Kelsall Village Family Stories

John Cook is named on the Kelsall War Memorial but unlike the others’ named John was not a casualty of war but died of a condition now seemed of minor significance.   John was not from a Kelsall family but was born in Bradley, Staffordshire in 1868.   He was the second child and eldest son of William Cook and Emma Hodson who had married at St. Giles Church, Haughton on 10 th September 1864. Emma died in 1878, possibly following the birth of her third daughter Jemima.   With a young family to raise William remarried on 13 th December 1879 to Frances Howard at Castle Church, Staffordshire.   Although William was 37 at the time Frances, known as Fanny, was only 19 years old.   Fanny bore William a further 12 children though 3 did not survive to maturity.   After leaving school John did not follow his father but took to a life looking after horses.   In 1891 he was working as the ostler at the Malt Shovel Hotel in Litchfield.   Later in the deca...

  Being retired and a dog owner, I do a fair amount of walking and consider myself fairly knowledgeable of the local area, in particular Delamere Forest.   A chance conversation with a friend made me realise there was still more learn.   She asked if I knew about the Whistlebitch Well in Primrose Wood. I told her I’d never heard of it and so she gave me an impromptu history lesson. What made the story even more interesting was her family’s connection to it. I wanted to find out more and found a well documented article written about the ancient well on the internet. It seems that for a short time around 400 years ago the sleepy little village of Utkinton was as busy as any place in England, attracting as many as 2000 people daily.   Details of why the well became a pilgrimage for so many people is contained in a pamphlet published in London in 1600 and written in a letter from a Cheshire man to a Gentleman friend of his on 16 August 1600, headed ‘Newes out of Cheshi...

I found my four times Great Grandfather in a gaol in Richmond, Yorkshire in the 1851 census! I was horrified! What was his crime? Were we descended from the criminal class?  Our family was based in Salford, Lancashire and we had never heard stories about criminality. Then I noticed that his family were there too. That was strange! What was going on here? Peter, wife Mary, children Elizabeth, Ellen, Robert, John and Christopher, all there plus “Amos, prisoner”.  Did I have the right family? Yes, that was definitely them.   Took a deep breath and zoomed into the image on Ancestry.com for a closer look at that pencil-written entry, and what followed was a realisation, a moment of clarity – he was the Gaoler, his wife was the Matron, his children just children. Phew! Normal service was resumed, we were innocent!  We had a family visit to Richmond in 2007 and visited the gaol, a tiny place. We took photographs of the building and the front door. We felt connected to them,...