Pat's Story~
Yorkshire and Lancashire
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...whilst John and Elizabeth Pomery were living in Werrington during the 1770's,  in
Howden East Yorkshire lived Maria Moor(e).
Maria managed to give birth to 5 illigitimate sons. John c 1778, Robert c 1782, Richard c 1786, Joseph c 1791, and William c 1796. No mean fete in the time of parish relief ,when parishes did their utmost to find the fathers' of illigitimate children and slap a bastardy order on them to ensure they provided for the mother and child. To date no
bastardy orders relating to Maria and her offspring have been found but she and her sons remained in the Howden area, suggesting that Maria herself was brought up there.

Maria's son Robert,born about 1782, Pat's 3 times greatgrandfather, appears to have become relatively respectable. He married Mary Jane King in 1807 earning his living as an agricultural labourer. They lived in a modest cottage at 5 Pinfold Street, Howden, where Mary produced at least seven children  with five of them surviving into adulthood.

Their eldest son Thomas born in 1809 managed to acquire an education which set him on the road to prosterity, raising his family status considerably. He became a schoolmaster in Bilborough a small village 20 miles from York. In March 1837 he married Mary Ann Headley, a farmer's daughter from York.Their first child was Henry Headly Moore born 1839. Their next two children Mary Ann and Robert Moore were born at nearby
Bramham.

Family legend has it that Thomas met someone connected with the Tennant family, a brewing family of Sheffield.Thomas was offered a job as a book keeper for the company. He obviously saw this as an opportunity for advancment because by the time Pat's great grandfather, Edward Thomas Moore was born in 1846 the family had moved to Sheffield. Thomas 's career progressed with the
Exchange Brewery. He was soon a managing director and partner in the brewery.
Sheffield and Thomas were good for each other.
Sheffield offered Thomas opportunities for advancment he was obviously seeking whilst he in turn became very involved in public life.
He was unique in becoming the only mayor of
Sheffield to serve four consecutive terms. His portrait has recently been returned to the Town Hall where it now oversees visitors to the mayor's parlour.

In 1869 Thomas's son Edward married Maria Garside. She was daughter of Joseph Garside , a merchant and businessman from Worksop. Pat found an record of Joseph Garside's  funeral in Worksop July 1893 during a visit to a newpaper archive. She  suspects that Thomas and Joseph were involved in some sort of business arangement and probably the marriage was encouraged by both families. Edward became a solicitor in Sheffield and they appear to have had a very comfortable standard of living. They went on to have 4 sons. Ralph Headly Moore born 1871, Edward Grafton Moor born 1872 ( named after Maria's mother, Catherine Grafton), Cuthbert born 1875 and Harold born 1876. Tragically only Ralph and Edward survived into adulthood. Cuthbert died in a drowning accident whilst studying at Oxford and Harold died the following year. Both of them are buried with their grandparents and father at All Saints Eccleshall Sheffield.

Meanwhile in
Calcutta in India, James Richard Webber Pomeroy, son of Augustus  Stephen Pomeroy married Eliza Colloden. They returned to England for the birth of their first child in 1875.  James Augustus Pomeroy  sadly died aged only one year at Albert Dock House in Liverpool . Their next  three children were born in India, the eldest, Pat's  grandmother, Mabel Georgina Pomeroy, was born in  1877. Her  brother Walter followed and then  Harrison Hornblow Pomeroy , named after a brother of James Richard,  was born in 1880.
Note from Annie wondering what James was doing in Calcutta?  was he perhaps an agent for the East India Docks Company?
James Richard Webber Pomeroy contracted typhoid and died at the London home of his brother Walter William Pomeroy at the relatively young age of 35. His widow moved to Liscard in Cheshire with her children where, we believe, her father in law Augustus Pomeroy helped them find a place to live and provided for them financially.

In Sheffield there were high hopes for Pat's grandfather Edward Grafton Moore. It was hoped that he  would become involved in the brewing business. However Edward had other ideas and moved to Liverpool where he became a ship owner. Whilst in Liverpool he met the vivacious Mabel Pomeroy and the couple married in 1899. They moved out of Liverpool  going along the coast to
Formby where they had 2 sons, Cuthbert Grafton Moore born 1901 and Headley Grafton Moore born 1905.  Headley was named after both his great grandmothers - Mary Ann Headley (1811-1880) Thomas Moore's wife and Catherine Grafton (1815-1860) who was the mother of Catherine Garside (Edward Thomas Moore's wife).  Headley was Pat's father.

Unfortunately Edward Moore appears to have been a poor businessman.  Family legend has it that his father Edward Thomas Moore in Sheffield bailed him out many times but in the end declared that enough was enough. The decline in the family fortunes was exacerbated following the death of Edward Thomas Moore in 1914. as a few years later his widow Maria married a vicar, Alexander Melville, He  was some 20 years her junior  and a large proportion of the family fortune went to him on her death in 1921.

Pat's father became a preparatory  school master, a respectable profession for an impoverished middle class son in the 1930s. He enlisted in the Royal Navy when the Second World War broke out. The Navy suited  Headley Moore and he ended up in command of a mine sweeper. At the end of the war he was offered a further command but he decided to return to civilian life , a wise decision as the crew of the ship he had been offered subsquently mutinied.
One of his former headmasters offered him a teaching position and he returned to prep school  teaching 
(In England  Prep schools prepare children to go to Public schools which are fee paying private schools ) He went to Terra Nova near Holmes Chapel in Cheshire. On the staff at the time was a young assistant matron, Pamela Joyce Carlisle, a solicitor's daughter form Southport . They married a few years later in 1949 and made their home in nearby Goostrey. Pat was born Patricia Anne Moore in 1952 and her brother Michael Grafton Moore in 1955. Her father continued teaching at Terra Nova until he was well into his 70's.
In the mid 1980's the family moved south to
Ovingdean a village a few miles form Brighton where her mother still lives, her father died in 2000 two weeks before his 95 birthday. There was always an element of rivalry between Headley and Cuthbert and Headley managed to outlive his brother by  several months.

Headley Moore's passion was painting ships and he left a legacy of  a vast collection of paintings and drawings of Liverpool and its docks, including some of the areas where his grandfather
Augustus Pomeroy lived and worked.
There is a proposed exhibition of his watercolour in Liverpool,date as yet known possibly around 2006
click to enlarge this image and another example of Hedley Moore's beautiful Liverpool artwork
Emperess of France , ship images by Hedley Moores work from Liverpool Docks.
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