John Spence (1855-1950) and Mary Glew (1856-1918)
John’s Younger Years
John Spence was born in Knottingley, into an Innkeeping family, the 6th of 8 children of William Edward Spence & Elizabeth Bramham. The family had lived in Knottingley for several generations, making their early money from lime kilns, and transporting quick lime down the river Aire and later down the new Knottingley & Goole canal to the docks at Goole. In their later years, the families often retired from more manual labours and took on a license to a public house. That pattern of life continued over several generations.
John was baptised on 22 July 1855. The family, like most at the time, were at least occasional churchgoers, with almost all the children baptised, though very few buried, which was a more costly affair. The Spences, if nothing else, were and continue to be careful with their money! Baptisms and marriages were generally at St Botolph’s Church, which was rebuilt in 1750, only 25 years before the first of the Spence’s to be baptised there.
John’s baptism record, from the St Botolph registers, shows that at the time of his birth, his father Edward was a haulier. Not a big surprise, since many of the family were involved over the years in transporting lime and other things, up the river & canal system. A haulier, by contrast, generally transports things by road, at that time by a horse-drawn cart. This is interesting, as it’s an occupation that John turns to himself in adult life.
The census of 1861 shows John as a scholar, therefore attending school, and his father was noted as a horse keeper. It’s likely the horses were used both for road haulage and for pulling barges up the canal. At that time the family are living on Canal Side in Knottingley.
This would most likely be the Jolly Sailor Inn, at Manor Fold on Canal Side. It’s still there today, now a working men’s club, the Foundry Lane Club & Institute. I’ve visited the outside several times over the last few years, sat outside on the wall alongside the canal and imagined the hustle & bustle, of barges being tied up, horses grazing alongside the tow path, and the navigators and bargees coming and sitting for a well-earned pint of real ale before continuing their journey.
In 1871, the 15-year-old young man was described as a licensed Victualler (publican or innkeeper) on the census, same as his parents, and the family had taken up residence at the Ship Inn in Knottingley. His younger siblings were still described as Scholars, so it’s clear that John probably left school, like many of the era, at age 14 to work in the Inn. John’s father got his first license in March 1864, so John will have been well used to helping from the age of 9.
John’s father lost the license in 1875, so John had to find a new job. Taking what he could find, he took a job as a butcher in Knottingley. It was at this time he met Mary Glew from Goole, daughter of a blacksmith. The circumstances surrounding their meeting is not known to me.
Mary’s Younger Years
Mary Catherine Glew was born in 1856 and baptised on 27 April at St John’s parish church in Goole. Her father was noted on the parish register as a black & whitesmith, a more refined metalworking trade.
The extended Glew family were well established in Goole, and in later years had several successful businesses including a funeral business and Glew’s Garage with its name emblazoned on the roof, visible from the M62, and the subject of much excitement on the occasions we drove past as children.
Mary was the eldest of 3 children and the only daughter. Her brothers, George Richard and John Henry, are the ones who went on to set up successful local businesses. It’s interesting and somewhat tragic that I know more about their lives than I do about their sister, my great grandmother Mary. In fact, I have several photographs of them, but none of Mary. Perhaps this is because of the sad ending of her story, or perhaps the sad ending is just the final part of a sad life. I hope it’s the former.
Her early years appear to have been pretty settled, in fact the family lived in the same house, 21 North Street for the whole time. I’ve visited in recent years but the spot where they once lived is now replaced with an office block, a modern block of flats and a Home Bargains store. A sign of the times. Back then, as today, the street had a variety of residential and commercial buildings – the YMCA, a billiard hall, a brewery and many buildings belonging to the Aire & Calder Estate, which owned the whole plot at the side of the road where the Glews lived right down to the river.
Also on North Street stood the Peacock pub (still there today), and of course a little later, the furniture shop owned by our great uncle John & auntie Jessie Robinson. I found some old photos of North Street in a local history book one of which shows, I believe, number 21, dating from the 1960s when the property was in poor state of repair and possibly derelict. It appears to be a 2 up 2 down type of terraced house and lacks the space for a smithy, so perhaps her father’s work was elsewhere.
The census of 1871 shows the home to be the next but one to Oddfellows Hall, which you can see in the photo. This suggests that the property I’ve identified could have been occupied by 2 small families rather than just one – you can just make out the tops of 2 doorways behind the bus shelter on the photo, so this is probably correct. All of which is to say, Mary was not from a privileged or wealthy background, and so thoughts I may have about whether she had “money” to invest in Couper Farm are probably not correct.
John & Mary’s Life Together
We don’t know for certain how the John & Mary met. I have not found any obvious links that Mary had with Knottingley, so perhaps met in Goole. John’s family, as we know, were engaged in various activities including haulage, and were known to travel up the river to Goole on commercial activities. It’s possible therefore that John came to Goole on business for his father and met Mary on one such visit. Perhaps one of the haulier’s horses needed new shoes before returning and a visit to the blacksmith led to a chance encounter that changed all our lives. Serendipity or fate, we’ll likely never know the truth.
Mary and John were married on 7 January 1879 at the Parish Church in Goole. This would be St John’s, a large church very close to the Glew’s house on North Street. John Spence’s father was noted by this time as a gentleman, usually meaning a man of independent means. At an age of 49, and with a history of managing public houses, we might have assumed he was wealthy. Sadly, this was not the story. He was the licensee of the Ship Inn, not the owner, and was dismissed by the owner 4 years before John & Mary’s wedding for allowing drunkenness on the premises. Perhaps then he was not as ‘gentlemanly’ as the Spences wanted the Glews to believe!
With a butcher’s job in Knottingley, perhaps pressure to move at some point to Goole, John and Mary needed an occupation and a home to start their new life together. With most of John’s short working life being spent as a licensed victualler, it was an obvious choice to apply for a pub license. And it was especially poignant that the pub they found bore the same name as John’s childhood home – the Ship Inn.
By the 1881 census, John was married to Mary and the couple were living at the Ship Inn, just an old-fashioned village pub about 7 miles to the west of Goole, on the road to Knottingley, John’s young wife Mary was pregnant at the time of this census, with their second child George. Their first child, a 1-year-old daughter, Mary Catherine, would later die herself during childbirth. We’ll hear more of that later.
I visited this very pub in 2017 on my father’s ‘trip down memory lane’ and enjoyed a pie and a pint. Nothing special, certainly not plush, in no way pretentious. It certainly felt as though it hadn’t changed since it was in our family more than a century before.
By 1889, the family had relocated to Goole to be closer to Mary’s family. We know this from my grandfather’s birth certificate which notes that he was born at Moorland Road Farm in Old Goole in 1889 and that by this time John was a freeman farmer, someone who rents his own farm. Moorland Road farm is undoubtedly the same farm we later call Couper Farm. I’ve driven to the gates of the farm and had a good look by air in my Microlight, and I imagine it looks much as it did in John & Mary’s time, perhaps with a few updates to outbuildings. The road into the farm on the right continues now to Moorland Road, but at that time it joined Couper Street.
Strangely, I’ve never seen the farm called Couper Farm on any maps. For many years, it was called Stanewell Farm, after the local Stanewell farming family. In fact, even on today’s ordnance survey maps, the farm is shown but without a name, and on google maps, it’s not even shown. However, if you search for Couper Farm, it will be shown as the business address of the current farmers, M&N Backhouse, the very same family who rented the farm from John and later bought it from his estate.
By the time they appeared in the 1891 census at Couper Farm in Goole, Mary had given birth 6 times and suffered the emotional trauma of losing her 4th child Jessie when only a toddler. The details we don’t know, but the sadness we can imagine. And this was not the only sadness as the couple lost their 3rd daughter Sarah in 1894, at 11 years old. There were many diseases to claim lives at that time and infant mortality was at its peak, so the sadness of losing a child was not theirs alone, but nonetheless would be very difficult.
Only 4 years after the census, in 1895, the farm was to be auctioned off, but the listing withdrawn beforehand. Perhaps this was John Spence doing a deal to buy the farm or perhaps he agreed a new rental with the previous owner. It’s not clear at this point as there is a second property purchase some years later.
By the turn of the century, John & Mary had lost 2 of their 8 children and had moved out of the farm to a house on Couper Street, number 47. The next girl to be born after Jessie’s death was also named Jessie, and I imagine my siblings will remember her as Auntie Jessie. By the time of the census in 1901, their eldest daughter Mary had also died, aged 20, during childbirth, leaving her eldest son John Willie Theaker, a cousin of my father and someone he remembers well. We’ll hear more about him later.
The 1901 census adds a little more to the picture – not only has the family moved out of the farm to a house down the road, but John is described as a farm labourer rather than farmer. The latter is usually in charge of their own farm, the former works on someone else’s farm. The occupants of Couper Farm in 1901 are the Stanley family, farm hands that appear to work for William Sykes who owns the farm next door, White House Farm. I wondered whether William Sykes also owned Couper Farm at that time and perhaps was a relative of Mary’s mother, Mary Ann Sykes, which would explain how John and Mark came to the area in the first place.
10 years on, 1911, and the family are living at Wesley House on Couper Street, otherwise known as number 46, directly opposite number 47 where they lived previously. At the previous census, number 46 was occupied by Rev James Langley, a Wesleyan minister, then aged 66, so presumably when he died, the Spence’s bought it and moved across the road, giving it its new name.
John was described as a Scavenger. The family story, handed down from my father, is that John had horses and cart which he would contract out to the council, for the purposes of emptying bins and toilets. He epitomised the phrase “where there’s muck there’s brass”, certainly gaining enough wealth to buy 46 & 47 Couper Street and several others later on.
And then in 1914, the world changed. World War 1, the “Great War”, changed many families forever. John & Mary’s family was affected, although with the majority of the children being female, the impact would have been less than many other families. Their eldest son George, 33 at the start of the war, remained in the UK working on the airship programme in Howden, of which we’ll hear more later.
We’ll also hear more of John, my grandfather and Mary’s second son. He signed up to the army and was quickly posted abroad in a series of confrontations, leading eventually to his significant injury in the battle of Oppy Wood on the Western Front in France. This happened in 1917, and John spent 18 months in hospital as a result. This period must have been immensely stressful for Mary, as it would for all mothers. Whether, this is a factor in what happened to Mary next, we will never know, but in less than 12 months after John’s injury, with him still lying incapacitated in hospital at Cliveden, Mary died, aged 62.
The cause of death is noted as “general paralysis of the insane”. Auntie Jessie, her daughter, was present at the death and the informant. It’s a cause of death that’s often linked to syphilis and is described as a loss of control over mind and body, often accompanied by grandiose delusions of wealth and power and, finally, paralytic death! Hopefully not a genetic condition! That said, it’s equally believable that the stress of the war and the impact on her family, particularly her son John, could have caused such immense stress as to have pushed her “over the edge”. We don’t know whether Mary spent time in an asylum before her death, I will continue to search for records, although we do know from the death certificate that she died at home at Couper Street.
My father John Spence recalls not being allowed to talk about his grandmother, and we therefore know little more about her. I imagine my grandfather John, still in hospital, would be unable to attend the funeral and perhaps had his own feelings about his mother’s death that kept the subject a taboo for the next generation. We will, of course, never know.
Mary’s husband John never remarried, but lived on, surrounded by his family, for another 32 years.
Despite the no doubt terrible grief on losing his wife, it seems that John did within 3 months of Mary’s death, finally manage to buy Couper Farm, with nearly 100 acres and a large amount of building & garden land. This was likely a transaction that was in progress at the time Mary’s death rather than one that arose afterwards. No doubt a shrewd investment given it was only 3 months before the end of World War 1, and house prices were at a 70 year low. £4550 was an enormous amount of money in 1918, which in today’s prices would be £260k, but in house price buying power would be several £million.
In 1933, he placed an advert in the Yorkshire Post, seeking a tenant for the farm. At age 78, it seems likely that John was not actively managing the farm at that point anyway, having possibly retired from his day job, although I know from my father that he continued to operate as a landlord right until his death. Perhaps this advert is what resulted in the Blackhouse family taking on Couper Farm, and subsequently buying it as sitting tenants on John’s later death.
In subsequent years, there are stories that the family owned several houses on Morley Street, Nana (Lillian Blacker) being given one by her husband John Spence junior each birthday. Bessie told me that Joseph Blacker bought 4 of the first 8 houses built on Morley Street, and John Spence bought the other 4. Number 2 was lived in by John Spence (teacher) and next door at number 4 lived Joseph & Ada Blacker after they passed on Pasture Farm to Robert. When they later died, number 4 was rented out to a local vicar, and Bessie would call round to collect the weekly rent – 4/4d (4 shillings & fourpence).
The alternative story, which lives on among our Blacker cousins, is that Joseph Blacker, Nana’s father, lent money to a friend, the builder who built Morley Street. He could not repay the loan and so gave the houses to Joseph Blacker. The houses did not appear in John Spence’s will, and as yet I have not located a copy of Joseph’s will, so the two versions of the story remain unresolved.
John never moved back to the farm. He stayed in Wesley House, though in later years, it returned to its humbler number 46 Couper Street, at least it did on census returns. For many years, his youngest daughter Lillian was to live with him, the story of which follows later.
John died at home at the age of 94, in 1950, only 4 years before his own son John, my grandfather, died aged 65. When John senior died, Couper farm was sold. Unfortunately, according to my father, the farm was sold with a sitting tenant (the Blackhouse family who still live there to this day) rather than with vacant possession, so the value was much less.
Despite this, the probate record shows a total estate of £8524, equivalent to a value in 2018 of over £900,000 with property inflation applied. Much less than had property inflation been applied to the £4500 paid for Couper Farm in 1918.
According to my father, the estate was shared equally between his 4 surviving children. I’ve now obtained a copy of the will from the probate office, and discovered that, whilst the residue of the estate was to be split equally, there were also bequests to specific individuals. John Willie Theaker, the grandson whose mother died in childbirth, was to inherit the family home at 46 Couper Street along with 2 other houses around the corner on Don Street. John’s building society funds was to be shared amongst his other grandchildren, including my father. My father has no recollection of this so it’s not clear whether any money was forthcoming. And there were a few other bequests of specific possessions such as his piano and bookcase. A copy of the will is available in my files for anyone interested in reading more.
My father John remembers his grandfather John as a kind man, though very frugal and quite demanding. He rarely visited his son’s holiday home in Bridlington and on one occasion suggested his son delay going himself in order to sort out some minor niggle a tenant had with a window. The two men did not always see eye to eye, though both apparently shared a passion for investment and wealth creation.
John & Mary’s Family
Mary Ann Spence (1879-1900) & Fred Theaker (1877-1930)
Mary, named after her mother, was John’s first child, born at the end of 1879, the year in which her parents were married. She was born in Knottingley, perhaps at the time they were living with John’s parents. It seems that Mary was not baptised and there is therefore no record on which the address at that time is recorded. The 1881 census shows Mary as a 17-month-old child with her parents in Cowick, most likely at the Ship Inn. By the 1891 census, Mary is an 11-year-old scholar, by this time in Goole.
Most likely is that she went to Old Goole School, a new Board School built in 1878 to support the legal requirement for schooling to the age of 13. The older parts of the building were demolished in late 1990s but the later part built in 1906 still stands today, used as a Youth Club. Phoebe and I visited inside and got a photo before it was completely demolished.
In 1898, she married Fred Theaker from George Street, the street parallel to Couper Street, where Mary was now living with her family at number 47. After the marriage, the couple lived with Fred’s parents on George Street, and their first child John William “John Willie” Theaker was born there 4 months after their marriage. Whether the marriage was considered a “shot gun” wedding and what the reaction to the marriage from her parents is not clear. However, it’s interesting to see on the marriage register that Fred’s parents, Emanuel Theaker and Alice Waterland, both signed as witnesses. There were no Spence witnesses.
Two years after marrying, Mary gave birth to a second child, a daughter, who was given the same name as her mother, Mary Anne. Sadly, both baby and mother died, most likely during childbirth, possibly very shortly afterwards. The baby was baptised 2 weeks later, but no record of birth or death was recorded in civil registers, so I would imagine it was a still birth, all too common at that time.
George Edward Spence (1881-1953) & Eliza Willis (1880-1953)
George was the only one of the children to be born at the pub in East Cowick. By the 1891 census, George was a 9-year-old schoolboy, and 10 years later he was a railway labourer. The railway network was largely complete by 1860 and played a major role over the next hundred years, allowing coal and other freight to be carried to and from the docks in Goole. George’s job on the railway was a shunter, the potentially dangerous job of coupling and decoupling the carriages on a train.
One of his fellow shunters was Charles Willis, who lived on Moorland Road, the next street along from 47 Couper Street, where George was living with his parents at this time.
Charles Willis had a daughter, Eliza, who George fell in love with and married on boxing day of 1901. Interestingly, on the marriage register, John Spence is described as a contractor rather than scavenger or council employee, so this supports the view that he was self-employed.
George & Eliza gave birth to twins in 1903, and then in 1906 Eliza gave birth to triplets, a very rare event which made several newspapers at the time (take a look in the gallery). The triplets, Gertrude, George & John were baptised a month after their birth, but sadly all 3 died within a few weeks of that.
In these early days of marriage, George had left the railway and was delivering beer for a brewery, a job known as a drayman. By the 1911 census, George was described as a farmer’s horseman, driving a horse & cart in town. I expect this was working for his father, in his council contract to clean the bins & loos.
When the first war broke out, George was already in his thirties, on the old side for signing up for action. Instead, he helped the war effort, working on the erection of the enormous sheds used for the air ships. This would likely have been at Howden, just north of Goole, where Barnes Wallis was creating the world’s largest airship.
In June 2018, George transferred from civilian to the military service, enlisting in the RAF. He spent time in 16 Bomber Base and at Clipstone Camp near Mansfield, before transferring to Reserves in 1919 and being discharged a year later.
After the war, when house prices were staggering low, George followed in his father’s footsteps buying 6 rental houses on Couper Street. These would be later demolished after the second war to make way for council housing, but no doubt the family would profit. And at those prices,
At the start of the next war, 1939, George & Eliza, now in their late 50s, were living with their 2nd eldest daughter, Mary, and her husband George Chappell at 13 Dobella Avenue, Rawcliffe, a stone’s throw from one of our Blacker ancestors. George Chappell was a 2nd cousin of Reuben Chappell, the well-regarded marine artist, whose art you can find online as well as in Goole Museum.
Sometime later, he was back in Goole, at the familiar 49 Couper Street, next door to his childhood home of number 47, opposite his father’s Wesley House. George inherited money from John Spence in 1950 and died himself in 1953 at number 51 Couper Street, all of which supports the view that the family owned many houses on and around Couper Street.
Sarah Elizabeth Spence (1883-1894)
Sarah was the third of John & Mary’s children. At that time, the family were living at Couper Farm, and John was a farmer, so it’s likely that much of her early years were spent outdoors, doing kids stuff in amongst jobs around the farm and home.
I found a class photograph from 1891 from Old Goole School, taken from a local history book. The caption makes reference to my grandfather John Spence, Sarah’s brother, and a teacher at the school some years later. It also makes reference to a Spence somewhere on the photograph. Given the date of the photo and the age of the children, its most likely that the reference is to Sarah.
This is particularly poignant because within 3 years of the photograph, Sarah had died. The cause on the death certificate, “pythiosis pulmonarius”, seems to be an unusual entry and some form of illness related to toadstools or mushrooms so perhaps she suffered some form of fungal related poisoning. Diseases were common at that time and child mortality was at its peak.
Jessie Spence (1885-1888)
Like her older sister Sarah, Jessie died as a child, aged 2. Like Sarah, I have not found burial records and have no details on cause of death.
As was common in these days, one of her parent’s subsequent children took on the name of the child that died, the one we came to know as Auntie Jessie.
Emily Spence (1887-1909) & Simpson Ranfield (1887-1967)
The Elementary Education Act of 1870 made it compulsory to attend school between the ages of 5 and 12. It also gave powers, funding and obligations to local authorities to educate their residents and to build and maintain schools. It was this turning point that had led to the opening of Old Goole School in 1878.
In 1901, aged 13, the family were living at 47 Couper Street, and there’s no mention whether Emily is still at school or now left. Her younger siblings of a compulsory-education age were similarly not described as ‘scholars’ as was often the way, so it’s quite possible they were all still at school at that point.
In 1909, Emily married a young man from the round the corner on George Street, Simpson Ranfield. Simpson’s father, a farmer from Rawcliffe, had died when the boy was only 5 years old. They’d been older parents, the father nearly 60 and the mother 40 when Simpson was born. It’s nice to see the signatures of Emily, and her brother George who witnessed the marriage register, the benefit of a good education.
Whether a wedding gift, a sale or rental arrangement, this was the time that the rest of the Spence family moved out of 47 Couper Street and crossed the road to number 46, or Wesley House as it became known, leaving the Ranfield family to live alone at number 47.
By the 1911 census, still at number 47, both parents were aged 23 and they’d had their first daughter, Madeline, only 7 months old. Simpson’s job was a Scavenger labourer for the Urban District Council, a very similar census occupation to that used by John Spence. It’s therefore more than likely that Simpson worked for John Spence in his contracting business.
Simpson & Emily appear to have had a second child, Gladys, in 1918. Neither child has baptism records so there’s a lack of further information. I can also find no military service records for Simpson.
Emily died young, in 1928, aged 40. Simpson lived on for another 40 years.
He appears to have remarried in 1932, to Edith Annie Ellis. They can be seen in the 1939 census, living together without children, at 81 Moorland Road, the road adjoining Couper Street. Simpson died in 1967, Edith 11 years later. Simpson, Emily and Edith Annie have a joint gravestone in Goole cemetery.
John Spence (1889-1950) & Lilian Blacker (1897-1998)
John & Lilian were my paternal grandparents. You can read their story in the separate section, Spences of Morley Street, Goole.
Jessie Spence (1892-1986) & John Robinson (1892-1963)
Jessie was the penultimate child of John & Mary, born in 1892 at Couper Farm, and as I’ve said previously, no doubt followed in her sisters’ footsteps. She was named after one of her elder sisters who died in infancy.
Jessie married John Robinson in 1914, a lovely man from a family of 12 from 2 Alexandra Street, the poorer end of Goole, according to my father. It’s interesting to see the marriage register was witnessed by Simpson Ranfield, Emily Spence’s husband, presumably John’s best man, and by Jessie’s younger sister Lillian (not to be confused with my grandmother Lillian Spence nee Blacker).
With the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, John remained in a civilian in Goole, working as an assistant in a shop, and living at 43 Gordon Street. Their son, Claude, was born in August 1915, and after what was presumably a few months of broken sleep from the newborn, John decided to take his chances in combat, signing up as a Sergeant in the Highland Light Infantry just before Christmas in 1915. Hence the reason for the kilt as part of his uniform.
He was wounded in action, and you can see from the photo with Jessie & Claude from around the end of the war that John has a walking stick from a leg injury. He was discharged on 6 April 1919 and returned to Goole. His full war records are in my archives if anyone is interested in more detail.
John Spence (teacher) used to do the finances for his father, and at some point had created enough from investments to give £500 to John & Jessie to buy a large furniture store in Goole. Grandfather John gave the money, but son John was a bit put out by this, since it was not a loan but a gift. This may be one of the reasons my own father has been so keen to ensure all his children are given equal gifts.
Claude became manager of the shop and married Mollie Hustwick in 1939 and continued to run the shop.
The shop, on Carlisle Street was destroyed in 1943 when 2 Wellington bombers collided over Goole, whilst on a mission to Germany. The wreckage fell close the to shop and fire gutted it. Subsequently, the Robinsons opened a new shop on Hook Road, which remained for many years. John remembers it as a nice shop, John Robinson did everything thoroughly and behind John was a strong woman, Jessie.
I believe that John & Jessie had a period living in Bridlington, judging from the Congratulations telegram to John & Moira, my parents, on the birth of my sister Tricia. John & Moira were once invited to John Robinson’s ceremony where he became leader in the Masons, at a dinner in York. They stayed overnight at ‘Websters’, Moira remembering it as the coldest night ever. John felt he made a faux pas, making inappropriate judgements about the masons being elitist and self-serving and regrets it. His father was very anti-masons, and this had clearly influenced John junior.
John died in 1963, before I was born, but I remember Auntie Jessie visiting Nanna in Bridlington, and as one of my relatives who would always remember birthdays and Christmas. Jessie died in York in 1986, in the Connaught Court care home. She was 94.
Claude lived on till the year 2000. My father recalls being visited by Claude at the Belvedere hospital in Scarborough when he was admitted for some treatment. They were not close cousins, and this was a rare but nice visit.
Lilian Spence (1895-1979) & Fred Hayton (1892-1943)
Lillian and her older brother John were the only two of the children to have baptism records, so either religion was sporadic, or records are not yet released for the others.
It’s likely that Lillian had a few short years on the farm before the family moved to 47 Couper Street, and likely she went to the same school as the others.
Lillian married at the age of 27, in a Church of England ceremony, on 17 February 1923. Her groom was Fred Hayton, a tailor from Weatherall Street, who had served as a tailor in the Royal Engineers during WW1. The couple had 3 children, Harold born in 1923, Kathleen born in 1927, and Fred born 2 years later.
Sadly, Harold died in 1934, aged 11. I have no details on the cause. As if this was not hard enough, life changed forever, as it did for so many, in 1939. The family story is that Fred went to work in Coventry in an administrative role and was bombed in the Coventry bombing, though died of pneumonia later, having survived it.
The real story, as I’ve been able to uncover it, is that Fred moved to Burton on Trent, and took up digs in a shared house, 404 Anglesey Road. He appears here in the 1938 Register census. His war effort, given his age (late 40s) and expertise as a Tailor, was based at the Branston Ordnance factory in Burton on Trent, so called because it was previously the factory and head office of Branston Pickle. Fred worked for the Chief Inspectorate of Clothing, and his job was to inspect uniforms for defects once they were brought in from the factories and before they were sent out to the front line.
Fred’s team were based in an unheated prefab office at the back of the factory, adjacent to a group of Nissan huts containing Italian prisoners of war, who would clean their windows. I can find no evidence of Fred being bombed, although there were bombings of Burton on Trent on a few occasions, so it’s quite possible. Perhaps it’s more likely that he just died of pneumonia – he died in the autumn of 1943, and perhaps the change in weather, after 4 years in an unheated prefab building took its toll, he caught a flu which resulted in pneumonia.
Lillian, with Spence genes, lived to an older age than the rest of her family, dying at the age of 84, a year after her son Fred, perhaps earlier than would have been the case had he not died.
Lilian and Fred’s daughter Kathleen was the same age as my father, and in the same class at school, and of all his relatives, she was the closest. He also remembers she used to send money to my grandmother Nana Spence, rent from her husband’s plot of land in Goole.
Kathleen married in 1951, to Thomas Simms, and in 1957, after old John Spence’s death, the couple were still living at 47 Couper Street, the original family home before crossing the road to Wesley House.
Interesting to see this in the 1957 electoral register, and also to see that John Willie Theaker, Kathleen’s cousin, was living with them. Kathleen died in 1998. Lilian, Fred and their son Harold share a gravestone in Goole cemetery.
Lilian & Fred’s son, also Fred, married Margaret Hunt in 1954, and died in 1978, having survived diphtheria as a child.
He’s buried in the churchyard at Airmyn. Another member of that family to die young, at just 48 years old.