107 THE COWGILLS

THE MEANING AND ORIGIN OF THE NAME Three different sources seem to give three very different theories for where the Cowgill name came from. First there is “English (mainly ): habitational name from any of several places named Cowgill or Cow Gill, for example in Cumbria, , and Lancashire; all are named with Old Norse gil ‘narrow valley’, ‘ravine’ with various first elements including Old English cu ‘cow’ and Old English col ‘(char)coal’.” Fair enough, but then another site reckons it is “from the early Medieval English or Olde French "cokille" which means "a shell" or "cockle". This surname may have been applied to pilgrims to the Shrine of St. James of Compostella who sewed shells on their clothes as a sign of pilgrimage. A cockle-hat (with a shell stuck on it) was also worn as a sign of pilgrimage. The second possibility is that Cockle is a locational name (of Cockhill) from a spot thus named in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The name has been corrupted to Cowgill or Cockell in some directories.” And another states that “the chronicles of the Cowgill family reach back into Scottish history to an ancient tribe known as the Picts. The ancestors of the Cowgill family lived in the lands of Cargill in east Perthshire where the family at one time had extensive territories. When the first dictionaries were invented in the last few hun- dred years, spelling gradually became standardized. Before that time, scribes spelled according to sound. Names were often recorded under different spelling variations every time they were written. Cowgill has been written Cargill, Cargille, Carnigill, Cargile, Kergylle, Cargyle, Carrigle, McGirl and many more. First found in Perthshire, where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.” Jane Cowgill was Florence Watson’s grandmother, who married John Watson, and is therefore as much our di- rect blood ancestor as any of the Watsons were. Thorton in She was born in Thornton in Craven, a small Yorkshire Late 19th century town on the Lancashire border, a mile away from another village, , and just a handful of miles west of Kild- wick and the surrounding villages that our Watson came from. What is for sure is that there is massively long history of Cowgills in Thornton – they go way back to the 15th cen- tury at least, and the chances are there are still some there now. I found a brilliant and extraordinarily in-depth study by a man called Dennis Cairns of a series of inter- actions involving several generations of Cowgills from the 16th to 19th century. A Bartholomew Cowgill and his wife Mary, whose only son, Joseph, was born in 1682, held the tenancy for a freehold called Marlfield, and his brother William Cowgill owned the surrounding fields. Based on parish and church records, gravestone ins- criptions, church records and so on, he puts together the link to our ancestor, although it is safe to assume that they were related in some way or story of how he and three successive generations of other. Cowgills gained control of an estate called Birch Hall. What is clear is that the Jane Cowgill’s family had probably been in Thornton for as long as There are pages and pages of the stuff, and it was all recorded history can tell us, living in a rural community and at least some of them owning res- very exciting because its seems that Jane Cowgill’s pectable amounts of land. grandfather was called Joseph Cowgill, and this paper For the time being, I can only irrefutably go back as far as Jane’s father William, but it does ends with a line of three Joseph Cowgills. seem very likely that he was the son of Joseph Cowgill, who was born in 1763 and married Unfortunately, according to Dennis Cairns, around 1803, Jane Hargreaves in 1788, having at least four children, Joseph Cowgill (1792), Tommy Cow- the third of the Joseph Cowgills “married and he and his gill (1794), Mary Cowgill (1798) and Jane’s father William Cowgill (1798). But this is not cer- wife Betty had two sons, Joseph and James. Sadly both tain. had only short lives, Joseph dying in 1805, James seven A local website explains that “the census returns of 1801 for the Ancient Parish of Thornton years later. There appears to have been no more chil- (which included Denholme) show of the population of 2,474, some 1,763 persons were em- dren.” ployed in trade, manufacture or handicrafts, with 70 persons employed in agriculture. By Cairns’ work is so thorough that I’m willing to go along 1811 the population had risen to 3,016 and to 4,100 by 1821 with 788 houses occupied by with what he says, and in any case, Florence’s grandfa- 796 families. Over the next ten years the population increased by 32% to 5,968 with 1,105 ther William Cowgill, the old boy that lived for so many families occupying 1,071 houses Three textile mills stood on the fringes of the village. years with his daughter Jane and her husband John Only one of the mills, Prospect Mill, stands in the conservation areas. Joshua Craven esta- Watson in Shipley, was born around 1897, so there is no blished it as a worsted-spinning mill in 1831.”

Joseph Jane Cowgill Hargreaves

1763 1767

Joseph Tommy Cowgill Mary Cowgill William Cowgill Susanna Cowgill Riddehough 1798 1792 1794 ~1798 1802 - 1861

Jane Cowgill Joseph nancy Cowgill william Cowgill John Cowgill margaret Cowgill Cowgill

1823 - 1885 ~1824 1829 1833 1839 1841 108 William Cowgill (1798 – ) and Susanna Riddehough (1802 – 1861) UK CENSUS 1841, THORNTON

Thorton in Craven

UK CENSUS 1851, SUTTON

William Cowgill was born in Thornton around 1897. I can’t say much about his childhood, but the Yorkshire Riddehough is a surname that seems to Archeological Society, Leeds does have a bill issued in 1822 to Christopher & William Cowgill for sawing have caused plenty of confusion. The and carpenter work at Thornton and Thornton Hall, Oke Slack, Linay House, Nutter Cote and Swinden. Craven Muster Roll was made in 1802, This could be the same man. which was part of a nationwide attempt to William married somebody called Susanna, and all evidence suggest that this was Susanna Riddehough, list all the young men in the land that were to whom a William Cowgill was married in Thornton on January 8, 1823, shortly before their children star- susceptible to being recruited in the case ted appearing. of the much feared invasion of Napoleon, an invasion that never happe- BROWN HOUSE FARM ned. Just in Thornton, we had men by the name of Reddihough, Redihough, Riddi- hough and Ridehough (none of which were the same spelling Susanna used!). It seems they lived at Brown House, a farmstead just outside Thornton itself, but if William was ever a farmer, by the time of the 1841 census, he was a cotton we- aver. He was now aged 44 and living with his 39 year old wife, Susanna, and now wea- ving was changing from the cottage in- dustry it had been before to an increasingly more industrial activity, Wi- lliam Cowgill was possibly one of Joshua Craven’s employees. His oldest daughter, our own Jane Cowgill who married John Watson, was 18 by now. She and her younger brother, Joseph, aged 16, were also working in the mills. Behind them came Nancy (12), William (8), John (2) and Margaret, who at the Oddly, although William Cowgill’s children are constantly recorded as being born in Thornton in 19th cen- time of the 1841 census was just two tury censuses, in 1861, Jane’s brother John doesn’t give his birthplace as Thornton, but states Brown- weeks old. house. This seems odd at first, because there is no such place in Yorkshire. However, after further In 1851, they had moved east to Sutton. investigation, I have discovered that there is a farm in Thornton called Brownhouse! William, now 53, was recorded as being Before and after William Cowgill was born, people called Harrison are recorded as being born at Brown a widower, so Susanna was no more. House, so maybe the Cowgills moved there later, or maybe more than one family lived there. But five of the six children were still living A hiking site on the web tells walkers to “cross the pasture towards the cluster of buildings that is Brown at home, and the oldest five all had jobs House farm. It's a confusing spot and at first you might conclude that you've gone the wrong way. The co- connected with the mill. rrect exit from the pasture is via a gate and stile at the bottom left corner - once across it you're on the hard Curiously, little Margaret, a newborn baby concrete stand of the farmyard. You'll see the farm driveway in front of you - make for it and follow it away at the time of the 1841 census, was now from the farm towards Thornton in Craven.” recorded as being just eight, which sug- “The farm driveway is quite elegant and could almost be the access drive of a country manor. It runs for gests either a mistake or a bit of porky some distance, with pastures of neatly trimmed grass on each side. eventually turning hard to the right just pies. by an old railway bridge. Pass under this bridge and follow the vehicle track into Thornton, just beyond.” Jane, as we know, now 28, had two chil- That’s Brown House farm in the picture. And here or hereabouts is the very place where, just before the dren of her own, and had gone on to Industrial Revolution changed everything for these people, our great, great, great grandfather William marry John Watson just a few months Cowgill once lived. earlier, and was living next door. 109 Ten years later, 1861, as things were so often done in those days, it was William Cowgill the father who was shacked up with his oldest daughter and her husband, now in Shipley – as we saw before. A very crowded household also includes Jane’s brother John Cowgill. Living next door to them, along with four other weavers, was yet another of Jane’s younger brothers, Joseph Watson, now 36 and like everybody else in the street, it seems, also still a weaver and now married to a lady called Elizabeth who was six years his senior. William Cowgill the father lived on with his daughter and son-in-law in Shi- pley, and was still there in 1881, now 83, and probably died soon after that, as in the 1891 census, he is gone. The other children of William Cowgill and Susanna Riddehough Jane Cowgill (born in 1823) we know went on and married John Watson and was Florence Watson’s grandmother.

Joseph Cowgill (born in 1824) as we know, married Elizabeth and in 1861 was living next door to John and Jane Watson in Shipley. Elizabeth was no less than six years older than he was, and was from the village of Slaidburn in Lancashire, and her maiden name may well have been Smith, because in 1871 there was an eight year old child called Wi- lliam Smith living with them, possibly from Elizabeth’s previous marriage. By now they had left Shipley and moved up to good old Cononley, where If the Cowgills went to Sutton, it was probably to work at Bairstow’s Mill, some of the original Watsons had lived, and although in 1871 he was still shown in the picture in 1998 just before it was demolished (the white bits in the mills, he didn’t do that all his life. In 1881 he was a ‘bread baker’. are the demolition work already under way). By 1891 he could afford to retire (his wife here being called Ellen, which must have been her familiar name). He was a widower by 1901, but still cult to work out which one he was. Unfortunately although Cowgill is an living in Cononley, and could even afford to have a live-in servant called unusual name, in this part of West Yorkshire in the 19th century, it was any- Amelia Tyas, age 22, so it seems like it didn’t work out too bad at all in the thing but. end for the son of a poor mill worker. Margaret Cowgill (born in 1841) I also have nothing on, she would not Nancy Cowgill (born 1829) is hard to track because she obviously ma- have quite made twenty by the time of the 1851 census, but she is nowhere rried and changed her name. There was a Nancy originally from Thornton to be seen, which either means she was dead, or she had already married who had married a cloth weaver called Steven Ballard from Wigan that and taken a new name, or just as likely, there is data missing, not spelled was living in Hambleton in that fits perfectly, but I have no correctly, or any number of imperfections with the search engine! confirmation that that was her. John Cowgill (born 1839) in 1861 was the brother living in Shipley with There was a Susanna Cowgill born in 1831 in Thornton, and who died a John Watson and his wife Jane in 1861, was still working in the mills. year later, in 1832. I have no confirmation that she was a member of this Again, I can’t be too sure about this, because there were so many John family, but the fact she had the same name as her potential mother sug- Cowgills, but the one that fits the bill perfectly and almost definitely has to gests that she probably was. be the one was born in Thornton and still living in Shipley ten years later. He was in Amelia Street, Saltaire (Shipley), the street shown in the picture. William Cowgill (born 1833) is very hard to track without a lot of careful He had married a ‘trader’ from Charlestown, a suburb of Blackburn, and research. There were several William Cowgills born in Thornton around they had one child, aged two, called Joseph. the same time that he was, and without any further clues, it is very diffi- Life wasn’t too great for them, by the looks of things. At least John was out of the mills, and was now a labourer, but ten years later, still living at the same address, their son was 12 and had already been sent to the mills. WALTER COOKE COWGILL They had another child called William who was only three. The following extract apeared in the Craven Newspaper about Walter Cooke Cowgill in 1832, who was born in the village in 1842, and was, Amelia Street and Caroline Street, Saltaire, more than likely, one of Jane Cowgill’s nephews. where there the Watsons and Cowgills were Walter had since emigrated to America, but a heroic deed on the Erie living in the 19th century Railroad brought him his fifteen minutes of fame, and this article des- cribes some of his early days as a Thornton Cowgill. “Walt was brought up by his aunt who kept a shop and the Post Office in a Craven village. His grandfather was a Quaker and paid for some two years of his education at the Friend's Low Green School at Rawdon. “Walt was an active, frank and mischievous boy. Seldom a day passed at home when he was not in some trouble with his aunt or some mem- ber of the family. He had various household tasks allotted to him and of these he detested knife cleaning, perhaps more than any other. When he got stalled he would drop the rest of the knives into an adjoining gar- den. Sometimes his grandfather chastised him with a stick, and on one occasion Walt said, "Grandfather, I don't like it. It hurts," to which the old man replied, "Yes, I intended it to hurt thee." Once his uncle sent him to the blacksmith's shop for two-penny worth of strap oil, but Walter retur- ned crying when he tumbled to it that the strap was meant for his back. “There is a fine lime tree in the center of the village. It is of great age and is known as the "love tree". It was formerly a trysting place for the young men and maidens of the village. The village children love to play on its stone benches and the boll is used as a posting station for village con- certs, parish meetings, police notices and warnings about income tax. This spring, 1932, it is once more bursting into lovely green. One won- ders for how long its perennial beauty has gladdened the hearts of the inhabitants. Certainly for many generations. “This tree was beloved of Walter, but on the 9th of August, 1873, he had to leave it. On that date he sailed for America in the Adriatic to join his father who had previously emigrated to Pennsylvania.”