a cottage and a piece of land called Knowsley on the north side of the Grane Valley, near Haslingden. He never went to live there, but was still at Edgworth in the spring of 1806, when he bought “all that part and parcel of common land lying and being in Foebank Dole in Alden upon the west part thereof” This was the nucleus of the farm that was to become known as The Township of Pilkington. By the autumn of 1808, Robert had built a house on the land and set up home there. He added another house in 1821 and set on it a stone with his initials and those of his wife. He also built a three-story bleach works beside the brook and worked it himself for a time. Later he leased it to others. In 1832, the tenants were Anthony Hartley and Abraham Brown. When Robert made his will in 1844, he bequeathed the bleach works to his sons, John and Thomas, and his grandson, Reuben. They can have derived little benefit from it, for when the Ordnance Survey was made between 1844 and 1847, the building was a ruin. There is an unconfirmed story that the mill was destroyed by fire.

When Robert bought “The Township” in 1806, it had just over four customary acres (about eight statute acres) with it. Robert. and later his son, Elliott, made repeated attempts to enclose more land, but were thwarted by the manorial authorities. For example, the records of the Manor of Tottington for Easter, 1834, contain the following entry: “We find and present that Robert Pilkington of Fallbank has enclosed a part of the Commons of the Lord of the Manor called Holcombe Moor of a large extent. Therefore we arnerce him in the sum of one hundred pounds if the Walls are not pulled down before the next Court day and the copyholders have come to a determination if it is not laid open they will discontinue to pay any rent.”

Following Robert’s death, his farm was divided between his sons, William, (who received the larger share) and Elliott. For much of the rest of the nineteenth century, the two brothers and their families lived side by side at the “The Township”, but not always in harmony.

One of the cases that came before William Turner, the Helmshore manufacturer and JP, in 1849 was that of William Pilkington complaining of his brother, Elliott, and a nephew, Reuben, pulling down a wall.

In April 1865, the families of William and Elliott were again in dispute when Thomas (Elliott’s son) charged Robert (William’s son) with trespassing on his land. Robert was fined Id and costs. A year later, he had to pay a much heavier fine when he appeared before the magistrates again. This time his crime was to go in pursuit of game in Musbury. On March 8, 1866, Zachariah Haworth, gamekeeper for the Hardman brothers of Rawtenstall, saw Robert and his dog chasing a hare in a field in Musbury where the Hardmans had game rights. He shouted at Robert and chased after him across the moors until he caught him near Edgworth. Robert had to pay a 40s fine and costs or he would have been gaoled for two months. Following William’s death in 1866, all the land at “The Township” (by then officially known as Spring Bank) seems to have passed to Elliott. His son, Thomas, emigrated to America and composed a poem to the sisters and brothers he had left behind. It reads:

TO MY SISTERS To dwell in harmony and love Was woman’s mission given Sent by the almighty power above To make this Earth a heaven. If Virtue sense and modesty Be what is held most dear A heavenly place our home will be And sisters angels there

TO MY BROTHERS Had not all six one mother tough Each one Brother to call The similitude of thought Would friends have made us all. Close bound by natures tender ties And thoughts so near allied My Brothers love I fondly prize More than all things beside.

Emails from cousins across the world.

Introduction:

This “book” has taken on a life of its own. Someone wanted a copy of “Village Life.” My brother, David, originally purchased it over the internet. He tried to buy some more only to be told it’s no longer in print. I scanned the one he gave me onto my computer intending to make a copy and send it to one of our cousins. Since it was scanned into the computer and edited a little bit already, it made sense to add information from another source. Then another. And another. Now we have a fat dull compilation of other people’s work. It’s too big to send in one file, so it is broken down by chapter. Hope you enjoy. If you have photographs, memorabilia or anything related to the Pilkington name, I’d like to have it. Since this is a growing compilation of Pilkington stuff, I may add it to future versions of this tome. Thanks to the many Pilkington’s who have already contributed. Especially wanted right now are photographs of the children and grandchildren of Henry Matthew and Abby Agnes Pilkington. From the collector of Pilkington “stuff.”

Richard Pilkington

E-Mail from Australia

PILKINGTON FAMILY TREE 11/1/00 From: cosyhome.pilk. <cosyhome.pilk.@tinyworld.co.uk> Elliott (1807 - 1885) was the son of Robert 1770 to 1818 of Springbank Farm, Helmshore in Lancashire, I am now trying to work out his ancestors. Now George, son of Robert, (your ref. no 16) according to my records, was a genealogy freak and the Cleater family must be sitting on some interesting material.

We no longer live in Lancashire we moved to South Wales some twenty years ago,.now retired I only wish I had the financial resources to research full time, I have Pilkington information to way back in time, I did think of making it into a small business just to cover my expenses but I would not know how to go about it, maybe start a sort of club with voluntary contributions to cover basic expenses...would there be any interest in your part of the world?...a number of people in Australia are seeking information from me on a regular basis...your views would be appreciated. The ancient information I have is quite something. “Gentlemen of High Repute” and “Worshippers of the Saxon Goddess of the Waning Moon”. I have details of Pilkingtons fighting and dying all over the world did you know the nasty Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood times was a Pilkington....Sir John...and he was heavily fined by the King of England for marrying without his express permission ,he also fought at Agincourt against the French with King Henry....we have Bishops, Dukes etc. and also 37 crests and a very elegant Coat Of Arms. Must close now ,keep in touch

Ralph Pilkington

1.   Memories of Village Life, A Memorial to Derek Pilkington.