Cuimhich air na daoine bho'n d'thanaig thu"

  This is an old Gaelic proverb which when translated urges us to..

               "REMEMBER THE MEN FROM WHOM YOU CAME "

                         This is our attempt.

Here are some stirring words from Ecclesiasticus XLIV which are very moving and  thought provoking please hold onto them throughout your research as this is surely  why we spend our time and efforts.

" Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us...          There be of them that have left a name behind them, that their praise might            be reported.
           And some there be which have no memorial who are perished, as though they           had never been born, and their children after them.           But these were merciful men, whose righteousnes hath not been forgotten.           With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance and their           children are within the covenant.
           Their seed  standeth fast, and their children for their sakes,           Their seed shall remain forever and their glory shall not be blotted out.           Their bodies are buried in peace , but their name liveth for evermore.



This therefore is our tale of " A YORKSHIRE WEAVER'S FAMILY "            
   In days past the workshop of the Weaver was a rural cottage from which, when  tired of his back breaking sedentary labour, the weaver would sally forth into his  small patch of garden to breathe fresh air, to stretch his legs and to straighten his  back.  With a hoe he would tend his culinary produce essential which just like his  weaving was essential for his families very survival.
        All the family would be play their part in simply existing from day to day.  These jobs would be undertaken in sometimes painful monotony but nevertheless with  the desire to live one more day. This Yorkshire 'grit' was passed from generation to  generation and was never questioned.
   In this area of England it was wool that was the main method of revenue until the  coal industry transformed the outlooks, the rewards, the achievements and the desires of the folk in Wooldale and the Ebdon Valley and further afield to the industrial towns like   Huddersfield Yorkshire.
   Wool was vital to the existance of these folk. Looking through the census sheets  from 1841 nearly all the families were listed as "woollen handweavers".  Every family member from the very small and a young age would have to play their  part. Each member of the family was made to understand that no matter the age or  capability their contribution was vital to the unit and valued by the whole just as a stone thrown  onto a still pond the ripples would spread out not just to the central family but the hamlet then  the town and finally who knows to somewhere far beyond the understanding of the peasant worker. 

The wool, which when spun was to form the weft on the hand loom, was picked clean by  the fingers of the younger and smaller children of the weaver's brood. The fleece  would then be carded and spun by his older daughters, taught and assisted by his  wife. The yarn was woven by the weaver himself and assisted by his sons.  The  families had no single employer and would more than likely hire even their loom. The  fleeces too would be probably be supplied to him by a local businessman who marketed  the final produce and who made the biggest profits. 
 The family would only be able to produce enough to keep themselves in a meagre way  because the output of the spinning and weaving depended on the individual.  Their  lives, work and their very  existance would have been shaped around themselves and  their struggle for survival.  There would have to have been a strong and very  sometimes pressurised family bond which entwined and sometimes even choked each  generation by the unspoken yet imbued needs for the existance of the "Tribe" and the  very reason to be. Marriage with another, some could say the same, families in the  area as this research has shown was the strength. Strong & healthy young men and  women with attributes for good weaving and spinning went a long way to a good  marriage. These families through the ages might have been described as  simple country folk but Yorkshire folk have a hard and unbreakable loyalty to their  forefathers and to the Yorkshire ways which is inherant even today and no matter  which part of the globe you happen to find yourself,for Yorkshire folk have both been transported  and have transported themselves to every corner of the world . Yorkshire folk have a true  and deep respect for their breeding.   It is strange that even words like Respect  throughout the years can be corrupted and the "respect" used in today's society can  not even be compared to the  word, which would without doubt put the  modern use of the word 'respect' into the shadow of the giants of men and women in  this research and of just one 'ordinary' Yorkshire family.

   Eli Hirst was a hand-loom weaver in the 18th Century as were his ancestors  centuries before him. The families of woollen weavers, spinners, shawl fringers and  rush weavers lived for over 450 years in the wool valleys of Yorkshire in villages  such as Kirkburton, Scissett, Skelmanthorpe and Hepworth.

                 LIFE WAS HARD AND OFTEN TIMES WERE BLEAK
  
   The families recorded in these pages occupied and passed on the very same weaver's  cottages through the years, some even until this present generation.    There are many stories to tell but equally there are as many stories which sadly  will never be now told. However, just as the seasons over the past 450 years have  come and gone,so the winds of change have blown their balmy heather scented breezes  over the purple moors in equal predicatabliy as they have blown the cold chilling  north winds which unloaded and dumped their snow and ice without mercy onto this unique,  fascinating, formidable, but breath taking part of England called YORKSHIRE.     The families include the Battyes, Buckleys, Hirsts, Moorhouses and Gawthorpes-    all of whom through the passage of time were inevitably as interwoven as the very  cloth they themselves were weaving.  Some threads go un-noticed and perhaps could  even be described as insignificant, some are startling ... some perhaps glittering  but all are vital in the overall quality, strength and patterns of the fabric  itself. 
   To quote Marcus Tullius Cicero 106-43 B.C."NOT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE  WE WERE BORN IS TO REMAIN PERPETUALLY A CHILD.  FOR WHAT IS THE WORTH OF A HUMAN LIFE  UNLESS IT IS WOVEN INTO THE LIFE OF OUR ANCESTORS BY THE RECORDS OF HISTORY"....     
 Perhaps it is just a co-incidence that the expertise of Weaving and Spinning lives on  today as a craft taught by Eli's descendants Marjorie and David Fox who have now  retired and also live in 'The Weavers Cottage' in a small rural village but in  Leicestershire. 
     Marjorie and David dedicate this website as a Tribute to all these people and the  families who left this wonderful, interesting legacy and very special family  history.                  
     Eventually it is hoped that these pages will become a true and personal record of  a span of time.  There are some amazing heart rending finds as well as those of a  joyous nature, some are of great triumphs and some of disaster.   Some family members  survived the 1666 Great Plague, others the very under reported Sheffield Flood of  1864 and incredibly even the same families becoming caught up in a similar disaster  at Bilberry Dam Holmfirth. (Jeremiah Buckley)
      Our families did not escape heartbreak in either of the Great Wars.  One 'son' was one of those 'bravehearts' who at the command 'went over the top' and, - -  like thousands of others in the Battle of The Somme July 1916 -- never came  back. 
        " THINK WELL OF US, OH LAND FOR WHICH WE FELL. MAY ALL GO WELL WITH BRITAIN  STILL GO WELL. KEEP HER BRIGHT BANNERS FREE FROM SPOT OR STAIN.  LEST WE SHOULD DREAM  THAT WE MIGHT DIE IN VAIN " Robert Hawkshaw 1888 - 1916

    Another even younger 'son' died during the infamous Dunkirk battles in 1942.  Lewis Gawthorpe 1919 = 1944,

      On the other hand some have stood their ground and followed their convictions  even if it meant shame and hardship for their families.  One such 'son' probably  broke his parents hearts by the decision to declare his feelings and was imprisoned  for being a Conscientious Objector in the same Great War 1914-1918.(Luther Buckley) 

Another family member, this time a young woman, was beaten and put into goal  for daring to challenge the Government and its policy on equality votes for women.   In 1909 this young women described by the newspapers at the time as 'a winsome merry  creature, with bright hair and laughing hazel eyes, a fresh face and as sweet as a  flower and had the dainty ways of a little bird,' hmmm... nevertheless she was badly  beaten by stewards, suffered severe internal injuries and imprisoned in Holloway Gaol  along with her friends, which included Christabel Pankhurst, all locked away for  daring to heckle at a speech given by none other than Winston Churchill. These women  were Suffragettes. (Mary E Gawthorpe)

      Not very much later another youth took the decision to leave his home for a  another social cause and who, at the young age of 17, joined the Jarrow March during  the hard times around 1926.(William Hall).

The Hawkshaw family knew all about hardships and were among the hundreds of hungry bewildered  Irish immigrants to make it across the Irish Sea to Cawthorne for work and bread to eat.Their  story is of survival in its true meaning which entwined with the Yorkshire grit and Yorkshire Ale  must have been a formidable sight.

Our joint family history brings together many of the troubled times of our world into reality. The  pages of those 'uninteresting history books'were not so dull if only we had known during our need  for knowledge. The Alma Mater of our secondry achools and the GCE exams suddenly lifts real people  from the pages reminiscence of the pop up books and makes them live.  Lives suddenly take on  movement and colours,smells and emotions of our bygone relatives.  These are actual people the  blood line who at first hand joined their children in laughter and played with them on a hot  summer, cried with them when they scraped a knee or broke a favourite doll and even  cried with their parents when a younger sibling died like so many children of the village with the  dreaded ague or the hungry belly not even managing to make  Irish sea during the potato  famines.(the Hawkshaw family)  No doubt there are a few 'saints' in our tree but just as likely  there are likely to be 'thieves and vagabonds'(but we haven't found Robin Hood --------                  ------------(yet!) 
         We hope you will enjoy rummaging through this 'Treasure Trove' of records and  the stories of the sometimes misunderstood, taken forgranted or even sadly forgotten  heroes of typical Yorkshire families.

      Governments make the laws and create 'new ways of life' but it is the lifeblood  of the common men and women which really imbues and sustains the rich true 'sap'   that flows through 'this green and pleasant land'. We are all the very Fabric of  Society.
       This research will hopefully become part of a story of the real people  who worked and played, laughed and cried, those who got involved and those who were  content to simply survive.   This is OUR Heritage, the very marrow in the bones of  OUR Country's very own survival.
       Our thanks must go to those people such as Tina, Christine, Malcolm who were  there at the very beginning of our journey delving into the records through the  research into times long gone and who must have thought we would never ever get  anything down on paper---- Gedcom?? how? what? and where.   I call them my 'Three  Musketeers' and  they are not merely newly found relatives but also mentors and  friends 'WHO' journey through time like the 'Tardis' and come across the very same  ancestors, bringing our combined history into the 21st century.

       In 2008 I reported that I was able to unwrap some more valuable packages which for years  have been tied up so tightly it has been impossible to unfasten. These 'packages' contained some  wonderful information and in some cases long searched for family members. Our thanks especially  go to Sally Diane Kaye (Fillinghams) and Johnathon Gash who gave the vital link to  Marjorie's father's relations. Without all these people we could have been searching  forever for relatives who, until now where not spoken of even in hushed voices,  because of the desparate needs for basic survival created by the tragedies of life  and the perception of right and wrong in the bygone generations and which even in our  very own so called enlightened generation empowers the same 'light' which can glare  so brightly and become so harsh that it once again creates and forms even deeper and  darker shadows causing families to drift apart.....  
         .......But Hey!! this research has enabled us to contact our own generation  of relatives and find that just like those before we have our own tales to tell our  grandchildren not unsimilar to those of our ancestors. We are also realising that the  old adage 'blood is thicker than water' bears a profound message and is capable of  revealing its own special and exciting DNA  (Discover New Ancestors).         For those who are just beginning on their journey back in time take  encouragement from the site. It is far from perfect .. some dates are unbelievable and some folks have the wrong husbands but until I find a way to amend without deleting  hours and hours of work you will have to read all the notes!! One thing for sure is  that the research never ceases to amaze and every day there seems to be a Eureka  moment when a new link is found.
    The very first person on this tree is Johis Tyas 1530 who is the direct 13th  great grandfather to our own grand-daughter Alice 1990  -- making the span of  time 460 years.

We recently came across this passionate Cento compiled by a poet called Alison Chisolm and which  really does seem to sum up the whole spectrum of emotions as to why we find the researching of our  ancestors so rewarding and bang up to the present year 2013. No one can deny that the family of  this Yorkshire Weaver's children Have been and  ARE still "Music Makers ,the Movers and the  Shakers of the whole world, and who are for ever,it seem to make sure that the destiny of 'some  seemingly chosen' members of our Tribe is still 'to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield'.

Here is the poem . We hope you will identify some of your peers wrapped up in the wonderful  collation by Alison Chisholm.

".....Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen, (John Keats – On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer)

But still I long to learn ,               (Alison Chisolm)

tales, marvellous tales, 
  Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest, (James Elroy Flecker – The Golden Road to  Samarkand)

How others fought to forge my world.     (Alison Chisolm)

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What wild ecstasy? (John Keats – Ode on a Grecian Urn) 

How far the unknown transcends the what we know.     (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Nature)

We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, (Arthur O’Shaughnessy – Ode)

Step forward,                             (Walter Savage Landor - Interlude)

To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle 
 Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle. (Percy Bysshe Shelley - Fragment)

Come, my friends, ‘tis not too late,            (Alfred Lord Tennyson - Ulysses)

For we are the movers and shakers
 Of the world for ever, it seems;                (Arthur O’Shaughnessy – Ode)

To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.... "  (Alfred Lord Tennyson – Ulysses)

(Citation to BBC Cento Trailers/Alison Chisholm)   
 On a lighter side however.. For those of you who know only too well just how much time and effort  goes into the research I thought you might like to muse on these words taken from Sherwood's  Pedigree Register September 1909 and page 300.....

"Tis sad to think, that when our course is run,
         inherited our work may be by one
         who, caring not for pedigree a jot,
         sells to the local butterman the lot!
        He, to wrap the butter, candles, cheese cloth take
         each priceless sheet, which p'rhaps took years to make         then, greasy, stinking, torn, our work at last
         in fire,or dustbin, ruthlessly is cast.
      
 Perish the thought !!!!!
   
    If you do have any queries or stories you would like to share please contact us  on this site. If you visit the Guest Page please record your  comments  .......especially if you have folks in common or even  better if you know the connection to the Hooded Man of Loxley !!!! or even click  onto David Henry Fox 1938 to see if this could be the man himself !!!  I knew it  !!  I knew it!! I just knew it!! Look onto the Story put onto this very website today   26th September 2009 Robin Hood not only IS a Yorkshireman but came from  Sheffield/Wakefield area. I just knew it. Watch this space for more..... Myth you  say?..... what rubbish !