On the trail of the Rileys

A birthday treat

I turned 50 on Tuesday (2nd August 2022). A venerable age and a date that turned my mind to my forebears. My father-in-law is visiting from Australia at the moment and I suggested to him and Liz (my wife) that I might like to spend the day afterwards doing a bit of a tour of the places of my ancestors. Liz has been very tolerant of my interest in family history during the pandemic and my fascination in the detail of a family from long ago, and she, and her dad, agreed to indulge me. So what follows is a bit of a narrative of a day out in Yorkshire following the footsteps of the family (and a few other destinations)

A word about the route

Below is a map of the route that we took. If you click the button on the top left if shows a panel with a key to all the stops we took. We started off at letter J

Harrogate to Bradford

Liz and I live in Harrogate, a spa town on the edge of the North Yorkshire dales. It's a very pretty place full of open parkland and a town that takes pride in it's flowers and plants. The journey south towards the towns/cities of West Yorkshire goes through some lovely countryside with dry stone walls and fields and paddocks full of lambs and sheep. It's also a very hilly place with seemingly no flat ground and the journey is full of ups and down.

8 Oak Mount (Letter B)

8 Oak Mount, Bradford was the home of John Malcolm and Jane McLaren (my 4 x great grandparents) from sometime between 1866 and 1894. The family had moved to Bradford from Halifax at some point after the birth of Jennie McLaren in 1858 and before the census in 1861. The family's first house in Bradford was a terrace house in Southfield Square, where many of the villas and terraces were built for textile merchants and manufacturers and other tradesmen and professionals who were attracted to the town. Less than 10 years later, the family moved to a new house at 8 Oak Mount.

This was on a new development, the Oak Estate, in the increasingly affluent area of Manningham in Bradford. The Villas and Semi-detached houses were built in the area at some point between 1866 and 1871. The area is a bit run down now and many of the large houses converted to multi-person residences and apartments. However 8 Oak Mount remains as a whole building and the offices of an architecture firm, Langtry-Langdon.

We pulled up to the house, and I took a few photos. I then thought to take a chance and knock on the door. I was let in by the firm's secretary who let me have a look around. I was content to just have a look at the hallway, but Maureen suggested I have a look at the boardroom.

This room still had the original fittings and wall hangings from when the house was built. I couldn't work out what the room would have been used for at the time, but it was great to see it still in use today.

On the outside of the house there was a monogram in stone on the top right, above the entrance. To our eyes, this read as the letters J Mc L - which I think would indicate John McLaren. I don't know if this was the same badge that he used for his company, but it's quite a statement to carve in stone. Doing a bit of reading about the houses in the street, there are other crests and symbols made at the same time - so it wasn't that unusual, just different to our own times.

The street itself was originally occupied by families with similar stories to John and Jane McLaren. There were many families on the street that were part of the community of German woollen merchants that lived in Bradford at the time. From various newspaper clippings, the McLarens had good relationship with their neighbours. It would have been quite a life there.

Moorfield, Clayton (Letter C)

We left Manningham and headed to Moorfield in Clayton. This was the house that was lived in by Joe and Elizabeth Helen Riley from somepoint between 1882 and 1895. Joe and Elizabeth's youngest child, Norman, was born in this house in 1888. Also this is the address recorded in many newspapers from the late 1880s as where Joe Riley raised prize-winning Chickens and Goats.

The house is the last in the village, next to the big open area of moorland. These days it's connected to Bradford, and is about 3 miles from Bradford city centre, but it would have been quite remote in the 1880s/1890s. I previously wrote that this would be a lonely place for a young mother and her children, and our visit there confirms that. During the autumn and winter months it would have been a very bleak place to be. This may explain why the family had moved to Southport on the Lancashire coast in 1891 and 1892.

From Joe Riley's probate document given after he had gone missing in 1895, this was given as his last address. On the day we visited it was sunny and green and the house looked lovely. However from the small pieces of the jigsaw that we know of their lives, this may not have been a happy place.

Clayton to Northowram (Letter D)

We left Clayton over Bradford Moor and headed for Northowram. About halfway through the village of Queensbury was originally quite a rural place of small farmers, but by the middle of the 19th century, the town was full of the chimney stacks of the the woollen mills. A little further on is the village of Northowram, this is where many Rileys and Haleys came from. John Riley married Elizabeth Haley there in 1855 at Heywood's Chapel, now a redundant United Reformed Church. On the outskirts of town is the parish church of St John the Baptist.

The records show that Isaac Haley and both his first and second wives are buried in the churchyard. Isaac Haley and his second wife, Hannah Sutcliffe, are my 4 times great-grandparents. He was stone merchant and also a cloth merchant, a fairly prosperous man when he died.

Around the churchyard there is an extensive number of graves, first around the church and also in an extension across the road. (From where the picture is taken). Unfortunately the church was locked and there was no-one to ask for a grave plan. At the back of the church there were a number of graves that had been taken over by nettles and brambles. We thought the graves of Isaac and Hannah may be under that overgrowth. In the rest of the churchyard there were many memorials to Rileys, who must be indirect relatives.

The grave on the left is for John and Ann Riley who lived in Northowram. These are very distant relatives of my branch of the Rileys. However, John was a publican in the district when my direct desendents lived in Hipperholme and it's likely he would have known people in my line of descent.

Hipperholme (Letter E)

One of the traps that I have fallen into when researching the family history is that I have created an image of what a place is like, based on the records from 100 years ago. I had a mental image that Hipperholme was a quaint village on the outskirts of Halifax, full of greenery and light. Not so. It's now a busy throughfare with an 1800s road system with 2022 traffic. This was not a relaxing experience. The place we were visiting was 10 The Crescent.This is where Joe and Helen Riley lived at the time of the 1881 census after their return from Sussex. It's also where Lawrence Riley, my great grandfather was born.

It would have been really pleasant when my relatives lived there. There are 28 houses arranged in a crescent with a driveway going through the middle of the shape. There are the remains of a formal gate at the entrance to the drive.

No 10 The Crescent was where Lawrence Riley was born. It looks like a 4 bedroom house. It wasn't far from his parents house at Woodside in the village. From the 1881 census, the family lived there with a domestic servant, Elizabeth Muxlow. We didn't want to take too many pictures of a private house and went on.

Hipperholme to Halifax (Letter F)

Once we were able to join back on to the main road, we headed to Halifax. One of the places that we passed on the way was Shibden Hall, a stately home on the hill across the valley from Hipperholme. Shibden Hall is famous now as the house that was owned by the Lister family. The Lister's are very distant relations that married into the extended Haley and Riley families in the early 1800s. The Hall is particularly famous now as it was the home of Anne Lister (1791 - 1840). The BBC have just made a TV series - Gentleman Jack - which describe's Anne Lister's life but also mentions the time she spent as a developer of Harrogate in the early 19th Century. John Riley would certainly have known her.

Coming in to Halifax on the busy road we had to stop for some traffic works. One place we stopped was on a bridge that has been built over the North Bridge, once the ceremonial entrance to the town and where the funeral cortege of John Riley was greeted by the Mayor of Halifax in 1884.

Lister Lane cemetary

The main reason for visiting Halifax was to visit the Lister Lane cemetary. I went last September and found the graves of John and Elizabeth Riley and other relations. However I didn't really get the chance to see everything I had wanted. The graveyard is in an odd part of town - half of big terraces and grand houses from the middle of the 19th century, and half full of run down houses.

I went and paid my respects to my 4 times great grandparents. Their grave is still covered with bramble and leaf, but a fixed point. There were three other family graves that I wanted to see.

The first was Edward and Ann Riley (nee Holdsworth) This was John Riley's brother and his wife. So my 3 times great granduncle and aunt. He was a publican in the town and the licensee of the Black Swan in the town in 1845. He had a similar career journey to his brother, beginning as a tailor and merchant in Ovenden and then becoming an innkeeper. After 2 years running the pub he died, leaving his wife to take on the business.

One of their daughter's Mary Hannah Riley, married a man named William Pearson. It appears that they moved to Toronto at some point in the 1850s before moving back to England around 5 years later.

The second grave I wanted to visit was a bit harder to get to. It was on the far side of the cemetary, three rows from the back and covered with weeds. This is the grave of James Turner Riley (1835-1912) and his wife Emma Marvell (1839-1905). Also, confusingly their children, James Turner Riley (1864-1866) and Emma Riley. (1866-1866).

James Turner Riley (snr) was the son of John and Edward Riley's brother Matthew. He was a grocer and tea merchant from at least 1861. However his chief claim to fame in his early life was as a breeder of dogs. He exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition in 1863 and won first prize and a gold medal. Emperor Napoleon III of France purchased two of his dogs for delivery to the Tuilleries palace. and in return James Turner Riley received 2 vases directly from the Emperor that he later bequeathed to his son, Matthew.

Later in life, like his uncle John Riley, James Turner Riley became a councillor for Halifax Borough and promoted to Alderman. THere was some scandal in the late 1870s when he was accused of being corupt in the award of a contract to the Gas works, but he was later exhonerated and came back to civic life.

He was one of the named executors in John Riley's will and obviously was a trusted personal and professional confidante. His son, George Marvell Riley, handled John Riley's estate for over 60 years after John Riley' death in 1884.

The last grave I wanted to find in the cemetary was not a Riley, but a McLaren. John Malcolm and Jane McLaren lived in Halifax after their wedding in 1852. Their house was on Gerard St, about 100 metres from the Lister Lane cemetary. Their second born child, was a boy, John Graham McLaren, named for John Malcolm's father. John Graham was born in 1854 and died a year later on the 5th November 1855.

I don't get sentimental about cemetery's but this affected me quite a bit. There are still Rileys in the Halifax area, and it's unlikely, but people from that family may have paid their respects there at some time in the last 100 years. There are no McLaren's who have been in the area since about 1900. I know a grave isn't the only way to remember a person, but it is a focus of a life. So a little prayer and remembrance for the infant who was my 2nd great-granduncle

Halifax to Haworth via Illingworth St Mary (Letter G)

We left Halifax on the road climbing out towards Ovenden, where James and Hannah Riley (5 times great grandparents) are buried in the churchyard at Illingworth St Mary. There is a record of them being buried there, but the gravesites are currently unknown. I will try to come back to this area at some point. We drove on towards Haworth, a town about 10 miles from Halifax. This town is known largely for it's steep high cobbled high street full of independent shops and the parsonage where the Bronte sister's and their brother, Bramwell, lived in the early 19th century. The parsonage is now a museum celebrating the lives of the Bronte children and their father. It's full of their writings and memorabilia showing the work created there and the nature of the women, who made a name for themselves.

However it's Bramwell Bronte that I was most taken by. He was an unfortunate man. As the only son of the family, he was expected to find a profession that could support the family if his sisters didn't marry. He tried his hand at many things, a tutor, a stationmaster and as an artist. It's as an artist that we have a tangential family connection. One of this art tutors was a friend, J B Leyland, a sculptor in Halifax. Leyland was an intimate friend of my 4 times great grandmother Elizabeth Riley and Leyland rented a studio from John Riley in the Union Cross Inn yard. Leyland fell into drunkeness and debt and was eventually imprisioned. Bramwell Bronte avoided the fate of a prison sentence with his father paying off bailiffs just in time. Bramwell Bronte fell further into disrepute and started using opium and laudanum to excess. He died from consumption (TB) in 1848, aged 31.

In the museum, they've recreated his bedroom as the room of a drunken and dissolute man. Almost the contrast between his sisters great work, and Bramwell dragging them down. At the end of the museum there is a sculpture by his friend J.B. Leyland (The dog's head below) as a memory of his time in Halifax when he would have known my forebears.

Haworth to Burnsall (Letter I)

It was quite a hot day (for English standards) by the time that we finished at Haworth. So as not to drive back on the hot and dry main road we continued north into the Yorkshire dales. When we moved to Yorkshire in October 2018, a colleague, Hayley, gave me a copy of a book called 'The Yorkshire Passport" This is a humerous attempt at unpacking the language and culture of Yorkshire. In the book it recommends the village of Bursall as being one of the finest sites in Yorkshire. And that's where we ended up. This is a beautiful spot, under a steep hill with heather on the hillside, an old stone bridge and a bend in the river. It seems a world away from the streets of inner Bradford and Halifax and the now urban villages of Northowram and Hipperholme.

It was a good spot to try and make sense of the day. I wrote when I first started looking into my family history that I didn't quite know what to make of these names and places and pasts that are connected to me, but unknown to me. Today I walked on streets where my people had walked, seen the last repose of people, that 2 years ago would have seeme quite random.

I don't know what all of this means. I think sub-conciously, I wanted to do this trip today as it was the 29th anniversary of the death of my father, Peter Riley on 3rd August 1993. He's buried in Vancouver, a long way from these Yorkshire Dales and these people whose lives he may not have known. So perhaps thats the thing, by visiting the places of the past, I got to honour the memory of my father and continue the journey to understand what it means to be his son. If nothing else it was a grand day out!

Vale Peter John Riley (14/1/1937 - 3/8/1993)

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