HARTLEY of ORMSKIRK

The most recent Hartley with whom we are concerned is Ruth Hartley (1813–1898), the wife of Joseph Culshaw (1809–1883), a shoemaker in the West Lancashire town and parish of Ormskirk.

The earliest Hartley traced in the direct line is Ruth’s father Thomas Hartley, an Ormskirk millwright (died 1847): Thomas was perhaps a son of Richard Hartley, weaver of Heapey, in Leyland parish.

The name Hartley is thought to be a locative one, originating at Hartley near Ecclesfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.1

Richard Hartley and Sarah Pearson

On 15 June 1772 Richard Hartley, a weaver of Heapey took out a licence to marry Sarah Pearson, a spinster of Chorley, then a chapelry of Croston. Both were of full age. Richard signed and his bondsman was William Bolton of Chorley, shoemaker. The marriage took place at Chorley next day, with John Rigby and … as witnesses.

Thomas, son of Richard and Sarah Hartley was baptised at Ormskirk on 28 March 1773; Richard and Sarah, children of Richard and Sarah Hartley ‘of Great Bolton’ were baptised at Bolton on 26 March 1786 and 15 October 1788.

Thomas Hartley

At his death in May 1847, Thomas Hartley was said to be ‛80’ and so was probably born c. 1767.

On 28 March 1773 Thomas, son of Richard and Sarah Hartley of Burscough township (Ormskirk), was baptised at Ormskirk.2 There were other Hartley families at this time in Lydiate and Melling, in the adjacent parish of Halsall.

Thomas Hartley and Mary

Thomas Hartley probably married his wife Mary (born c. 1772) c. 1788–91, but not at Ormskirk.

The couple settled in Ormskirk parish by 1794 and a son James (born to ‘Thomas and Mary Hartley’) was baptised there on 25 May 1794.

‘Mary, daughter of Thomas Hartelew, Ormskirk’ was buried there on 1 December 1796. Ellen, 'daughter of Thomas Hartley' was baptised at Ormskirk on 11 December 1796, but buried there on 28 March 1800. Another Mary, daughter of Thomas and Mary Hartlew of Ormskirk was baptised on 7 July 1799.

[Note that on 15 October 1802 Mary, daughter of Thomas Hartley, boatman of Downholland (Halsall) and his wife Mary was buried at Halsall: she was nine].

Ellen, daughter of Thomas and Mary Hartlew was baptised at Ormskirk on 24 April 1803. Jane Hartlew, daughter of Thomas and Mary was baptised on 28 June 1805.

Thomas, son of Thomas and Mary Hartlew of Ormskirk was baptised there on 30 August 1807, but buried on 4 November (son of Thomas Hartelew).

Sarah Hartelew (1808–1842) was baptised on 23 October 1808, daughter of Thomas and Mary of Ormskirk.

Moor Street

Ormskirk was described in 1798 as a ‘neat market town with four well-built streets … its only trade is the spinning of cotton and of thread for sail-cloth’.3 Thomas Hartley and his family lived in Ormskirk town for at least 38 years, from 1803–1841. Thomas is shown in the manor court rolls throughout that period as 1 one of the permitted ‘inhabitants’ of the Moor Street quarter of the town. Although the names are probably not listed in a strictly sequential arrangement, it is possible by comparing the annual lists with the census returns of 1841 and onwards to conclude that the Hartleys lived at Moor Street End, towards the eastern edge of the town.4

Ruth (1811–1813), daughter of Thomas and Mary Hartelew of Ormskirk was baptised on 25 August 1811, but died aged 1 and was buried on 23 April 1813. A second Ruth, ‘daughter of Thomas Hartelow,5 millwright of Ormskirk and his wife Mary’ was baptised on 25 July 1813. Their son James was then 19 and their other daughters Ellen, Jane and Sarah, ten, eight and five. The children’s mother Mary would then have been c. 41.

Ruth Hartley’s granddaughter Ruth Clerc claimed that Ruth’s ‘brother kept the waterworks at Burscough’, but this is probably a confusion with Stephen Hartley, her grandson, who had a vote in Aughton in 1890 in respect of his ‘house and waterworks’ at Halsall Lane. She also claimed that Ruth was ‘probably a Methodist’ and that her family were ‘Hartleys, the jam people’, but there seems no evidence for either of these claims.6

Ruth Hartley and Joseph Culshaw

Ruth Clerc claimed correctly that Ruth Hartley had an illegitimate son before marriage. On 6 December 1829 Thomas Hartley, son of Ruth (who was then 16) was baptised at Ormskirk. Ruth’s future husband was by then 20.

On 6 March 1832 Ruth, now 19, married Joseph Culshaw by licence at Ormskirk.

Their daughter Catherine was born on 10 January 1833 and baptised that day as a Roman catholic at Scarisbrick, Ormskirk. A second daughter Mary was born and baptised on 3 November 1834: ‛Mary Culshaw, 6’ was buried as a Roman catholic in Ormskirk churchyard on 3 March 1841.

Marriage of Thomas and Mary Hartley’s daughters Jane and Ellen

Thomas and Mary’s daughter Jane Hartley married John Johnson (1807--1885), weaver at Melling after banns on 18 May 1829: both were of ‛this [Halsall] parish’, Jane marked and the witnesses were Robert Barnes and Thomas Bolton.7

Their first five children (all baptised at Ormskirk) were Margaret (25 April 1830), Daniel (5 August 1832), Mary (21 December 1834), Sarah (22 March 1837) and Jane (21 july 1839). In 1841 John (a silk weaver) and Jane were living with the five children in the silk weaving colony at Greetby Hill, Ormskirk. The first Jane died of scarlet fever in June 1841 (aged 2) and her death was registered by [her mother’s sister] Ruth Culshaw of Tinkers Hill, Ormskirk: Jane was buried at Ormskirk on 22 June. John’s wife Jane had died by 1851 when he was a Greetby Hill silk weaver and widower, with Margaret and Daniel (20 and 19, silk weavers) and Mary and Sarah (16 and 13, silk piecers). In the September quarter 1860 John married Alice Gore in Liverpool. In 1861 John was a Greetby Hill silk handloom weaver with Alice and his daughters Sarah and Jane (25 and 20, silk handloom weavers). By 1871 the children had all left home and John was a labourer, living with Alice at Greetby Hill. In 1881 John (a silk weaver) and Alice were at 8 Court, 3 Chapel Street, Ormskirk, living next door to his married son Daniel and his family. John was buried at Ormskirk on 24 August 1885.

Thomas and Mary Hartley’s daughter Ellen married Thomas Low after banns at Ormskirk on 22 January 1821: both marked and the witnesses were William Barnes and George Wignall. Their children were George (born c. 1824) and Elizabeth (born 1840). By 1841 Thomas Low ‛paviour, 39’ and Ellen (‛38’) were living in Pratchetts Court, Gildarts Gardens, Liverpool with George (grinder, 17) and Elizabeth (10 months). We shall see that Ellen’s widowed husband Thomas Hartley were also living with them.

Death of Mary Hartley

Thomas Hartley’s wife Mary died aged 63 at Ormskirk in 1836 and was buried there on 23 January.

Ruth and Joseph Culshaw’s son Edmund (?Ned) was born in early 1837 and another daughter Eleanor in 2 1840: she was baptised at Ormskirk on 9 August, her father being a ‘shoemaker’.

At the time of the 1841 census the Culshaw family were living at Tinkershill, Moor Street End, Ormskirk. The family by now comprised Joseph and Ruth Culshaw, Thomas Hartley (11) and Catherine, (eight), Edmund (four) and Eleanor Culshaw (8, 4 and 9 months).8

Death of Thomas Hartley

The widowed Thomas Hartley (by then c. 64–70) was listed in 1841 for the last time amongst the inhabitants of Moor Street.9 In the census returns of that year he was a ‘smith, c. 75’ living in Pratchetts Court, Gildarts Gardens, Liverpool with his daughter Ellen and her husband Thomas Lowe and their children George and Elizabeth.10

On 28 August 1842 Thomas’ daughter Sarah (32) died of consumption at Burscough Street. Sarah’s death was registered by Richard Gregory of Burscough Street, who appears there in the 1841 census as a tailor (c. 55), with his wife Mary (c. 40), their children and Mary Hartley (aged one year and perhaps an illegitimate daughter of Sarah). Sarah was buried at Ormskirk on 31 August.

[Curiously another Thomas and Mary Hartley were in Aughton Street, Ormskirk in 1841. Thomas was an Irish labourer, aged c. 45. Mary was c. 42 and there were five sons and daughters. Bridgett was 20, Thomas four, Margaret 15, Patrick two and Ann seven.]

Thomas Hartley died at Moor Street, Ormskirk on 10 May 1847 of natural decay and diarrhoea. He was said to be ‘80’ and a millwright.11 Thomas had perhaps been living with the Culshaw family at Moor Street End/Tinkers Hill, for the death was registered by Joseph Culshaw [his son-in-law] as ‘present at the death’ and he also described himself as of ‘Moor Street’. Thomas was buried at Ormskirk on 12 May 1847.

Thomas’s diarrhoea may have resulted from dysentery or from the typhoid strain of the fever which swept Ormskirk from April 1847 and caused a death rate of 46.1 per thousand by September, far higher than that of the worst affected parts of London. The Hartley family had probably lived at Moor Street End, some way east of the town centre and the Culshaws were on the edge of the countryside, at Tinkers Hill at the far eastern end of Moor Street. Both were thus some distance from the town centre, which by 1847 had become notoriously overcrowded and insanitary. Many Irish had long been seasonal visitors at harvest-time and Irish ‘navvies’ were employed until 1849 building the Liverpool to Ormskirk railway, but after the potato famine in the spring of 1847, there was a huge new influx of Irish into the small town, many already sick with fever.

Within weeks fever was rife, to be succeeded by cholera in 1849. An inspection (leading in 1850 to the establishment of a Local Board of Health) revealed a lack of any proper sewerage system. The town boasted no bath and only five water closets and many new dwellings erected in yards behind the main streets quickly became filthy hovels. Raw sewage ran in open gullies in all the streets and into the Mere Brook along the southern boundary of the town. In Moor Street the flow was interrupted when the railway was cut across it and the sewage thereafter flowed down the embankment onto the track below. There were few private drains in Moor Street ‘and the surface of the footwalks and streets are contaminated with all sorts of liquid abominations flowing from surcharged cesspools and middens’. Of Burscough Street it was said in 1849 that ‘a sewer from the upper portion opens onto the surface at the lower end into an open drain. All the water for the yards must pass out onto the open street.’ It was however emphasised in 1850 that ‘proper sanitary works and regulations are alone required to render Ormskirk and the neighbourhood extremely healthy’!12

Ruth Culshaw’s son Thomas Hartley died in December 1876 and was buried at Scarisbrick Roman catholic church on 24 December: his widow Elizabeth then lived with her sons and daughters at Southport Road, Scarisbrick. By 1891 they were at Halsall Lane Aughton, where a son Stephen was an engine-driver. The electoral roll for 1890 shows Stephen occupying a house and waterworks at Halsall Lane.13

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(revised 7 October 2011) 3 © T.M. Steel

Copy documents D Cert 1842 Sarah Hartley, daughter of Thomas D Cert 1847 Thomas Hartley M Alleg 1772 Hartley & Pearson

4 1 C.W. Bardsley, A Dictionary of English & Welsh Surnames (London, 1901), p. 363; P.H. Reaney, A Dictionary of British Surnames (London, 1976), p. 167 2 Lancs Record Office [hereafter L.R.O.], PR 2886/7 3 J. Aikin, A Description of the Country from 30–40 miles round Manchester (London, 1798), p. 315 4 They do not appear 1802. In 1803 ‛Thomas Hartley’ was listed in the sequence: Henry Greaves, Widow Kershaw, Rbt Goore snr, Mr Geo. Stewart, Richd Middleton, Thos Hartley, Henry Meadow, Richd Howard, Jas Whaley, Jos. Files, Jas Oliverson & Jas Coxhead. In 1804 Wm Woods replaced Meadow. In 1805 the nearest names were Wm Huyton, Peter Barton, Greaves, Jn Leigh, Richd Kershaw, Edwd Woods, Goore, Chas Price, Middleton, ‘Thomas Hartlew’, Jas Goore, Jas Staniforth, Edwd Ormesher. By 1810 the sequence was Goore, Jn Rigby, Chas Price, Hartlew, Jn McMullen & Ormesher. In 1811 it was: Wm Huyton, Jas Phythian, Thos Cave, Henry Greaves, Wm Fennel, Jas Coxhead, Rbt Goore, snr, Edwd Woods, Thos Hartlew, Jn McMullen, Edwd Ormesher & Jn Orrett. In 1813 ‛Thomas Hartlew [struckout] Hartley’ [sic] was shown between Jn Howard & McMullen, while Wm Woods replaced Edwd Ormesher. In 1819 the Huyton, Greaves, Fennel, Howard, Woods, McMullen & Ormesher families were still in place, with those of Peter Forrest, Wm Fairhurst, Jn Sephton & Jos. Jenyon among new arrivals; ‘Thomas Hartlew Hartley’ [sic] was shown between Sephton & Wm Woods. By 1822 there were still the families of Huyton, Greaves, Forrest, Fennel, Fairhurst, Wm Woods, Sephton & Jenyon: the Hartleys were between Sephton & Hannah Webster & Jenyon. After 1822 the next surviving Ormskirk court roll is 1837, when there were 4 correspondences with what had gone before. Thos Hartley was listed between one Jas Higham & Edwd Huyton, in a sequence: Rbt Bradley (paviour), Wm Allen, Jn Johnson, Wm Woods, Jas Higham, Thos Hartley, Edwd Huyton, Jas Harrison, Wm Harrison, Jas Calderbank, Peter Forrest, Richd Wright. In 1840 Jn Woosey had replaced Johnson, & Saml Payne Jas Higham: then came Thos Hartley, Jas Jenyon, Peter Forrest, Wm Harrison, Jas Calderbank & Edwd Huyton. In 1841 the court roll shows Thos Hartley for the last time in a sequence Edwd Whitehead, Saml Payne, Hartley, Jas Jenyon, Peter Forrest (L.R.O., DDK/1522/4 [1803]–6 [1805], 11–12 [1811], 14 [1813], 19 [1819], 22 [1822]; /1523/1 [1837], 4 [1840], 5). The 1841 census returns include a sequence in Moor St End: Whitehead (a labourer), Ellen Croston (independent), Payne (a tinman) & Henry Culshaw (an agricultural labourer), although Hartley nowhere appears. Edwd Huyton (a silk weaver), Jas Jennions (labourer) & Peter Forrest (a weaver) were all included under Greetby Hill in the 1841 returns, as were Forrest & Calderbank 1851. The 1846 tithe map makes it possible to identify precisely the houses of Peter Forrest, Thos & Jas Calderbank & Wm Woods (on the W. side of Tinkers Hill Lane, near Greetby Hill) & of Saml Payne (N. side of Tinkers Hill, by Moor St End. One Jn Hartley also appears under Moor St in the lists of 1802–1805 5 ‘Hartelew’ in bishop’s transcript: L.R.O., DRL/ 6 Jn Hartley, ‘director of preserve works’, who was living ‘off Long Lane, Fazakerley’ 1891 was b. Trawden, Lancs. c. 1825 7 Their children were Mgt (1830—1912), w. of Thos Forrest, silk weaver (1827—1884); Daniel (1832—1905); Mary (1835—1908); Sarah (1837—1887); Jane (1839—1841); & Jane (1841—1868). 8 The National Archives, HO 107/515/9/5/14/21. (Census returns 1841 are cited with 6 elements: class [HO 107]/piece/book/enumeration district/folio/page) 9 L.R.O., DDK/1523/5. 10 T.N.A., HO 107/557/4/5/22/37 11 If he was indeed the s. of Richd Hartley, he would actually have been c. 74. 12 A. Coney (ed.), R. Rawlinson, The Ormskirk Board of Health Report, 1850 (Preston, 1991), pp. 9, 29 13 L.R.O., EL ..mf 19/49