Last year, while researching my mother’s side of the family, I took a trip up to Suffolk to tour churchyards (yes, yes, I know…) in search of Warnes, Betts and Pretty gravestones. I found very many, but the ones which intrigued me most were those of my great grandmother Bessie Pretty’s Uncle Jacob and his wife Louisa. Jacob was the brother of Bessie’s mother Sarah Pretty (who kept her surname on marriage as she married her first cousin).
There on the gravestones, as expected, were the dates of Jacob and Louisa’s deaths and their ages. But at the bottom of Louisa’s stone was the following inscription:
“Also Isaac George, son of the above, who was accidentally killed at Maltby Main Colliery in 1930, aged 46”
What, I wondered, was a Suffolk lad doing down a Yorkshire mine? The likely explanation is that he was looking for work?
Well, of course all the family research in the world isn’t going to give me an insight into the thoughts of a distant relative over 100 years ago, but I did discover from census data that Isaac George moved to Hoyland Common sometime after 1901, married a Yorkshire lass from nearby Tankersley and by 1911 he was living at 127 Furlong Road, Bolton Upon Dearne with his wife and two sons, Arthur and Herbert.
Scanning the registers, I followed these brothers through their marriages and children, and also discovered a website with Isaac’s grave: http://mollekin.net/graves/fam246.html
I also found that Herbert’s son, and his wife Maureen, are still living very near Maltby, so I took a chance and wrote to them. Very kindly, they telephoned me as soon as they received my letter and Herbert told me about Isaac George’s three other children born after 1911: Fred, Jack and Nellie, and said that two of his cousins, Edwin and Fred, live near him. As I was planning a trip up to Yorkshire anyway, they invited me to their lovely home to meet them.
So it was that last week I met my mother’s third cousin and his wife; my own fourth cousin, Herbert and Maureen’s elder daughter Carol; and Maureen’s brother Ralph, all of whom were welcoming, friendly and a delight to meet.
We showed each other some family photographs and agreed there were resemblances between members of the two branches of the Pretty family, in particular between Herbert himself as a young man and my great uncle Ted Warnes, son of Bessie Pretty. Herbert and my husband bonded over their shared love of transport – buses for my husband, lorries and tractors for Herbert – and the two Maureens bonded over our tolerance!
Our hosts were kind enough to take us in their car to visit Isaac’s grave at Maltby Cemetery in Grange Lane, and also showed us Herbert’s parents’ grave – more information for my family tree and good to pay my respects.
Research on Maltby Main Colliery had told me that there was a pit explosion in 1923 killing 27 miners: since Isaac had died in 1930 this did not seem relevant to his death, although it is of course very likely that he was working at the pit at the time of the disaster and would have been only too aware of the dangers of mining.
Herbert however was able to tell me that the cause of Isaac’s death was a rope breaking which threw him down on to a rail line on which he struck his head. One of those small, insignificant but all too frequent mining accidents.
We also visited the site of Maltby Main Colliery which only ceased operation earlier this year and which had provided Herbert with work for his road haulage firm – I am sure Isaac would have approved of the Colliery providing a much safer source of income for his grandson! Our Maltby tour continued with visits to the houses where Herbert and Maureen were born, and we then headed off for lunch together at a wonderful fish and chip restaurant in Worksop.
Back to their cosy home for tea and some of Maureen’s home made carrot cake – she also presented us with a jar of home made plum jam which proved to be delicious – completed our visit to our relations and was most enjoyable start to my week in Yorkshire – all through my family research!