This page last updated 16 February 2010
6. Isabella WATKINSON, later CROFT (b abt 1808 - living 1881) of Tarleton. Isabella had a child with Thomas HARRISON. More
5. James (b abt 1832 - living 1881) and Alice (b abt 1828 - living 1881) WATKINSON of Tarleton. Alice had been a ROBINSON. More
4. James (b 1863 - living 1940) and Alice (b abt 1867 - living 1901) WATKINSON of Black Rod and Skelmersdale. Alice had been a HORROCKS. More
3. Alice (b 1888 - living 1966) WATKINSON who married James RIGBY. More
For research notes click here.
Isabella WATKINSON was born about 1808 in Tarleton, west Lancashire. It seems she may have had an illegitimate son, Henry, when she was only about 12. It seems clearer that she was probably the mother of James WATKINSON, born about 1832 – James’s father was Thomas HARRISON, a farmer, but I don't have evidence that he married Isabella. By 1861 she had married William CROFT (a small farmer, 5 years her junior) and was living with him, her son James and James’s wife and children, in Gorse Lane, Tarleton. I think they were still there in 1881.
For research notes click here.
James married Alice ROBINSON on 20 January 1857 in Tarleton. Alice was about four years older than him, the daughter of a Tarleton farmer. James was at this time a police officer of (I think) Gorton, to the east of Manchester in Lancashire. Either Alice was heavily pregnant or their first child, Thomas, was already born by this date. There's a hint of a story about this wedding: as well as the pre-marital conception, the witnesses were two HARRISONs - that is the name of James's father, and also the name of the family Alice had been a servant to in 1851.
James, Alice lived in Tarleton after their marriage (in 1861 with James's mother and stepfather at Gorse Lane, when James was an agricultural labourer and carter) and had seven sons altogether:
Thomas about 1856 or early 57
William about 1859
Daniel early 1861
James 2 April 1863
(between James and Richard they moved to Hesketh Bank, a nearby village)
Richard about 1865
John about 1867
Henry about 1869
Later they moved to Skelmersdale in south Lancashire, where James was a farmer, assisted by his older sons and by his widowed older brother Henry who all lived with them (at White Moss Road in 1881). I understand from family members that it was a dairy farm. Also in 1881 they had a boarder (called John SMITH). A family tale has it that James was a hard father and that William downed tools in the field one day and left, emigrating to Tulsa to be a jeweller.
For research notes click here.
James married Alice HORROCKS - on 23 December 1886 in Wigan (at the Independent chapel on Standishgate, by certificate - Wigan is a town fairly near Skelmersdale). He was 23 and a farm labourer. She claimed to be 21 (though I think she was younger, maybe 18) and was the daughter of a colliery worker. Both gave their address as Grimshaw Lane, Upholland (a village near Skelmersdale). Their eldest daughter Isabella was born in Skelmersdale before or shortly after their marriage – perhaps they married in a hurry after a bit of a scandal in their own village? Neither of the witnesses shares either of their surnames.
As a young family James and Alice lived in Black Rod, on the other side of Wigan from Skelmersdale and Upholland (the address was 1 Big Fold, which is officially now Blackrod, Bolton, BL6, near to Boardman Street, New Street, Half Acre Lane, Church Street, Chapel Street). There they had two more children - Alice in 1888 and John in 1891.
James worked as a labourer at a railway works in 1888, There is a railway station and line at Blackrod – it seems to have been built as the Bolton & Preston Railway in the early 1840s and from 1844-89 was part of the North Union Railway; at this time I think the station was called Horwich and Blackrod Junction). Ah yes – in 1886 the new works for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway opened at Horwich and rapidly became the major employer in the town. http://www.blackrod.org.uk/locoworks.htm .
In 1891 (at the census, shortly before John's birth) he was a coal heaver and they lived at 154 New Street.
By 1901 they had come back to the farm at Skelmersdale, where I believe he worked and lived out his days until at least 1940. Certainly he's given as a farmer in 1915, and the address seems to be 72 High Street and/or High Street Dairy. I'm told he was a good singer, and I think that must come from at least 1940.
For research notes click here.
Alice married James RIGBY in Skelmersdale on 27 December 1915 - she was still living with her parents at this point. For her married life see James's page.
For research notes click here.
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