FAMILY HISTORY

of the

BATESONS of WINDHILL

Revision 15 March 2025

Joseph

The earliest documented reference to Joseph comes from a Calverley Parish Church record of his marriage to Mary Rawnsley on 18 March 1790. Neither he nor his wife appears to have signed their names in the Register. His occupation was recorded as Clothier.

Joseph was probably born in the autumn of 1768 – his death registration of March 21 1838 gives his age as 69½. No baptism record has been found, in Calverley or any nearby parish.
For a discussion of his potential antecedents see the footnote and table below.

The 1807 Poll for the County of York, shows a Clothier called Joseph Bateson as a Freeholder in Idle, voting for Lord Milton.

A few years later, an Idle Inclosure Notice and accompanying Plan drawn up between 1810 and 1813 shows that Joseph Bateson owned 3 small plots of land amounting to just over half an acre in total located between the Bradford Turnpike Road (later Briggate) and the Bradford to Shipley Canal. [1]

This is confirmed in Milton Hudson’s history of the Wesleyan Mission, which was built in 1834 on land overlooking the Bradford Beck and Bradford Canal, land that "was recorded as belonging to Joseph Bateson at the time of the enclosure of the common land known as 'Gawcliffe Cragg' in 1813.” [2]

The Cumberland Survey of 1583-4 referred to Gawcliffe Cragg as ‘one of four several parcels of waste ground’ in the Lordship of Idle: it ‘joineth with the iron smythies situate near the beck and the town of Windell. The same is full of stones and rocks, and containeth by estimation 39 acres’. [3] By 1838, Gawcliffe Cragg was being described as Windhill Crag or Cragg on maps of the day.

Nothing is known of Joseph's antecedents, though they may have owned land near the hamlet of Windhill. William Cudworth, in his 1876 history, Round About Bradford [4], believed that there was a connection between Joseph and a Peter Baytson, who was recorded in the Cumberland Survey of 1583 as the joint owner of several parcels of land in Windell or Windhill. 'We believe,’ he wrote, ‘the link is missing connecting the present Batesons with the Peter Bateson of 1580, but the coincidence of the still existing name is strong presumptive evidence of a former connection'.

There was no one better qualified than Cudworth to make such a pronouncement: he used to roam the district talking to local historians, visiting dignitaries in their fine houses and sitting in libraries studying ancient deeds and manuscripts.

In Windhill, he was taken round a woollen factory and talked to its likely owner, Joseph Bateson’s grandson William. Reading between the lines, it seems that William was unable to impart much information about his family history, let alone make a connection to the Batesons of Elizabethan times.

From William, Cudworth learned that Joseph was an enterprising man, credited with being the first to process woollen waste into a decent quality cloth – shoddy. By 1822, he was listed in Baines’ Directory, along with his son James, as a Woollen Cloth Manufacturer at Windhill Crag. The pair was listed in trade directories in the 1830s.

From the 1820s on, hand-loom weaving was a dying occupation, being superseded by the power loom operators in the new worsted mills. But Joseph, with his sons and grandsons, seem to have resisted the takeover for 50 years or so: their cloth was produced in establishments that looked more like traditional weavers’ houses than steam-powered mills. Cudworth writes (in the mid 1870s) as follows:

‘in the course of our peregrinations we wandered into a three-storeyed building in Briggate, the two upper floors of which being approached by stone out-steps, clearly indicated a clothier's establishment. Opposite a window sat a cozy, rosy-faced man leisurely examining a piece of flannel, which he did by drawing it over rollers betwixt himself and the light. The piece undergoing scrutiny was "all-wool," and, it is needless to say, it was hand-made. There are some things, we were complacently informed, that steam cannot accomplish - “It cannot make shoddy cloth equal to all-wool; it cannot make cloth at all equal to hand-made. But it's nearly ovver wi' t'hand-trade at Windhill." Appearances certainly indicated as much. Standing about the room were several old hand-looms, with dishevelled loomtackling hanging about them, awaiting their doom as firewood. In the upper storey were other tipsy-looking looms awaiting a similar fate, excepting two in motion, which, less ricketty than the rest, added weft to warp in the old-fashioned, nicketty-nacketty way. It is impossible here to trace the decline of the cloth trade of Windhill. Suffice it to say that it flourished until the more spirited, better-paying trade of worsted took its place.’

This description is reminiscent of a 4-storey building at No. 100 Briggate, at the junction with Water Lane. This was originally built in the 1830s by William Peel as a warehouse and dwellinghouse, but by 1865 was owned by the Bateson brothers William and James.

As detailed below, Joseph Bateson, Clothier / Cloth Maker, was involved in a number of property transactions in the early part of the century. The Plot numbers are those given by the 1813 Idle Inclosure Notice. [5]

See the Maps page for further details. Two of these transactions suggest that he was a figure of some standing in the community:

In an Indenture dated 26 April 1804 John Thornton, a Woolstapler from Birks Hall, Bowling, conveyed a cottage occupied by William Cordingley, a Cordwainer, to Joseph Bateson. It is thought the property could be the building shown on the 1813 Inclosure Plan at the back of Plot 208. [1]

On 21 October 1811, along with a David Mellor, he purchased a cottage from George Wright, a Bradford Currier (a leather finisher). It was on the south side of the highway leading from Shipley, though its exact location is unknown.

On 12 January 1813 he was one of a syndicate of 5 men who received a newly enclosed parcel of land of 8 perches from Henry Wright Dawson. This was Plot 197 on the 1813 Plan. The deed noted that a tenement had been erected on the site and was already being used as a School. It suggests that the ‘syndicate’ was actually a board of trustees for the School.

On 18 December 1820 Joseph and his brother-in-law John Peel purchased a cottage from Benjamin Harrison, a local clothier. This was probably the site of the future Foresters’ Arms public house.

On 26 October 1825 he was one of 4 men involved in the purchase of 3 cottages ‘at the cragside in Windhill’. He was described as ‘a Trustee nominated & appointed for the purposes hereinafter mentioned’, being a member of a Friendly Society called the Benevolent Society that met at the Blue Bell on the corner of Briggate and Leeds Road, where Samuel Bateson was the Innkeeper. The Memorial did not reveal the ‘purposes’ of the acquisition, nor did it say where the properties were located. Samuel Bateson, incidentally, was a former butcher from Rawdon and was not related to Joseph.

On 6 April 1832 Joseph conveyed 2 plots of land – numbered 208 and 209 on the 1813 Plan – to Samuel Forrest and John Jennings.

On 6 and 7 August 1834 he conveyed, by means of a Lease and Release, the land on which the Wesleyan Mission Hall would be built.

On 11 and 12 August 1834 he conveyed the site of Crag Cottage to William Peel.

On 15 May 1836 Joseph conveyed his own house to his son George. Since it was noted as ‘sometime lately in the occupation of Benjamin Harrison’, this was probably the property he bought in 1820.

Joseph died in 1838 and was buried in the little cemetery adjacent to the Wesleyan Church, built on land he once owned.

In his Will, drawn up in 1837 his estate consisted of five properties in Briggate and some parcels of land. These were the major distributions (for references, see Maps page):

The house Joseph lived in (on Plot 208 on the 1813 Plan), together with a parcel of land between the house and the road, went to Sarah, his son George’s daughter.

George, it was confirmed, got the house he already lived in. This was probably in the same part of Briggate, close to another house occupied by John Rawnsley, his brother-in-law’s son, which was bequeathed to the latter.

His daughter Betty Peel got the house, probably the Forester’s Arms pub, that she lived in.

Another house – Crag Cottage – built and occupied by William and Henrietta Peel was bequeathed to Henrietta.

A Road and a Pump near George’s and Betty’s houses, which may refer to the lane between Plots 208 and 209 (on the 1813 Plan) that led to Bateson Fold, were given equally to George and Betty.

Joseph’s remaining freehold estate was bequeathed to James. This land, described as being on the north east side of Crag Cottage, has not been identified: the Burial Ground – already sold – was north-east of Crag Cottage, so the reference may be to property on the east side of Briggate.

Joseph Bateson’s children

Joseph’s seven children – three girls and four boys – were born between 1791 and 1804.

Elizabeth, the eldest, was born in 1791 and married John Peel, one of two well-to-do Peel brothers from Keighley, around 1806. She may have had as many as 11 children. John was originally a cloth manufacturer, but when the trade began to die out in the 1830s, he took over the Foresters’ Arms on Briggate. He was recorded as a Trustee of the Wesleyan Mission in 1837. Elizabeth took over the running of the alehouse on his death in 1845. She died in 1865 and, like the rest of the family, was buried in the Wesleyan Cemetery.

Hannah was born in 1792 and married a corn miller called John Smith in 1812. Since they were married by licence, John probably came from another parish, perhaps Keighley, where he may have had connections with the Peel brothers. He has not been found in any of the trades directories of the day. There is an intriguing possibility that he was concerned with the invention of a machine for dressing flour, evidenced by a 1829 document that sold the rights to the device to a tanner in York. [6]

The couple had four children – Mary Ann (1814), Henrietta Maria (1821), Bateson Rawnsley (1828) and Charlotte Rebecca (1830).

The family are scattered in the 1841 and 1851 censuses, presumably because John, their father, had died by then. Hannah and Henrietta appear together in Bradford in 1841, when Hannah was a glass minder, while Henrietta was a mill worker.

Mary Ann married Bartholomew Storrs in 1834 and had five children: Margaret, Elizabeth, William, Edwin and Bateson.

Elizabeth emigrated to Worcester, Massachusetts, where she had two children.

William married Alice Appleyard in Bradford in 1862 but left without her when he emigrated to Bay City, Lake Huron in 1865. There he married Alice Braily and had five children. 7 weeks after the wedding, at the end of January 1867, his first wife died in Bradford.

Bateson Storrs also ended up in Bay City with his British-born wife and four children. He was an engraver for an engineering company.

After Mary Ann died in 1875, Bartholomew Storrs married his sister-in-law Henrietta Maria.

Bateson Rawnsley was with his Uncle James in Windhill in 1841. He married Ann McNamara in 1850 and moved to Bradford. He emigrated to Massachusetts around 1865 and died in New York in 1917.

Henrietta Maria married Joseph Robinson in 1844 and Bartholomew Storrs in 1876. There were no children. She died in 1890.

Charlotte Rebecca was living with her cousin Sarah Peel’s family in Windhill during both early censuses. She married John Bell in 1853 and went to live in Guiseley, bearing six children. She died in 1870.

James was born in 1794 and married Isabella Wade in 1815. He ran a small cloth making business at Windhill Crag, the ownership probably shared with his father. He had seven children, four of them boys. The first-born, Nancy, married John Dixon in 1844; their son Thomas did well enough to move into Highfield House, Baildon at the turn of the century. Sammy Cowling probably died in infancy. Joseph (1819), William (1822) and James (1824) carried on the family wool business and became wealthy men and pillars of the community.

James’s grandson, William Jennings, married an Emily Tetley in 1865 and had a daughter, Ruthetta. The marriage did not go well: in early 1869, leaving his wife and child behind, he emigrated to New South Wales, where he married Annie Goldsmith and had five sons. A teacher, he became head of a school in Newcastle.

One of James’s great-grandsons, James, also emigrated to New South Wales but died in 1890, apparently unmarried.

Rebecca was born in 1796 and married the other Peel brother, William, around 1820. He had a cloth manufacturing business so that, by 1841, he could describe himself as ‘a gentleman of independent means’. Unfortunately, Rebecca had died in 1831. Their only daughter, Henrietta Maria Peel, kept a Diary, part of which was later published by her devoted father after her untimely death in 1863, aged 43. As a memorial to his wife and daughter, he endowed a fine stained glass window and plaque in St Paul’s Parish Church in Shipley.

William Peel [7]

William is of interest because he used his wealth to fund a cultured lifestyle in a comfortable house and to indulge in an eccentric passion for things Druidic. Some time around 1838, he built a house, Crag Cottage, on the west side of Briggate on a steep slope dropping down to the Bradford Canal. It was a well-appointed building, extravagantly furnished. A room at the top of the house was equipped as an astronomical observatory, with state of the art telescopes. Like many early Victorians, Peel believed that any oddly-shaped rocks must have been fashioned by supernatural beings such as Druids. Talking about Windhill Crag, he wrote that ‘on these crags the ancient Druids ranged”. And that the pre-Roman remains of Druidism were to be found nearby. On the east side of Briggate he collected and arranged rocks ‘as near the original as history describes; that is the Altar, Archdruid’s Chair, and Mistletoe Table.’ He also built a complex of religious buildings: an exotic-looking church in the Roman style stood next to a vicarage. Next to that was a tower decorated with Druidic symbols. It had a clock dedicated to Robert Peel, the Prime Minister in the 1830s and 1840s. The following couplet formed part of the inscription:

When this clock doth strike the hour

Think of the price of meal and flour.

A telescope mounted on the roof directed its gaze heaven-wards.

Peel’s nephew, Charles Bateson, would have seen, perhaps played with, the telescopes in his house and tower and may have developed his passion for astronomy that is related in stories passed down the generations.

After George was born in 1798, Joseph had two further sons: Jonas was born in 1801 but died less than 2 years later.

Another boy, also called Jonas, was born in 1804. It is not known what became of him.

George Bateson

George was baptised in Shipley on 16 November 1798 and married Mary Haley in Otley in 1819. See Note on duplicate marriages below.

Mary died in January 1829. Ten months later, George married Nancy or Ann Farrer, a Warp Twister from Shipley, though her family came from Wrose.

In 1836, when his father gifted a house to his son, he was described as a Clothmaker.

Over the next 12 years or more, George and his family lived near Dumb Mill, Frizinghall, but moved back to Windhill in the 1850s. He was described in the censuses as a factory worker of one kind or another, which suggests that he was not as enterprising as his brother James in establishing a woollen cloth business.

In 1853, a few days before the start of an Enquiry into Sanitary Conditions in Idle, George seconded a resolution stating that the Bradford Canal was the greatest prevailing nuisance to the neighbourhood and that ‘until it be removed the sanitary condition of Windhill cannot be much improved'. He was still concerned about the problem when, in 1865, he forwarded a petition to the Home Secretary.

His second wife died on 23 May 1853 and four years later George married Ellen Firth, the widow of a grocer from Little London in Rawdon. The exact location of the grocery shop is not known, but George must have been involved in it, because he was described as a Shopkeeper (in 1865) and as a Tea Dealer and Grocer at other times.

In 1858, when he raised a mortgage from the Bradford Third Equitable Benefit Building Society against the house his father gave him in 1836, he was again described as a Clothmaker.

Yet, on his death from paralysis at Windhill in 1875, aged 76, he was described as a Proprietor of Cottages - he owned five properties and a bake house. He had inherited two houses and a roadway from his father, but how he came by his other properties is unclear – there is no documentary evidence that he purchased anything on his own account.

In his Will, George left legacies of £42 to each of the surviving daughters of his son John, who had died in 1867. He also left money to his daughter Sarah, although she had been well cared for by the Will of her grandfather. The properties he owned went to his only surviving son, Charles.

According to family legend, George was said to have owned half the village of Windhill, to have built ‘Bateson’s Folly’ or 'Windhill Castle', to have worn a blue weaver’s apron to go to the bank to disguise his errand and, finally, to have lost his money and castle in bankruptcy. But there is little doubt that the odd collection of buildings erected by William Peel is the legendary ‘Bateson Castle’. The name may have become attached to the Batesons after Peel’s insolvency in 1865, when his property passed into the hands of William and James Bateson. Billy Peel’s Place, as it was known locally, was probably acquired by the Batesons along with Crag Cottage when Peel was forced to sell them by public auction on 27 November 1865 after the collapse, through fraud, of the Leeds Banking Company, of which he was a large shareholder.

Apart from a liking for disguise, only a little is known about George Bateson the man. There is evidence that he was an accomplished and highly regarded musician and music teacher. From the early 1830s he ‘was an enthusiastic musician, and served his community well by instilling a love of music in an otherwise uncultured soul’ [8]. He performed for a local choral society as a bass player – this is may refer to the 19^th Century version of a double bass, or perhaps to the bass violin, which was similar to a cello. In 1869, his former pupils started an annual gathering of old musicians that met in members’ houses or at local hostelries for a programme of choral and instrumental music.

George had a dark side to his character, however. On 26 May 1865, the Bradford Observer reported under the headline 'Two Quarrelsome Old Sinners' that George’s wife Ellen had charged him with assault, alleging that he had broken her nose, loosened two of her teeth and kept her locked up in the house for several days to prevent her from ‘fetching law’. The quarrel arose when Ellen, having just become a Latter Day Saints convert (George was a Wesleyan), disobeyed her husband and sold an old family Bible. George was found guilty and fined 20/- with costs, with the alternative of a month’s imprisonment.

There were rumours that someone in the family was a Luddite or perhaps a member of the Chartist Movement. This was attributed to Charles. Since Luddism as a force was spent by the 1820s and the height of Chartism’s power came in the 1840s, he might well have been a member of the latter organisation. However, there are at least two references in the media of 1850 and 1851 to a G Bateson of Shipley, who appears to have been some kind of treasurer responsible for maintaining the Honesty Fund for the local Chartist branch.

George Bateson’s family

George and Mary had four children, starting with Charles in 1820.

John was born in 1822. For some reason, he did not get a mention in his grandfather’s Will. He married Mary Greaves in 1844 and had seven children, six of them girls, between 1844 and 1862. He worked in a cotton mill and died in 1867.

Thomas Joseph, who probably died in infancy, was born in 1824.

Sarah appeared in 1826. She married William Metcalfe of Embsay, near Skipton, in 1851. They had a son, John, in 1853 and a daughter, Mary, in 1854. The family lived in Saltaire before moving to Bradford, where William had a grocer’s shop. Sarah died in 1880.

Mary is of interest because she married a John Barraclough in 1874, when she was living in Mildred Street, Undercliffe.

The marriage did not go well.

The 1881 Census showed that she was still in Mildred Street, living with her father and brother, purporting to be a single woman using her maiden name.

She died of bronchitis on 28 February 1890; her maiden name was given on the death certificate.

The year before, on 16 October, an illegitimate child, John Charles Preston, was baptised at St Lukes in Bradford, the first of six children borne by an Ellen Preston to John Barraclough.

This family were at Sturges St, Bowling at the time of the 1891 census, when John was described as a widower.

In the 1901 census, taken at Mount St, Eccleshill, he was ‘single’. Only the couple’s most recently born child, Doris, was present. The other three surviving children – Alice, Nellie and John Charles – were to be found at two separate children’s homes* on the west side of the city.

Another child, Ida, was born in 1903.

There are no further records of Ellen Preston: she is presumed to have died around this time, perhaps in childbirth.

In 1906 John Barraclough married Annie Barrett. In the 1911 census his two last-born children, Doris and Ida, were to be found at two different children’s homes – evidently their father and his new wife were unable, or unwilling, to look after them.

Three of the Barraclough children are known to have married:

John Charles married in 1919. His father was a witness.

Doris married in 1923. Tellingly, perhaps, her father’s name was not given on the certificate.

Ida married in 1927, shortly after her father’s death. The certificate has not been seen, so it is not known if he was mentioned.

*Children’s homes, known as ‘scattered homes', were operated by the Poor Law Union and seem to have catered for between 5 and 10 children between the ages of 5 and 13 in ordinary terraced houses spread around Bradford. Although they were often described as schools in the censuses, it is thought that the children went to local Board Schools. The children were generally cared for by a single or widowed woman, who was sometimes called a foster mother.

The admissions registers have not been seen, so the circumstances of the Barraclough children’s admission to the homes is not known.

It may be that Ellen Preston saw the homes as an alternative to the workhouse, which might still have been used to house children, even in the early years of the twentieth century.

She might also have viewed the homes as a way of getting a better education for her children than she could offer.

The downside would be a risk that access to her children might have been reduced, or even revoked, by the Poor Law authorities. This was based on the twin notions that child poverty was a result of defective parenting and that if children were raised at state expense, the state could curtail parental rights.

Charles

Baptised on 27 September 1820, he married Margaret Laycock at Bradford Cathedral in 1846. Margaret was born in Cononley on 15 May 1823 to Abraham Laycock and Anne Dixon. Her grandparents were Benjamin Laycock, a Weaver from Glusburn, and Ellen Petty.

On his marriage certificate, Charles was described as a Gardener, though he was trained as a Cotton Warp Dresser.

By 1851, when William Henry was born, the family was living in central Bradford with Charles’ wife’s parents.

By 1861, Charles had become a Milk Dealer. In 1866 he was described as a Cowkeeper!

In 1870, on the verge of retirement, Charles bought 3 houses in Windhill. He may have occupied one – he was recorded at 2 Water Lane, Windhill in the 1871 Census. In that year he submitted plans to the Local Board for ‘conveniences’ and in 1875 applied for permission to build 2 cottages and 2 ‘cellar dwellings’. A year before he died, while living at 116 Briggate, he acquired another house that was described as a cottage surrounded by other properties he already owned.

Something of an eccentric, he is reputed to have believed that Christmas Day was on the 26th of December, and so made his grandchildren sing carols on Boxing Day!

When he died on 3 January 1903, he and his wife were living with their married daughter Elizabeth.

There is no specific mention of any property in his Will. Each of his three surviving sons was bequeathed an eighth of his estate, while his two daughters each got a quarter. The remaining eighth was shared among the children of William Henry – Herbert, Ernest, Millie and Elma.

Charles Bateson’s family

George Horatio was born on 31 March 1847 and married Mary Lambert in 1870. He was the proprietor of his own horse-drawn cab service.

His first four children - he had four daughters and one son - were born in Morecambe, where his wife originated.

On Sunday 3 October 1875, George was running his business from an address in Briggate, Windhill – he had recently received planning approval for the construction of a stable – when he found the body of a young woman in the canal. Appearing at the inquest, he reported that he helped pull the woman out of the water. The body was taken to the Foresters’ Arms for a post mortem examination, which concluded that she had drowned. The Bradford Observer reported on the case under the headline ‘Windhill Tragedy'. Two men were subsequently charged with her murder but were found Not Guilty and acquitted.

Perhaps George worked a lot of late nights conveying fares through Bradford’s streets. This may partly explain his frequent absences from the marital home in Manningham: he was not there on the night of the 1881 Census, although he continued to be registered as a voter there until 1883; in 1891, his wife was described as a Widow; in 1901, when he was registered as living alone in Bradford, his wife was initially recorded as a Widow but this was subsequently corrected to Married; by 1911 he had moved to 4 Field Street, Shipley, as a retired Cabman living with his sister Elizabeth’s family while his wife, living in Manningham with her daughter Lily, had reverted to the Married state.

In June 1903 he would have been seen striding the promenade decks of the SS New England, en voyage from Liverpool to Boston - his first visit to the United States. He was on his way to see his younger brother, John, who was by this time well established as a Baker in Central Falls, Rhode Island.

George Horatio died in 1920. When his birth was recorded, the registry clerk misinterpreted the broad Yorkshire dialect and wrote his middle name as Oracia. This was corrected in later documents but, oddly, he appears on the Bateson family tomb in Shipley as 'George O Bateson’.

Of George’s five known children, Hannah and George William went to America and stayed. Their fortunes are noted elsewhere.

Margaret, born in Morecambe in 1873, married a Grocer called Samuel Fletcher. She died in Huddersfield in 1958.

Mary Ellen, born in Morecambe in 1879, remained in Bradford with her husband Benjamin Schofield until her death in 1961.

Lily, born in 1886, sailed to Ellis Island in 1919, going on to Lowell to stay with sister Hannah and her ‘husband’ George Parr. Returning 6 months later, she married Edward Perkin, a Carter from Barrow. Edward claimed to be a Widower on the marriage certificate, but his Army records proved he was Single. After being Wounded in Action in 1918, he was demobbed from the Scots Guards. Included in his records is an Order for Stoppage of Pay of 6d a day to support an illegitimate son, Frank, born in 1910. He never married the boy’s mother, Edith Casson. Lily Perkin had two girls and died in Huddersfield in 1978.

Ernest Laycock was born in 1849 but only survived until 1850.

William Henry, born on 28 March 1851, married Elizabeth Hartley, who came from Oxenhope, in 1878. Although he started his working life as an assistant to his father, he later kept a Hairdressing shop in Windhill. Nothing more is known of his life.

He died in 1891, aged only 40, and was interred in Windhill Crag Cemetery. His wife Elizabeth was a Draper at the time. Shortly after her husband’s death, the family moved to the Undercliffe area of Bradford, where she may have kept a Grocer’s shop. By 1901, however, the family was living in Stanacre Street, near the Cathedral, where Elizabeth ran a Confectionery shop. By the time of her death in 1925, she owned a house in Wightman Street, Undercliffe. She was interred in the family vault at the Cemetery in Owlet Road, Windhill. Nothing remains of the grave architecture.

William Henry Bateson’s family

Herbert, the couple’s first child, was born on 3 January 1879, followed by Margaret Amelia (Millie) in 1882, Ernest in 1883 and Elma in 1887.

The family lived in Briggate at least until 1891. At that time, a distant cousin of Herbert’s called Albert Swaine was living in a nearby street. Swaine was a music teacher and later became a Professor of Music in Bradford. Although Herbert trained and worked as a printer, it is possible that he took violin lessons from Albert, practising – it was said – at 6 o’clock in the morning. He was talented enough to take lessons at a music school in London. By 1901 he was staying at Martha Marshall’s lodging house in Barnsley, where he probably played in the pit of the local cinema.

Herbert met Rose McDougall when he was playing in a Brighton cinema. They married in St Mary’s in Laisterdyke in 1905. One of the witnesses was an old printer friend of Herbert’s.

Two years later, the couple were in Blackpool for the births of their first two children. The family is thought to have remained in Blackpool for 3 years, before returning to Bradford.

Leading the life of a peripatetic musician, Herbert was next documented in 1911 living alone near Old Trafford, Manchester, where he was working as a Theatrical Musician.

Perhaps it was here that he took up conducting, studying under the tutelage of Sir Hamilton Harty, who would later become Principal Conductor of the Halle Orchestra.

In 1912 or 1913, Herbert was persuaded to go to Glasgow by a fellow musician / composer called Paul Kilburn. Presumably this was to take up a permanent job, perhaps with the Scottish Orchestra, for he took his family north and rented a flat at 3 Anderson Street, Partick. By 1913, however, the family had moved to a 2 bed flat at 11 Airlie Street, Hyndland, where they stayed until 1941. Herbert was not called up during WW1, but spent at least some of the war years working for the entertainments department of an explosives factory in Alexandria, Dumbarton. Called the Gun Works, it was opened in 1915 by Armstrong Whitworth for the production of shells.

After the war, Herbert continued working as a travelling musician: in 1921 he was living on his own in a rented house in Buxton. He was described in the census as an Orchestral Musician working at the Pavilion Gardens.

He was probably only there for a short time: from 1920 to 1922 he was registered to vote in Glasgow.

At some point in the 1920s he is thought to have begun playing full-time with the Scottish Orchestra, possibly as its Principal Violinist. He also took in private students. He died in 1947.

Herbert Bateson’s family

Ronald, the couple’s second child, was born in 1908 in Blackpool, where Herbert played in the orchestra pit of a cinema or theatre.
At school - he may have gone to Kelvinside Academy - he was good at maths and was top of the class and Captain of cricket. It is not known what he did after leaving school at the age of 14. He did learn to play the flute, probably paying for lessons himself as his father was a violinist.
In the early 1930s he became articled to a firm of chartered accountants, but it went bust and he lost the job. After that, he said he worked for the famous Ross Optical, making lenses. But Ross was a London company, so perhaps he was thinking of another firm of optical instrument makers. He then worked for Bloom's opticians, who were based in central Glasgow. His job was to canvass people to book eye tests and glasses. If they did, he would return to collect the money.
In the mid-1930s, he is thought to have taken evening lessons in optometry from a local tutor. He sat and passed the prescribed examination in the Theory and Practice of Opthalmic Optics on 14 May 1936 and became a Fellow of the British Optical Assocation (FBOA). He bought a domiciliary case and travelled round the mining villages of Lanarkshire, doing eye tests on the spot.
During the Second World War, men and women up to the age of 51 became liable to be called up from 1942. It is not known why Ronald did not enlist until 20 April 1944. He was given medical grade 2, so was eligible for service. He was soon transferred to the RAMC as a Nursing Orderly, with a recomendation that he be upgraded to Optician. This did not happen until his unit was posted to Egypt in March 1945. His barracks was probably Helmieh Camp in N Cairo. The following month, he was posted to 19 General Hospital as a Clerk. Some parts of this Hospital were in the Canal Zone, while others may have been in Alexandria. However, by May 1945 he was graded Optician B (3), working as a dispensing optician at the Base Spectacles Depot, which was probably in Cairo.

There is evidence for this in a reprimand he received for speeding near Helmieh (in Cairo). The offence was curious as he was not the driver (he could not drive). However, by the time of the incident, in March 1946, he had been promoted to Sergeant and, as the senior rank, should have stopped the driver from speeding. On 7 June 1946 Ronald became a Staff Sergeant. By this time he was in charge of the Spectacles Depot and received an Exemplary testimonial from his CO when he was discharged in September. By October 1946, he was back in Glasgow, having served for 17 months in the Army. Egypt and Palestine (where he spent 14 days' leave) were the only foreign countries Ronald ever visited.

He got a job as an opthalmic optician at the Stratford-upon-Avon branch of a chain of opticians. Whilst there, he was offered work in Pontypridd at £12 a week. He jumped at the chance as it came with a flat, something very rare in those days. Only once he had a job and accommodation did his girlfriend, Elizabeth Hamilton, consent to get engaged. The ring was purchased in July 1948. Ronald was said to have nearly fainted when he was told the price. The Banns were read at Strathbungo Parish Church on 15 August 1948 and the marriage took place on 14 September 1948 at Crosshill Victoria Church. After an Oban honeymoon, the couple travelled to Pontypridd. Cohens, Ronald's new employer, gave them a dinner service as a wedding present.

After a short stay in a B&B, they were installed in a cramped first floor flat in a house owned by a sweet wholesaler called Colin Fishout. The landlord, who lived downstairs, employed a cleaner called Dolly Moss, who also "did for him". By late 1950 the family had moved to a house in Tyfica Road, where they remained until late 1955. Ronald's two sons were born in Pontypridd.

He got a job working for E L Cooksey Opticians in Rochdale and moved first to a rented house in Binns Nook Road, Whitworth then to a house he purchased in Sparthfield Avenue in 1956.

Four years later he bought a small optician's practice in Shipley, near Bradford. The shop was part of the Glenroyal Cinema complex in Briggate, just a stone's throw from Windhill, the village of his ancestors. The family lived in a large semi in Station Road, Baildon.

Ronald retired in the mid 1970s, selling the business to a national chain. The shop became a taxi office.

He continued working, travelling the country on short-term locums, usually accompanied by his wife.

He died on 10 May 1986 of throat cancer and was cremated at Nab Wood, Shipley. He left £21,638.

Haley was born in Allerton, Bradford, in 1853 and died in Shipley in 1914. His story is told in more detail here.

Elizabeth Ann was born in 1855, married a Labourer called John Robinson Wright and had two children, Mary and Maud. As a Percher (Inspector) of Cloth, Mary travelled to Quebec province where she married Walter Forrest Waters in 1923. There were no children. By 1946 the marriage was probably over – in that year she sailed back to Liverpool on the Cavina to stay with her parents in Morecambe. Evidently the wanderlust never left her – in 1951 she sailed to New Zealand with the intention of emigrating there. Perhaps things did not work out: the following year she sailed back to England to end her days in Morecambe. When her husband’s death was announced in the Montreal Gazette in 1966, another woman, Frances Calnan, was cited as his beloved wife! Until 1922 at least, Elizabeth and John lived in the family home in Field Street, Shipley. In the early 1930s they moved back to Windhill. By 1937 they seem to have come into money, because they retired to a pleasant bungalow by the sea at Morecambe-Heysham. Elizabeth died there in 1940 and John in 1949. Maud, who lived with her parents, died a spinster in 1947. Mary died in 1969.

John, born in Manningham, Bradford, in 1858, emigrated to the United States and obtained US citizenship in 1887. His story is told in more detail here.

Mary Ellen was born in 1861, married Dixon Rollinson in 1885 and had four children - John, Maggie, Emma (died in infancy) and Sarah Ellen. Maggie married Thomas Atkinson, a Shoemaker, shortly before leaving for New Zealand in September 1913 onboard the Corinthic. The rest of the family emigrated onboard the Ruahine in October 1913 and set up home at Napier, Hawkes Bay. Dixon, a Joiner by trade, established a shop supplying building materials. Thomas Atkinson, sadly, was killed in the great earthquake of 1931. Maggie died in Napier in 1972. Both John and Sarah emigrated to Brisbane, Australia and died there in 1947 and 1975 respectively.

Note on duplicate marriages

Duplicate marriages were rare but they could, and did, happen. When researchers have encountered them they often struggle to find a convincing explanation.

George married Mary Haley in Otley on 7 November 1819 by Banns. He was described as a Worsted Weaver and the witnesses were a John Hargreaves and a John Rawnsley (both probably lived in Windhill). While baptisms and burials often took place in the nearest chapel, weddings were more likely in the principal church of a parish - in this case Otley. If the couple came from different parishes, the bride's was often chosen for the ceremony. George and Mary, however, were both of this parish, according to the register entry. Yet there is no evidence that either family had anything to do with Otley - they might have lodged there temporarily for the Banns but otherwise there was no connection.

However, Mary was only 17 and, if parental consent for the marriage was not forthcoming, the couple might have gone to Otley to escape her family’s notice.

Perhaps the Haley family grew to accept the marriage so that seven months later, on 25 June 1820, the couple was able to go to Calverley Parish Church and remarry.
According to the register, the marriage was by Banns and the groom was a Clothier, a satisfactory step up from the Weaver of 1819. Strangely though, he was still a Bachelor and Mary was a Spinster. Once again, both bride and groom were of this parish.

But the age explanation is not entirely convincing because it seems that George and Mary were following a precedent set by George’s brother James.

He married Isabella Wade in Otley on 27 May 1815. And again in Calverley on 12 June 1815. There is no obvious reason for the duplication. Neither bride nor groom had any connection with Otley and both were of age. The first marriage was by Banns, the second by Licence.

Licences were often used by couples in a hurry to get married. There could be a variety of reasons for this, including differences in status, such as age, social standing, religion etc. Previously married people (such as the widowed) or couples from different parishes might also apply for Licences. If a couple had already married elsewhere, they might want to clarify the status of their marriage by marrying again.

It could be that the legality of the Otley marriages was in such doubt that the couples were obliged to get married again.

Yet if that were true, it seems odd that George had not learned from his brother's experience……

Notes on baptisms

In England most children were baptised, though not all can be found in the records.
This could be because of haphazard record keeping, or because registers have been lost, or because baptisms took place elsewhere, in non-conformist chapels for example.
Baptisms (and other ceremonies) did not always take place in the home parish - people could go to a nearby church if it was more convenient or the mother's parish might be used. It was not unusual, for example, for residents of Horsforth and Rawdon in Guiseley parish to use Calverley Parish Church.
Bulk baptisms of several related children were not unusual, presumably because bulk orders were cheaper and also more convenient.

Church of England rules stipulated that children should be baptised by the second Sunday after birth.
The Dade registers that were used by some parishes at the end of the 18^th century recorded both baptism and birth dates and so allow us to see the gap between the two.
They indicate that children were commonly baptised from 2 to 8 weeks after birth, though it could be earlier and was sometimes much later - 6 months or even a year or more.
For example, a James Parkinson of Farsley was baptised at Calverley in 1777 at the age of 2 years and 3 months old.
Sometimes people who were not baptised as infants went through the ceremony later in life – it was not uncommon to wait for up to 10 years. The record in the Bateson family was 37 years.

Notes on the potential antecedents of Joseph Bateson

1)   On the line above James Parkinson in the Calverley register was the baptism of Isaac, son of Abraham Beatson and Jane Roundall of Farsley, whose descendants can be viewed in his family tree.
Abraham, an alehouse keeper in Farsley, was born in 1725, married Jane in 1746 and had at least 7 children. He died in 1798, Jane in 1807.
No record of Isaac's birth has been found, but when he was baptised on 13 April 1777 he was above 10 years old. Since he died on 7 September 1842 aged 76, he was probably born in the months before September 1766.
The next birth in this family was of Benjamin, who received a church burial on 16 May 1769. No baptism has been found, which may indicate that Benjamin died shortly after his birth, perhaps in April or early May 1769.
It is to this family that several Bateson family trees hosted by Ancestry, including the earliest, one diligently compiled by John Brackpool [9], have assigned our Joseph Bateson of Windhill.
Joseph was 69½ years old when he died on 21 March 1838, giving a birth in September 1768.
If this date is correct, Joseph could not have been born into Abraham Baitson of Farsley's family in September 1768, because Jane, the mother, would have been pregnant with Benjamin at the time.

2)   Abraham Beatson's brother William was a Clothier who settled in Yeadon and, probably, in neighbouring Horsforth. He married Hannah Pawson on 27 December 1747 and had 9 known children over the following 19 years. This suggests the family were diligent in registering the baptisms. John, as the last documented child (baptised on 17 August 1766), was probably the last born. It seems unlikely that our Joseph Bateson could have been born into this family in 1768.

3)   More plausible parents for Joseph would be Abraham's other brother Thomas Bateson and his wife Betty, not least because they moved from Rawdon to Idle (where their 6 known children were born) and ended up in Windhill.
Thomas died there on 5 July 1792 aged 69, giving a birth in 1723. A Weaver and Clothier, he married Elizabeth Marshall in Rawdon on 13 May 1753.
His likely children were: Elizabeth (b 1754), John (b 1757, d 1778), Sarah (d 1758), William (b 1759, d 1830), Mary (b 1761, d 1786) and Hannah (d 1767).
Our Joseph Bateson could have been a late addition to this family in 1768.
About this time, Thomas and Betty may have become Methodists (in 1781 a Thomas and Eliz Beatson were listed as members of Idle Methodist Society) and may have stopped baptising their children in the established church.
Joseph could have been baptised at the Methodist chapel in Idle before proper records were kept.
If so, he stuck to his non-conformist inheritance: his own children were baptised by the Shipley Bethel Baptists and he had a strong association with the Windhill Wesleyans.

Notes on other Bateson families in the 18th and early 19th centuries

A few other Bateson families are known to have lived in Leeds, Farsley, Idle, Otley, Menston, Guiseley, Yeadon, Rawdon and Horsforth:

A Samuel Bateson makes a brief appearance from 1824 to 1830 as the Innkeeper at the Blue Bell in Leeds Road, Windhill and the Fleece Inn, Briggate in Shipley.
He was probably born to a John Bateson in 1771 in Rawdon, where he became a Butcher, an occupation continued by his son Richard and grandson Samuel.
He, or his grandson, was also the tenant of over 8 acres of pasture at Greenbottom near his public house by St Oswald's Church in Guiseley.
In addition, he farmed a 4 acre arable allotment on the moor near West Chevin. [10]
These occupations were noted on Samuel's bankruptcy Petition at the Wakefield Court House in 1837.

Another Bateson family that lived in Windhill in the early 1800s may be mentioned here, though little is known of its antecedents.
A James Bateson was buried in Plot G8 at the Wesleyan Front Burial Ground in 1837, having died on 9 February.
He was 73 years old, giving a birth date of around 1764. He may have been the grandfather of Betty Bateson, who was born in Windhill between 1813 and 1815 and married John Coulter, a Clothier, at the end of 1831. The family lived in Shipley and at Horton in Bradford. James, William, George, Elizabeth, John, Hannah, Rachel and Alice are their known offspring.
Elizabeth and John died in infancy in 1849 and 1858 respectively and were buried in Grave G8 alongside James Bateson, who was probably their great-grandfather.
There is no gravestone on Plot G8.

A Joseph Bateson, born in Idle in 1782 is listed on the Brackpool Tree [10] as the son of Abraham (b 1687). In fact, he was the son of an unidentified Joseph Bateson.
He is of interest because of his army career.
He signed up in 1805 as a Private in the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues). He would have served in the Peninsular War in Iberia. Long after the final battle of Toulouse, he was one of 74 men awarded the Military General Service Medal with 2 clasps, for the Battles of Vittoria (1813) and Toulouse (1814).
He fought at Waterloo in 1815 and was awarded a medal.
As he was not discharged until 1828, he probably spent his remaining army years engaged in ceremonial duties at Windsor.
A year after his discharge he married Tabitha Jowett, née Illingworth at Bradford Cathedral in 1829. He was a Clothier or Cloth Weaver. They had sons Thomas, born around 1831 and Joseph, born about 1835.
The family were in Leeds in 1841 and at Skelton's Yard, New Leeds in Bradford in 1851, where Joseph died in 1854. Tabitha survived until 1870.

There were a number of Bateson families in the Armley / Wortley / Farnley area, west of Leeds.
These may have originated with the marriage of a William Bateson and Alice Kidd in Leeds in 1691.
Nothing is known of their son William (b 1694), but Matthias (b 1702) married Hannah Stancliff and had seven known children: William (b 1728, d 1730), Sarah (b 1731, d 1742), Thomas (b 1732, d 1732/3), Matthias (b 1733), Hana (b 1739, d 1740/1), Sarah (b 1743) and Joseph, who was born in 1736.
The latter (Joseph) married Mary Wood and had six children: Hannah (b 1762), Sarah (b 1767), Ann (b 1769, d 1770), Samuel (b 1771), Martha (b 1776) and Joseph, who was born in 1778.

Our Joseph Bateson was born in 1768/1769, according to his age at death. The following table shows the baptism, marriage and burial records from 1736 to 1778 for Joseph Batesons in nearby parishes. Doubtful data is shown in italics.

Bateson / Baitson / Beatson / Batson records 1736-1778

Parish	Record	dob	Details	Notes
Calverley			10 baptisms (no Josephs)	all Calverley registers for the period are available
Leeds	Joseph	1761	b to James Bateson of Woodhouse Carr; died in infancy	all Leeds registers for the period are available
Leeds	Joseph	1763	b to James Bateson of Woodhouse; bur Meanwood in 1845 aged 81
Leeds	Joseph	1739	bur Bank, Leeds in 1797 aged 58
Armley	Jose	1736	b to Matthias Bateson; m Mary Wood in 1760	all Armley registers for the period are available
Armley	Joseph	1778	b to the above Joseph & Mary
Farnley			6 baptisms (no Josephs)	all Bishop's Transcripts for the period are available
Wortley			2 baptisms (no Josephs)
Beeston	Joseph	1778	m Isabella Hemingway in 1802; bur Wortley in 1851 aged 73	brother of Matthew Bateson of Wortley
Bramham	Joseph	1764	b to Joseph Bateson; m Elizabeth Ellison in 1785
Guiseley			16 baptisms & 5 marriages (no Josephs)	all Guiseley registers for the period are available
Otley			1 baptism & 1 marriage (no Josephs)	all Otley & Baildon registers for the period are available
Harewood	Joseph	1763	b to Edward & Margt Bateson; bur in 1764	all Harewood registers for the period are available
Harewood	Joseph	1770	bapt to John & Eliz Batson of Dunkeswick; bur in 1810
Bradford			1 marriage (no Josephs)	all registers for the period are available for Bradford
Shipley			few records (no Josephs)	no registers; a few Shipley refs in Bradford PC registers
Bingley			no Joseph Bateson records for the period

References

Deeds referred to were viewed at the Wakefield Registry of Deeds

The Will of Joseph Bateson is at the Borthwick Institute in York

1 A Plan of the Manor of Idle drawn up between 1810 and 1813 by Jonathan Taylor (one of the Inclosure Commissioners, the other being Jonathan Teal)

2 printed in Windhill Wesleyan Mission by Arthur Costigan, published by Windhill Community Association, 1989

3 Survey of the Manor of Idle, 1584

4 Round About Bradford by William Cudworth, published by Thomas Brear, 1876; also serialised in Bradford Observer, 1875

5 see also the Maps page on this website

6 Backhouse Papers, BAC/36, held by Durham University Library

7 A Short Description of Crag Cottage by William Peel, 1857

8 in Bradford Observer, 11 November 1875

9 a family tree compiled by John Brackpool and hosted by Ancestry

10 see Guiseley Tithe Map published by Leeds Tithe Map Project

© Windhill Origins