Family Tree

Stephen and Charity Ainsley Branch

Stephen and Charity Ainsley are my great-grandparents. This page is devoted to them and their descendants and includes material which has been kindly donated by relatives - please do not use anything from this page, particularly photographs, without first obtaining permission. Numbers in brackets after names are the numbering system of William C Ainsley on the Bilsdale Family Tree.

Origins at Spout House, Bilsdale

John(3) and Hannah Ainsley						siblings of John: William, Thomas, Alice, Richard, Stephen, Mary, Peggy and James
William (4) and Amelia/Emma Ainsley						siblings of William: Nanny, John, Joseph, Thomas, Stephen, Mary, James, Hannah and Richard
Stephen (42) ch 16-03-1835 d 14-12-1910 Spout House m 06-11-1871 Charity Featherstone b 18-06-1854 d 19-03-1916						siblings of Stephen: Hannah, William, Mary, Amelia, Sarah, Martha, Joseph, James, Elizabeth and Margaret
Joseph William (42-1) ch 12-10-1873 m 24-11-1903 Eliza Frankland	Annie (42-2) b 09-08-1875 ch 05-10-1879 m 07-03-1901 Robert Carlton Moore	James Henry (42-3) b 05-12-1876 ch 05-10-1879 m c. 1908 Mary M ? b c. 1877	Emma (42-4) b 04-09-1878 ch 05-10-1879 m 27-04-1901 Joseph Wheldon	John Featherstone (42-5) ch 11-09-1880 m c. 1911 Lois ? b c. 1887	Jane (42-6) ch 13-01-1884 m 18-07-1903 William James Hill	Margaret (42-7) ch 11-04-1886 m 18-07-1914 Herbert Allison	Stephen (42-8) ch 27-05-1888	Harry (42-9) ch 17-11-1890 d 29/08/1918

The entry for Spout House from the Bilsdale Survey of 1826. The numbers on the left refer to maps published in the survey.

In the 1635 survey¹ one John Kirke holds

"at will one messuage called Spootehowse, one backhowse, one barne, one oxehowse, one cowhowse, one calfehowse, one kilne, one close called Smedye Holme meadowe containing one acre, Northfeild in three partes arable and meadowe containing 5 acres, Medlewood meadowe containing 3 acres, Burthwaite Holme, meadow and arable containing 3 acres, Farfeild meadowe and pasture in 4 partes containing 7 acres, New Close meadowe containing one acre, Broade meadowe containing one acre, Wastland and 2 little garthes pasture containing 2 acres, Springe Hagg 2 acres: and paies at the said feasts yearly 36s. 2d."

John Kirke was still farming at Spout House when the 1647 survey was made, and it is not until the nineteenth century that an Ainsley is recorded there. In 1826 the entry for Spout House clearly includes the Public House with William Ainsley as the tenant. This William is Stephen's (42) father.

According to "Bygone Bilsdale"² the original Spout House dates from 1550, whereas "Life and Tradition in the Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire"³ has it as being built in 1606. Whichever is correct, they agree that it was first licensed in 1714. Tenants probably combined farming with innkeeping, farming taking precedence, certainly during the day. Two hundred years later the new Sun Inn was completed.

Stephen Ainsley (42) was born to William and Emma Ainsley at Spout House on the 16th of March 1835. William is said to be a farmer on the registration, and not an innkeeper. The census of 1841 describes William, aged 55, as a farmer at Spout House, living with his wife Amelia, aged 30 - his wife is variously recorded as Emma and Amelia - and with their children Hannah, William, Mary, Stephen aged 6, Amelia, Sarah and Martha. The eldest child, Jane,would have been 16 and is not recorded in the household - she could have been away visting or may well have left home at this point to work in service. An agricultural labourer, William Weatherill aged 25, is also recorded as within the household, and a separate entry later, also for Spout House, records a William Weatheril aged 60, also an agricultural labourer.

Ten years later William and his family - including Jane with her children Alice and Henry, and newer arrivals Joseph, James, Elizabeth and Margaret but without Mary and Martha - remain at Spout House; he is described as a farmer of 75 acres with one labourer. Stephen's occupation is not given, though at 16 he would not still be at school. Mary was actually visiting her maternal grandparents and Martha, at 11 years old a scholar, was with her Uncle James and Aunt Mary Ainsley at Bank House. The Weatherill family of parents, five children and an uncle are also listed as living at Spout House - the father William listed as a "Dry Waller".

In 1861 the census shows that the family has been split up, no doubt due to the death of Amelia in 1852. Stephen and his sister Elizabeth are both working as farm servants in the household of their sister Mary who had married William Dale but was now a widow.

In 1871 at the time of the census Stephen remained unmarried but was now a farmer in his own right, farming 80 acres at Cow Helm, in Bilsdale with his sister Emma as housekeeper. On the sixth of November he married Charity Featherstone, no doubt putting Emma out of a job. Emma had had a child in 1871, though she was unmarried at the time - a not uncommon occurrence.

When she was 6 in 1861 Charity had been living in Grange with her parents Joseph and Hannah, and her siblings Sarah, Meshack and Jane. On one side of her own home were two Ainsley households: James aged 83 a widower and Stephen's (42) great uncle, and John and Jane Ainsley with their children William and Mary - John was the son of Thomas, brother of Stephen (42)'s father William. So Charity would have been well acquainted with the extensive Ainsley family. Just prior to her marriage Charity was working as a general servant in the Johnson household at Ewe Court near Grange.

Stephen and Charity Together

By 1881 Stephen and Charity had settled at Cow Helm, farming 99 acres. Their first five children Joseph, Annie, James, Emma and John were with them, but ten years later everything has changed. Stephen was then 56 but no longer farming in his own right - the family were living at Bridge End cottage, at Eller Bridge. Their five youngest children were with them: John, Jane, Margaret, Stephen and Harry, but Stephen was only an "agricultural labourer". What happened? The farms of Bilsdale are predominantly sheep farms and the 1880s saw some very bad weather, with the added effect of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 which led to a world depression of temperature by 0.5C⁴ - perhaps this was the cause of decline.

The four eldest had moved out in 1891 to find work - three of them outside of Bilsdale. Joseph was a farm servant with the Dall Family at Stone House Court, in the northern part of the dale near Bank House. Annie was working as a general domestic servant in the Armstrong family in Stokesley. James Henry had moved to Hutton in the ecclesiatical parish of Rudby, west of Stokesley, to work as a farm servant with the Weighill family at Over Green. Finally Emma was employed as a domestic servant in the household of Sidney Harries in Carlton just south of Stokesley. All are still within the Stokesley district but it is, perhaps, indicative of a growing population in the dale and the increasing difficulty of finding work.

In 1901 Stephen and Charity were still at Ella Bridge with Emma, Stephen and Harry, but ten years later Stephen had died and Charity lived there with son Stephen, now a blacksmith. The census records that Charity had ten children, but only nine survive to this point - who was the tenth child?

Charity is said to have been a jolly, friendly woman, fond of a gossip at the village pump! She died in 1916 in the midst of the turmoil of the Great War, with two sons serving overseas.

Sons and daughters: Joseph William, Annie, James Henry, Emma and John Featherstone

Joseph William (42-1) was employed in the Leckenby family at Seave Green in 1901 as a horse waggoner. Two years later he married Eliza Frankland and at the 1911 census he had become a platelayer in Darlington where their two children had been born: Charles William aged 4 and Robert Ernest aged 2 - sadly they had also lost one child. Joseph was employed by the North Eastern Railway Company and the family were living at 38 Charles Street, North Road, Darlington. Joseph William was not mentioned as a surviving relative on Harry's military papers and so must have died prior to 1918.

At the time of the 1901 census Annie (42-2) was already married to Robert Carlton Moore and they were both boarding with John Lee and his wife in High Green, Stokesley where Robert was self-employed as a Horse Breaker Groom. Ten years later they had their own home at Quarry Farm at Preston-on-Tees, Eaglescliffe and five children: Annie aged 9, Irene aged 8, Guy Carlton aged 6, James Carlton aged 4 and Lilian aged 1. Robert was still a horse breaker. They had moved about a bit in the ten years, the first two children were born in Kirby-in-Cleveland but the two boys were born in Stockton and finally Lilian in Eaglescliffe, suggesting they hadn't been long in their present home. From Harry's service papers we know that the Moore family were living at Middleton St., Darlington in 1918.

James Henry (42-3) emigrated to the USA in 1898 and became a naturalised citizen the following year. In the 1920 census he was living in Granby, Grand, Colorado and owned his own home - though it was mortgaged at this time. His wife Mary was also English and she had emigrated in 1899, becoming naturalised in 1901. They married some time around 1908 and had three children: William aged 11, Margaret aged 9 and Kenneth aged 7 - all born in Montana. Ten years later they were still in Granby and William B.  and Kenneth J. were with the family but Margaret is missing from the schedule and William is reported as having been born in North Dakota (though the writing is a little difficult to decipher!).

Almost certainly Emma Ainsley in the garden of the forge at Hawnby.
With thanks to Kevin Coyne and Margaret Lamb.

Almost certainly Joseph Wheldon with plaques for horse shoeing competitions.
With thanks to Kevin Coyne and Margaret Lamb.

In the 1901 census Emma (42-4) was still at home with her parents and brothers Stephen and Harry but later that year she married Joseph Wheldon and in 1911 they were living in Hawnby with their five children: Stephen William 8, John Henry 7, Arthur Wilson 5, Cyril Watson 2 and Harold Ainsley 1. Joseph Wheldon was a blacksmith and Emma's brother Stephen was apprenticed to him. From Harry's service papers we know that the Wheldon family were still in Hawnby in 1918.

The two photographs were sent by Kevin Coyne, great grandson of John Featherstone Ainsley, with attributions confirmed by Margaret Lamb, grand-daughter of Emma and Joseph.

John Featherstone Ainsley, wife Lois Ainsley and from left to right the children are Ernest Harry, John Kermit, Lois (born June 1918 in Beaver Creek, Montana and still living in 2011), and Stephen.
With thanks to Kevin Coyne.

John Kermit Ainsley with
his parents John Featherstone Ainsley and Lois Ainsley.
With thanks to Kevin Coyne, grandson of John Kermit Ainsley.

In 1901 John Featherstone (42-5) was a horseman on the Weighill family farm at Tanton, Stokesley and his sister Jane (42-6) was also there, employed as a domestic servant. He too emigrated to the United States, in 1903, and became naturalised in 1913. In 1920 John was living in Marmarth, Slope, North Dakota, a railroad labourer with a wife, Lois, and four children: Stephen aged 8, John Kermit aged 6, Ernest Henry aged 3 ¾ and Lois Elizabeth aged 1 ½. The two eldest children had been born in North Dakota, the two youngest in Montana. As James Henry's first child is listed in the 1930 census as having been born in North Dakota, it suggests that the two brothers lived relatively close to each other for some time, and it is not unreasonable to assume that when John first emmigrated he went to stay with his brother. John owned his own home, though it ,too, was mortgaged.

John's wife was from Kansas, her father from Massachusetts and mother from Iowa.

In 1930 the family were living in Lake Forest Park, King, Washington, all four children still at home, the eldest recorded as Steven W., the other three as Kermit, Harry and Lois and the family name as Ainslie. John's home was valued at $1000 and he was working as a janitor in a department store. 

The photographs are reproduced by kind permission of Kevin Coyne, great grandson of John Featherstone Ainsley.

Daughter Jane and her Family

Children of Jane and William James Hill. Inscribed "With Christmas Greetings 1912"
Mary, Nell, Fred
Harry
Jack, Jim

Jane (42-6) married William James Hill in 1903, only one month before she gave birth to their first child, and we have always been told that the family moved to the north east of England to find work and that William James Hill was one of the workforce employed to build Crimdon Railway Viaduct which opened in 1905⁵. However this would have been relatively short-lived employment and in the 1911 census he is recorded as a miner. At this time the mines were booming and were by far the biggest employers in the area. Blackhall Colliery was opened in 1909 but did not start to produce coal until 1914⁶. In the 1911 census WJ Hill is recorded as being a colliery sinker which fits perfectly - he would have been occupied in the work of sinking the shafts to enable the coal seams to be reached. At this time they had five children and the census records them as living in a two room house 30 Second Street, Blackhalls Colliery, Castle Eden, Durham - it's hard to imagine how they managed. In the schedules a kitchen would count as a room but the houses on Second Street are all two bedroom terraces so maybe there was an error filling in the form. William and Jane went on to have seven more children later moving to Ninth Street and East Street in Blackhall, still only two bedroom houses. From Harry's (42-9) service papers we know that the Hill family were at 41 New 9th St, Black Halls Colliery, Castle Eden in 1918. They were living in 16 East Street when my father, Robert Ainsley, was born. Fred was the only child born in Bilsdale at Bridge End Cottage, Eller Bridge - all the other children were born in the north east.

Jane Ainsley (42-6) ch 13-01-1884 d 1926 m 18-07-1903 William James Hill ch 01-05-1881 d 24-01 1943
Fred b 18-08-1903 d 25-01-1992 m Amy Cass	Hannah Mary b 28-01-1905 d 1982 m Thomas Foster	John (Jack) b 01-01-1907 d 18-12-1989 m Millie Barrow	William James (Jim) b 31-10-1908 d 17-09-1988 m Kate Elizabeth Hamilton	Margaret Ellen (Nell) b 09-11-1910 d ---10-1991 m Norman Bentham	Harry b 18-01-1912 d 04-05-1993 m Freda Beswick	Eva Charity b 19-06-1913 d 06-04-1985
			Thomas Stephen b 1916 d ---03-1929	Elsie Ann b 1918 d ---04-1932	Dorothy Jane b 17-01-1920 d 24-12-1974  m	Bessie Marjorie Annie b 28-06-1922 d14-09-1996	Robert Ainsley b 12-02-1925 d 17-02-2007 m 22-09-1951 Roma Muriel Budden

William James Hill husband  of Jane née Ainsley

My dad remembered his father as a very hard man and did not really like talking about him. None of his memories were good: how his father forced him to go down the pit at the age of thirteen even though his Uncle Steve had wanted to take him as a blacksmith's apprentice, which was what dad wanted, how he made him drown unwanted kittens. Nan was their father's favourite and had fonder memories of him - bizarrely the one she mentioned was of him putting the bed legs into cans of water to stop insects (I think - maybe it was mice) climbing up them!

My mum looks on anxiously at the christening of their first child as the Hill women take over, as usual!
Robert, Jack, Fred
Roma, Dorrie, Nan, ?
Eva, Millie, Amy
Nell

I don't remember much about the elder members of this family - both grandparents died well before I was born. The men were all coal miners. Mining was a reserved occupation during the Second World War, though my father tried hard to enlist he was sent back home!

None of them moved away from the north east, staying very close to where they - apart from Fred - were born. Fred, Amy and their four children lived in Blackhall Rocks very close to Eva, Nan and Dorrie. When I met him he seemed to be a mild man, fond of his garden.

I remember Mary as being very thin but not much else about her. She and Tommy had three children.

Jack married a lovely woman in Millie - she was a very jolly person who worked in a chocolate factory and I vividly remember receiving a huge box of chocolates one year for my birthday. Their house was very cosy, a coal fire in the front room grate in front of which Jack would have his bath each time he came home from a shift at the pit in the days before pit-head showers and domestic bathrooms were installed. He mended clocks and watches - somewhere a cuckoo clock of ours languishes. When I was due to be born my elder sister got something stuck up her nose and my mum took her to Jack who gave her a pinch of snuff - certainly did the trick - and I arrived early! They had two sons.

Jim and Kit on holiday

Jim, I think, was the nicest of dad's siblings and his favourite. He suffered badly from emphysema. He joined the Royal Navy in 1927 and served for twelve years until May 1939  on HMS Hermes, Malcolm, Valiant, Cambrian, Ramillies, Brilliant, Hussar, Skipjack and Saltash. On the 3rd May 1939 he was released to shore, continuous service expired, and on the following day enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve. On 31st July 1939 he was mobilised for war service and he continued on HMS Emerald, Effingham, Victory, Alecto, Evolution, Ellison, Hannibal and Odyssey - periods aboard ship were interspersed with time at HMS Pembroke which was a Royal Navy Barracks at Chatham. On 6th November 1945 he was released Class "A" and then re-enrolled into the Royal Fleet Reserve. In the navy he began as a Stoker 2nd Class in 1927, promoted Stoker 1st Class March 1928, Acting Leading Stoker September 1935, Leading Stoker September 1936, Acting Stoker Petty Officer September 1940 and finally Stoker Petty Officer September 1941. He and Kitty had no children. On his death certificate his occupation is given as "Fitter (retired)". My dad wrote some recollections of him:

Joined the Royal Navy when 18. Hitched a lift on a lorry to Newcastle, he, Jack Darwin and "Tucker" Sullivan. The lorry took off, Jack Darwin failed to get on, became a miner. Jim signed on for 12 yrs service and three reserve. Served 12 yrs after round the world, China and Japan for three years stint without home leave. Became an engineer at the North Steel Works Hartlepool 1939. War broke out 1939, he was called up within days. Was sunk twice, once off Tobermory on a submarine supply ship by a Heinkel bomber (Tucker Sullivan went down on the HMS Hood, biggest blow to the Navy in the War). Jim was on HMS Effingham, she was a cruiser going to supply the army in Norway. She hit a submerged reef in a fiord and sank in 20 minutes, without loss of life.

(Jim) was in the Italian campaign a lot longer than he bargained for. While supplying troops and provisions Jim was part of the sailors conducting this operation when on landing the ship suddenly pulled up anchor - German submarine was reported in the area. He and a few others were attached to the army until further orders. Jim was given a motor bike and the job of a courier. He was one of the first men to enter the Fiat car factory, he said it was quite an experience, brand new jeeps were standing ready to be driven off, and they were!! Served under the army for some considerable time, until night bombers were heard, all vehicles were pulled over to one side of the road except one Yank who left his jeep in the middle in pitch black darkness. Jim hit the jeep and had a severe injury to his face. He was invalided out of the navy and was given a job with the armed forces as a quartermaster in the European campaign.

When he was demobbed his job was waiting for him and he settled down. His wife Kitty was overjoyed, a rather shy woman, they were very well suited to each other.

Jim was the brother I liked most, of course he always brought home some gifts and looked very splendid in his uniform, he was a lovely bloke.

Norman Bentham outside the prefab home where he and Nell lived

Nell was another very thin sister. Her husband Norman was killed in a motorcycle accident. I can remember as a child visiting her with my mum - she lived in a prefab for a while - one of the "temporary" houses erected with prefabricated walls after the second world war and which remained for decades. They had two sons.

Freda

Harry was always very smart with fine moustaches, good fun and fond of a drink. He had a fine singing voice - so had my dad and I can still see them singing together at family gatherings. He was clever enough to go to the Grammar School but his family couldn't afford the uniform. His wife Freda was another lovely woman. At Christmas and New Year various family members would give parties and the food at Freda's was always more interesting - that was where I first came across stuffed olives. She worked in a hotel so no doubt was exposed to some of the finer things in life there. She died of leukaemia. They had one son.

I think having to look after her younger siblings when her mother died made Eva somewhat bitter. Mum does not have very fond memories of that period of her life when she first moved to the north - initially she and dad had to live with Eva, Nan and Dorrie until they got their own home after the birth of their first child. She was a southern girl who had to grow up fast. If their mother Jane had been alive I think she would have sympathised with her, she herself having come to the north east of England from a quite different environment.

These three sisters lived together for most of their lives - Nan in particular was very much dominated by Eva. Dorrie - or Jane as she later wished to be called - married and escaped but developed rheumatoid arthritis and spent her final years in a Sunderland hospital. My mother visited her frequently. Eva was a geriatric nurse at Hartlepool General Hospital - this was the same hospital where Alan Colpitts Ainsley became so eminent. She and Nan never married and I think Eva was perhaps jealous of my mum and her happy, close family. As children we girls would spend weekends with the sisters - having to share a room with Eva was horrible - she snored horrendously. But I enjoyed the shopping trips with Nan on Saturday, and roast chicken for Sunday dinner - chicken was a luxury then, in the days before factory farming. Though very strongly influenced by Eva, Nan was not shy and retiring - she supervised the cleaning staff at the General Hospital at Hartlepool before these services were contracted out, and very efficiently too, from what I can gather. She was devastated when Eva died. She behaved very divisively in her will, though.

Jane was another of the siblings who dressed well - she seemed to spend most Saturdays shopping. She was terrified of thunderstorms and would hide in a cupboard under the stairs. Her house was always immaculate - so much so that you were worried about disturbing things or even sitting comfortably! She had no children.

Harry, Eva, Nan and Dorrie holidayed in Europe quite a bit before many people even thought of it, though Harry's main interest was the bars - like my dad he enjoyed talking to people, with the sisters determined to get a good tan on the beach. Freda wasn't too keen as she couldn't really take the sun.

Thomas Stephen and Elsie Ann died very young - we were told they had some kind of disease which prevented them from getting through puberty but what this could be I don't know.

Robert and Roma shortly before they were married

My dad was the youngest and never knew his mother as she died the year after he was born. He was effectively brought up by Eva. I don't think he cared much for his sisters, he looked up to Harry but loved best his brother Jim. He was forced by his father to work in the pit but hated it - one time a pit prop fell on him and gashed his ear badly and he had a blue-black scar for the rest of his life. As soon as he could he left to work on building houses, becoming a plasterer and tiler and eventually a master of all kinds of building skills. He retrained at one point as a welder. He loved the sea and sea fishing - also fishing in Scottish lochs, though not in rivers. He used to go very early out to sea with his mates. For most of his life he had an allotment where he grew fruit, vegetables and flowers - he was a champion leek-grower! He made a mean curry, leaving the kitchen a total mess, and loved to go out with mum and friends on a Saturday evening and also on Sunday morning with his mates for a drink before dinner - this was when he was at his happiest, just before he went out, whistling and singing as he got ready. He loved going to Spain and quickly made friends there. In fact he could make friends anywhere - he knew the people of my elder sister's village better than she did! He married Roma when she was only 19. She was a tailoress in Leamington Spa at the time, dad was working there, and I think she must have got quite a shock coming to a coal mining community in the north east to a large family whose women wanted to run everything. They had four children and family was the most important thing to both of them. Parties at our house were the best, everyone joined in, no standing on ceremony, children were, of course, allowed and everyone had a good time. At bonfire night mum made leek and cheese pie and lots of other good things and everyone brought fireworks - we had so many they were often lighting them by the dozen late into the evening. When dad died we scattered his ashes on a blustery sunny day in the fields at the foot of the moors behind Spout House in Bilsdale.

Sons and daughters: Margaret, Stephen and Harry

Margaret (42-7) was a domestic servant in both the 1901 and 1911 census. First with the Garbutt family at Crookleith in Bilsdale, then with the Webster family at Ings House, Great Broughton south east of Stokesley and very close to Kirby-in-Cleveland. In 1914 she married Herbert Allison who in 1911 was a waggoner on a farm with his uncle's family in Bilsdale - the farm being Cow Helm where Stephen and Charity had farmed many years before. From Harry's service papers we know that the Allison family were living at Rugby Villa Cottage, Middleton St George, Darlington in 1918.

In 1911 Stephen (42-8) was living with his mother in Bilsdale but he had been apprenticed to Joseph Wheldon, his sister Emma's husband, in Hawnby. Not long after war broke out Stephen joined up, on the 9th November 1914 and served abroad as a farrier - he thankfully survived his military service and also the 1918 flu epidemic. His service papers provide us with some physical characteristics: on enlistment he was 5ft 4in tall, weighed 136 lbs and with an expanded chest of 37½ inches with a dark complexion, brown eyes, dark brown hair. It is also noted that he was a Wesleyan. The photograph on the left is almost certainly of Stephen. Though we don't have a definitive identification, it is of a First World War Farrier and it was very kindly sent by Margaret Lamb, grand-daughter of Emma and Joseph Wheldon.

Sadly, Harry (42-9) was not so lucky. He too had been apprenticed to a blacksmith - William Dawson of Great Broughton - and he was living with the Dawson family in 1911. He joined up five days after his brother Stephen and also served as a farrier. With his service papers is a letter of commendation from his employer, Wm Dawson, Implement Maker and Agent, of Great Broughton:

This is to certify that Harry Ainsley has been in my employ as Farrier for 8 years & is a good workman honest & obliging.

Kirechkoi-Hortakoi military cemetery, 15km north east of Thessaloniki, where Harry is buried.

Harry had the  great misfortune of being posted to Salonica where the conditions were as deadly as the enemy. He was first diagnosed with malaria in 1916 and sent to Malta on the hospital ship Formosa. Thereafter he suffered periodic attacks of malaria until he died at the 8th General Hospital Salonica on the 29^th August 1918. His military service papers provide us with some idea of what Harry looked  like: he was quite short at 5 ft 4½ in tall and weighed 125 lbs with a fully expanded chest measurement of 37 inches he was quite a stocky fellow.

On the 29th August 2011, exactly 93 years after his death, I visited Harry's grave in Salonica with my husband. It was a very emotional experience but good to see how well he was being looked after by the caretakers, whom we met and talked to. Though they had not a word of English, and I not a word of Greek, I was able to sketch out a family tree to show how Harry and I are related - he is my great uncle. As usual the CWGC cemetery was immaculate.

References

1. "Bilsdale Surveys, 1637-1851" edited and transcribed by M.Y. Ashcroft & Audrey M. Hill; North Yorkshire County Record Office Publication No. 23; January 1980.
2. "Bygone Bilsdale" Bilsdale Study Group, Roseberry Publications, 1992.
3. "Life and Tradition in the Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire", Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, Smith Settle, 1990.
4. Booty Meteorological Information Source http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1850_1899.htm
5. The Durham Coastal Footpath through the District of Easington [PDF]
6. Website of the Durham Mining Museum - Blackhall Colliery www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/b006.htm

Last updated November 2011