10. HARGREAVES-INGHAM

Tootle Tree

 JOHN HARGREAVES and ELIZABETH INGHAM (10)

 

JOHN HARGREAVES. We believe Elizabeth Hargreaves, who married Henry Clayton of Burnley, to be the daughter of John Hargreaves of Pendle.

The Hargreaves children were baptised in Padiham, a town west of Burnley in Lancashire. The massive bulk of Pendle Hill stands over it to the north. Pendle is given as the abode of several families, and means that they lived to the north of the town.

John Hargreaves of Pendle’s children were baptised in Padiham, from 1702 onwards. This gives him a probable birth date of around 1675. There were a great many John Hargreaves born in that area around this time, and no way of distinguishing between them.

In the Protestation Return of 1641 for Padiham we find Robert and James Hargreaves. Either of these could be John’s father, or it may have been someone still too young to sign.

There are a great many more in the return for Pendle. This is probably Newchurch in Pendle, near Barrowford. Here, there are Robert, James (4), John (2), Hugh, Lawrence and Hillary.

We learn from just one baptism of his children that John was a shoemaker.

 

ELIZABETH INGHAM. The number of John Hargreaves also makes it difficult to identify his wife. Early baptismal registers do not name the mother. But the residence in Pendle provides a clue. We have found only one marriage of a suitable date for John Hargreaves of Pendle.

This would make her Elizabeth Ingham of Barrowford, who married John Hargreaves of Pendle in 1700.

John called his only daughter Elizabeth.

At the older Elizabeth’s wedding, she is said to be of ‘Baraford’. This is Barrowford, a village on the two rivers Pendle Water and Colne Water, 5 miles NE of Padiham, and close to Colne, where she was married.

There is a baptism in Newchurch in Rossendale in 1681 for Elizabeth daughter of John Ingham, but this is some way from Barrowford. Her true baptism may be in an early register that is now lost.

Alternatively, there are five children born to John Ingham of Pendle, baptised in Padiham in the 1670s. It is possible that Elizabeth was another of John Ingham’s children, but her entry is no longer legible.

Marriage. Colne.
1699/1700 Jun 31  John Hargreaves of Pendle and Elizabeth Ingham of Baraford

They were living in Pendle for the baptisms of at least five children. It is possible that their eldest child was born in a hamlet nearby.

The baptisms would have taken place in an earlier church on the site of the Victorian church of St Leonard’s in Padiham.

Padiham in John and Elizabeth’s time was a much smaller market town before the great expansion in the Industrial Revolution.

Baptisms. Padiham.
1700/1 Mar 21  James. Westclose.
Westclose Booth is part of Higham, just NE of Padiham. We might have doubted whether his father was the same John Hargreaves, but the name James fits with the burial for a son of John Hargreaves of Pendle in 1705.
1702 Richard. Pendle.
On 21 May 1705, James, son of John Hargreaves of Pendle, was buried in Padiham.
1706 Apr 14  Elizabeth. Pendle.
1708  May 30  John. Pendle.
1712 Feb 17  Christopher. Pendle.
1714 Apr 25  Robert. Pendle.

In all these baptisms, only Elizabeth’s names the father as “John Hargreaves of Pendle, shoemaker”.

In those days, shoes, like so many other items, were not mass-produced but made individually by craftsmen.

 

We have not found credible burials for either Elizabeth or John. They may have moved away from Pendle.

 

[1] Sykes Cottages. Inspiration.