Snippet 11 - The Yorkshire Connection

 

Snippet of Family History 9 - "We are born with a History, and we live to tell another Story" (Warren Maloney) 


THE YORKSHIRE CONNECTION

Migrating In and Out of Yorkshire

During the period 1540 to 1650, many of our English Ancestors grouped their families on the farmlands around Dewsbury in Yorkshire.

They were solid Protestant stock with the main surnames being Grene, Robinson, Shepperd and Smithson. The Centres of their Universe for that 100 years were the Anglican Churches at Dewsbury and Wakefield[1], both named “All Saints Church”.



9 miles separated the Churches and it was in those 9 miles that at least 46 family members were born. The Church Cemeteries were the graveyards for most of the families; but the All Saints Church at Dewsbury[2] seemed to be the place of choice for the Weddings, 28 noted in the Dewsbury Church records.

All Saints Anglican Church, Dewsbury

The Robinsons had migrated South from Glasgow in the 15th Century. The daughters linked up with Savage family boys spreading their land ownerships North from Cheshire.

Their Great Grandchildren in the late 17th Century headed back southwest into Lancashire, no doubt attracted to the major towns of Manchester where work could be readily found.

So, it is interesting that family members had fought vehemently, and some to their deaths, in the 15th Century for the “Red Rose of Lancaster” against the Usurpers from Yorkshire[3]; then 100 years later, they married the Northerners, adapting to their dour Protestant farming lives.



That was not the end of our association with Yorkshire. By the 18th Century, some of the family, notably the Thorntons, Cliftons, and Barkers, returned to Yorkshire to work in, and indeed own, the Coal Mines at Ingleton.


Others found the work opportunities around Manchester more appealing until the oppressive conditions of the Industrial England of the 19th Century encouraged them to a much more significant migration – that to the Colonies of Queensland and New South Wales.

Others found the work opportunities around Manchester more appealing until the oppressive conditions of the Industrial England of the 19th Century encouraged them to a much more significant migration – that to the Colonies of Queensland and New South Wales.

But that is another story!

[1] All Saints Church Wakefield later was named a Cathedral

[2] All Saints Church Dewsbury was later known as the Dewsbury Minster

[3] The War of the Roses ended in 1471 with the Lancastrian victory of Henry VII – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses

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