| We now had the name of my great great grandfather, John Hawkins, and the name of his wife, Charlotte. We decided that the next step should be to find them in 1881, back to the Archives! There were too many entries for John Hawkins so I decided to try Charlotte, and there they were, with an added bonus, as you will see:- 1881, 72, Edensor Road, Longton:- Lydia Grocott, 84yrs., born in BUCKNALL of all places!!! John Hawkins, 56yrs., born in Hanley, Charlotte Hawkins, 53yrs., I later found that she was christened at Maer, where Charles Darwin married Josiah Wedgwoods daughter. Also living there was their son, Frederick, 23yrs., and Emma, James' daughter, Phoebe's first child. What a stroke of luck! Absoloutely spot on! we now knew that John was born in Hanley, so luckily we were still local. Before we carry on though, I ought to mention Lydia Grocott. We checked the Bucknall Church records and the only Lydia to be born at that time was Lydia Brooks, born 5th. July 1795, to John and Ann Brooks. In all probability that will be her, but we can't be sure. I couldn't find her on the 1891 census, so...... The next part of our journey was to be the hardest, the census returns had no indexes and it was a matter of wading through, house by house, street by street until they could be found. Christenings, burials, marriages, we searched through hundreds of records, had success and failure, excitement and frustration. At times I cursed the inner tube, but the satisfaction of success always outweighed the failures by far. In 1871, when James and Phoebe were at Northwood Farm, John and Charlotte were at 62, Edensor Road, Longton, again with Lydia Grocott. John was a Saggar Maker throughout his working life. In 1861 John and Charlotte lived at Canning Street, Fenton, little James was 9 years old and already a saucer maker, not an apprentice either! John and Charlotte were married at Shelton Church on the 1st, April, 1850. The church at that time would have seemed magnificent, set amongst clusters of squalid houses. From the Marriage Certificate I obtained the name of his father....Aaron Hawkins....a shoemaker!....my great great great grandfather. John Hawkins left his mark on the marriage certificate, but Charlotte signed her name. As far as we could find out John and Charlotte had two other sons, Frederick, born in 1858, and Moses, born in 1853. Now then, on the 1861 census, at Canning Street, Frederick was there, but Moses wasn't, he would have been 8 years old..where was he? A mystery..... |
| From Inner Tube to Shoemakers....part 8.... |