Off The Record
Investigating an old family story led to an unexpected discovery for Alan Crosby…
How an old family story led to an unexpected discovery
Many of us have an ancestor who we can’t get out of our minds – someone whose story captures our imagination, fascinates or puzzles us, or maybe disturbs or upsets us. My father was haunted by such a story when he was a little boy – his grandfather told it to him, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind. When I was a boy, he told me the same tale and I likewise never forgot it. The story was simple enough – my great grandfather’s first cousin William Ralston was said to have drowned in a tanpit when he was a child in the 1860s. There was something about this family tragedy – perhaps the way that the episode was recounted, or the obvious emotion of those who told it – that made it unforgettable for my father and me.
William Ralston was shown on the family tree that my dad drew in the 1950s as the only offspring of his parents, James and Adela. It’s a dead- end branch, but last autumn I thought about little William again, and decided to find out more – helped by online resources of course.
The family had owned a sizeable tannery at Newton Heath on what was then the rural fringe of north- east Manchester, so the story was certainly plausible. I found the baptism, on 22 July 1860, of the unexpectedly named William Winterbottom Ralston. And there was his burial, on 21 January 1865, aged four years and seven months. His death certificate confirmed the cause of death: “Drowning in a Tan Pit.” The story was unquestionably true.
The certificate refers to an inquest held on 19 January 1865, but it was not reported in the local newspapers, and no coroners’ records survive. However, during that January the Manchester newspapers recount tragic accidents in South Lancashire when the ice broke on frozen ponds and lakes as people skated. Was little William playing outside and standing on the ice that covered the dark, freezing and foul waters of the tanpit, only to be plunged in when it gave way?
William was indeed the only child of his parents, and I’m sure that’s partly why the story held an oppressive sense of tragedy and heartbreak when told to my father almost 70 years later. My poor 3x great aunt Adela had lost her only boy.
Mind you, as we all know, in family history one thing leads to another. Delving deeper I found that there was more to Adela’s story. Her mother, Esther Dean (née Robinson), was remembered within the family as a tremendously capable woman who successfully ran the tannery business after the early death of her husband William. The 1871 census records her as a 62-year- old widow whose occupation was “leather dresser”. But then I noticed an anomaly that I’d previously overlooked. According to the 1851 census Adela Dean, her oldest child, was born in 1835 but – my goodness – Esther did not marry William Dean until 1837. Adela was illegitimate, and Esther had a secret!
Indeed, Adela Dean was not recorded on the 1841 census, but a search showed Adela Robinson (aged six) living at Newton Heath with her grandfather John Robinson. And that explained why I’d not found Adela Dean’s marriage: it actually took place in 1857 under the name Adela Robinson. In the register entry her father was named as “William Robinson, tanner”. That is clearly false, a clumsy attempt to conceal her illegitimacy – William Dean, who ran the tanneries, was Adela’s stepfather, but they all knew that he was not her biological parent, and ‘Robinson’ was her mother’s maiden name.
So I wondered whether Adela’s biological father is remembered by the ‘ Winterbottom’ of her son’s middle name. I’ve not yet found her baptism, but as a result of researching William I’m now exploring a new chapter in the story of her mother, my 3x great grandmother Esther Robinson. A formidable woman… and now one with a mystery!
‘Did little William plunge in when the ice gave way?’