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I've just written the following in an effort to let myself know where the gaps are that I need to fill!
Thought it might be of interest to some...
Trying to Untangle the Knots: The Kippaxes
My Great, Great Grandma Sarah Bray died in Seaforth, Liverpool in 1879. She had been married in Holmfirth, Yorkshire in 1848, but had been born at Lane Bottom in Briercliffe in Lancashire back in 1826.
Quite a traveller.
She was one of nine children, and was the youngest of the brood.
Her parents were Robert Kippax and Ann Nuttall. Robert had been born on 14th March 1789 in Haggate and had been baptised at Haggate Baptist Chapel. The chapel – both it and its successor now demolished – was just over 20 years old at this point. Robert was, seemingly, the only child of Joseph Kippax and Ann Smith and was named for his grandfather Robert (b.1724) who had been the son of Edward, the bastard son of Edward Kippax and Grace Sympson from whom most of the Briercliffe Kippaii seem to be descended.
Joseph and Ann had been married at Burnley seven years before Robert’s birth and Ann died five years after the birth. Joseph was a hand loom weaver.
And so was Robert.
When Robert was just turned 20 years old, he married Ann Nuttall, three years his senior at Burnley on 25th May 1809. Their first child, James, was born at New Row near Banks in Briercliffe on 19th February 1810. Second child Joseph was also born there on 17th January 1812, as was William on 8th March 1814. The next year, on 31st December, a fourth child, John, was also born there. Robert followed on 7th March 1818, although the family had moved to Barker Row on 2nd August 1820 when child number six – their first daughter – Ann was born.
A second daughter, Mary, was also born at Barker Row on 11th May 1822, with a brother named Henry following on 30th April 1824, by which time the family were living at Holt Hill. Finally, on 28th April 1826, Sarah – the final child – was born at Lane Bottom.
Before the 1841 census was taken, James had gone to live in Netherthong, near Holmfirth, and William and Sarah had gone to live near Halifax.
Mother Ann was also living with James and his young family in Netherthong by the time the census was taken.
The rest of the family are at Sandbec, and Robert is being kept company by younger children Mary and Henry (Sarah having already left Briercliffe). Robert’s 80 year old father is also with the family and is on ‘independent’ means.
1851 finds Robert, Ann and family at Smith Row in Lane Bottom, with Joseph, now 90, still with the family. He died later that year and was buried at Haggate Baptist Chapel. Robert is still weaving at this point, whilst Ann is listed as a ‘pauper’.
Ann died in 1852 and was buried at Haggate Baptist Chapel.
In 1861, Robert, now 70 and still working as a hand loom weaver is living at Smith Row still, along with a daughter and her family. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which daughter, and can’t find the relevant record!
Robert died around 1864.
Focussing on the children of Robert and Ann….
1. James Kippax (1810 – 1840s)
James didn’t stay long in Briercliffe and can be found in Thongbridge, Netherthong near Holmfirth in 1841 at the age of 30 where he is working as a toll collector. He married Elizabeth from Walton near Liverpool with whom he had two children, Robert (1829) and James (1834). The former of these was born before the family arrived in Yorkshire.
As mentioned above, James’ mother Ann was living with the family during the 1841 census period. After the 1841 census however, both James and his two sons disappear from the records. Presumably James Sr – at least – has died, for Elizabeth is describing herself as a widow by 1851.
She has also moved to Holmfirth itself and took over the running of the Elephant and Castle by 1847. She has also taken on her young sister-in-law Sarah Kippax as a help. By the late 1850s Elizabeth had given the pub over to a John Lodge and had taken over the running of the Victoria instead. In 1860, she married again, to a William Lockwood, a soap and oil merchant and lived at Spring Lane in the town.
2. Joseph Kippax (1812-1878).
Joseph married Mary around 1840 and they had four children; Robert (1841), Samuel (1846), Nehemiah (1850) and Mary (1853).
By the 1861 census, the family are living at Lane Ends, Little Marsden in Burnley and Joseph is working as a cotton twister. Ten years later, he can be found at Hibson Road.
His third child, Nehemiah, was jailed in 1877.
THE FRAUDS IN THE WORSTED TRADE
Yesterday at the Preston intermediate sessions, the trial was resumed of John Dugdale, aged 22, charged with stealing a large quantity of woollen weft, 10,000 bobbins, and 50 skips, valued at between £500 and £600; and Roger Broughton, aged 38, and Nehemiah Kippax, on bail, charged with having received the same, knowing it to have been stolen. The prisoners were all found guilty. Dugdale was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment with hard labour, and Broughton and Kippax to five years penal servitude each.
Nehemiah died in 1886, presumably just four years after his release.
Nehemiah’s sister, Mary, married her first cousin, John Bray, who lived in Seaforth, Liverpool. They had two children who died in infancy before John’s early death. Mary herself died in the workhouse in the early 1900s.
3. William Kippax (1814-1866)
Like his eldest brother, William too did not stick around in Briercliffe and went off to Friendly near Halifax where he worked as a bar keeper. He married Ellen Whalen and the two had ten children! They also had the care of William’s youngest sister Sarah, who stayed with them for a time before she moved to Holmfirth.
The ten children were Robert (1836), Elizabeth (1838), William (1841), James (1845), Priscilla (1847), Benjamin (1850), John (1851), Alfred (1855), Smith (1856) and Emily (1859).
Elizabeth died young in 1865, as did William in 1855. James seems never to have married and worked as a railway labourer in Pudsey until the 1890s. Benjamin married Mary Thornton at Halifax in 1871 and died in Huddersfield, having lived at Longwood (1881) and Birchencliffe (1901).
John married Nancy Holdsworth in Halifax 1880 and had a child, Ellen Elizabeth in 1882.
Smith married Elizabeth in 1856 and worked as a workhouse master in Halifax. He died in 1905.
Of the parents, William died in 1866 and Ellen Whalen died in 1880.
4. John Kippax (1815-1889)
John married Maria, four years his junior with whom he had a son, James, around 1846. Maria died seven years later, and John remarried Elizabeth, 21 years his junior.
John died at Schofield in Lane-Top, Marsden aged 74. His son James died in December 1921 aged 75. Confusingly, the gravestone of John, Maria and James also includes:
“Sarah Ann wife of James DUERDEN died February 6th 1930 aged 47yrs
Elizabeth DUERDEN died March 3rd 1962 aged 81yrs
Amos her husband died May 17th 1963 aged 84yrs”
I do not know what connection these have to the Kippaii.
5. Robert Kippax (b.1818)
Robert married in the 1840s, but his wife died before 1851, having born him a son named John around 1847.
6. Ann Kippax (b.1820)
I have not yet located Ann anywhere apart from her birth record.
7. Mary Kippax (b.1822)
Mary was still living with her parents and siblings at Sandbec in 1841. She was 15 years old at the time and was already working as a weaver. She married Henry Berry, a power loom weaver, in the 1840s and the two moved to Lane Bottom where they had a son, James, in 1850 and another, Robert, in 1855. Mary was working as a hand loom cotton weaver by the time of the 1851 census but ten years later was a housekeeper for the family instead.
8. Henry Kippax (1824-1899)
Henry also lived at Sandbec with his parents and siblings and worked as a weaver. He married Sarah with whom he had four children; Hannah, John, Mary Ann and Sarah.
His wife Sarah died in August 1879 whilst the family were at Lane Bottom. She was 58 years old. The daughter Hannah died in 1888 aged 26 and Henry himself, still residing at Lane Bottom passed away in 1899 aged 75.
9 Sarah Kippax (1826-1879)
Whilst many other Kippaii fled the town of Briercliffe, surely Sarah left the youngest. Before the 1841 census, she is in Friendly with brother William, and eventually ends up working at her sister-in-law’s pub, The Elephant and Castle in Holmfirth in the 1840s. She married a Holmfirth man, Billy Bray the butcher in 1848 and had a son with him the next year. The family lived at Hart Row in Cartworth and had another son, William Henry, in 1855. The early 1860s found them living above a pub, the Rose & Crown in Holmfirth town centre, before they fled to Bootle in Liverpool around 1866 or so. A third and final son, Alfred, was born at Marsh Lane there in 1868, making three children in three different decades!
Soon after, the family moved to Seaforth where Billy had a job as a bridgemaster. Sadly, both Billy and Sarah died the same day in January 1879. Sarah had a stroke, the shock of which gave Billy a heart attack that killed him. Sarah died a few hours later, not having recovered.
Young Alfred, then 11 years old, was taken in by his eldest brother whilst the middle brother, William, went to live in Widnes.
John died young too, but Alfred went on to have 12 children with two different sister, eventually passing away in 1939.
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