This line updated 30 January 2017.
John was born about 1838 in Quarlton, in the district of Bolton in Lancashire. In 1858 he married (ref Q4 1858 BESWICK Martha / HORROCKS John, Barton 8c 507) Martha BESWICK, a woman the same age as him from Pendlebury (a few miles to the north-west - now a suburb of Greater Manchester, I'm not sure about then).
They had five children that I know of:
Anne Maria, about 1858 in Worsley
James, about 1861 in Worsley
Mary, about 1863 in Worsley
Alice, 1 May 1868 in Worsley
Tryphena, 1870 in Skelmersdale
At the 1861 census they were living in Slacks, Newtown, Worsley. At this point John was a coal miner, presumably at Newtown Colliery. They had a young man living with them as a boarder and working as a clerk, also in the coal trade. They were at the same address at Alice's birth in 1868, but had moved by Tryphena's birth.
In 1871 they were living in Skelmersdale (fairly nearby, further out in the country again), at an address that looks like Blagus Gate. John was again a collier but I guess at a pit in or near Skelmersdale. Anne Maria doesn't appear in this census and I wonder if she had died; the other four children are there.
A later (1886) occupation for him looks like Collier’s Firesander - perhaps this is what men did who were approaching fifty and after maybe 20 years of mining were not as fit and strong as they once were.
Research notes:
Look for birth registrations for the children
Other censuses
Death for Anne Maria about 1860s
Alice HORROCKS was a domestic servant in Upholland (a little to the west of Skelmersdale) in 1886. There she got to know a farm labourer, James WATKINSON (who gave an address in the same Upholland street as Alice, but whose family were also from Skelmersdale), got pregnant, and married him in an Independent chapel in nearby Wigan, giving a false age (she was 18 but claimed 21) and without any obvious family members as witnesses. See under WATKINSON for their married life.
Should check out birth of James and Alice's first child Isabella - try under WATKNSON from Q2 1887 back to Q4 (or even Q1 if illegitimate but acknowledged) 1886. Or under HORROCKS between Q1 1886 and Q1 1887 (assuming her age at 4 in 1891 and 14 in 1901 is correct). In Skelmersdale which I think is Ormskirk RD.
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