The Boddens*
In 1868 Mary, the eldest of the Graham children, married James Bodden at St Joseph’s Catholic Chapel in Cockermouth, and in September 1869 their first child Andrew was born. But more about Mary and James later.
The Herring catch in barrells at Ardglass harbour
James’ father was John Bodden (my great, great, great Granda), born in Rosglass near the fishing port of Ardglass, Co. Down, about 1807. His wife, Jane Teer, came from the nearby village of Seaforde, in the parish of Loughinisland, Co. Down, about 4 miles inland.
*The surname is variously recorded as Bodden, Buddon, Bowdon and Bowden
The first church in Tievenadarragh townland, where the three roads meet (locally called The Stick), was built in 1740 to replace the ancient church on the island at Loughinisland, which was dismantled by the Forde family in 1720.
In the autumn of 1787, Father Patrick McCartan built a new church for the parish of Loughinisland and dedicated it to St. Macartan, patron saint of the diocese of Clogher. The opening of the new church marked the end of a period of acute sectarian animosity and though the penal (anti-catholic) legislation was still on the statute books, as long as Catholics gave no other cause of offence than the unobtrusive practice of their faith, the authorities from then on were prepared to tolerate them.
The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1836 describe the church as being 80 feet by 58 feet in a T shape. It was capable of holding 612 people and the floor was paved with stone after the manner of a road and the whole concern is in good repair. The Census of 1861 says that there were 2,700 Catholics in the parish.
In common with many microfilmed church registers, available for inspection in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the registers of Loughinisland parish vary from being difficult to read to being absolutely illegible, and for a long time I was unable to find any Bowden baptisms, but a recent find (August 2007) was; 13 October 1842 the baptism of Jane, daughter of John Bowden, sponsors Dan Toman and A Gilmore. This is approx a year earlier than the age given in the censuses but people were often vague about dates in these days. A month later John, the son of Philip Teer (a cousin or brother of Janet?) was baptised, sponsors Pat Gibbons and ? Teer.* Earlier the baptism of Bridget Teer, daughter of Philip Teer was recorded on 14 Feb 1813, sponsors Thomas Teer and Ann Burns. The fact that none of the Boden children was given the name Philip suggests that this Philip Teer was likely not Janet’s father, perhaps he was an uncle. The names Lindon/McAlindon and Doran, both families with links with the Bowdens in England occur frequently in the Loughinisland register.
Seaforde Village.
SEAFORDE, a village, in the parish of LOUGHINISLAND, barony of KINELEARTY, county of DOWN, and province of ULSTER, 1 mile (N.) from Clough. This village, which was anciently called Neaghen, is small but very handsomely built, consisting of one principal street, from the centre of which a smaller street branches off at right angles. The manor of Seaforde extends over the whole of the parish, with the exception only of the townland of Clough; and a court is held every three weeks in which debts to the amount of £2 are recoverable: petty sessions arc also held on alternate Tuesdays, and fairs on March 7th, June 9th, Sept 4th, and Dec. 6th. The parish church, a handsome edifice, is situated in the village; and there is a place of worship for Presbyterians in connection with the Seceding Synod, of the second class. There are also six handsome alms-houses, erected in 1828 by Col. Forde, who endowed them with £60 per ann. for six aged widows; and some schools.
LOUGHIN-ISLAND, a parish, in the barony of KINELEARTY, county of DOWN, and province of ULSTER, on the road from Newry to Downpatrick; containing, with the post-town of Clough and the villages of Seaford and Anadorn (which see), 6574 inhabitants. The parish, according to the Ordnance survey, comprises 12,485¾ statute acres, of which 124¾ are water, and 9767 are applotted under the tithe act; about one-half of the land is of the richest quality, and of the remainder, with the exception of a small proportion of waste and bog, the greater part is tolerably fertile. There are some quarries of stone, which is used for building and mending the roads; and near the mountains some very good slate for roofing is obtained.. The linen manufacture was established here in 1815 by Mr. Cromie, and not less than 42,000 webs are annually made from English mill-spun yarn, affording employment to more than 3000 persons. The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Down, in the patronage of the Bishop: the tithes amount to £550. The church, situated at Seaforde, is a handsome edifice in the Grecian style, with an octagonal spire of wood covered with copper; it was built in 1720, and has been recently repaired by a grant of £362 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; the approach to it is through a fine avenue of trees. In the R. C. divisions the parish is partly in the union or district of Ballykindlar, and the remainder forms the head of the district of Loughin-Island; the chapel is a plain building, and there is also a chapel at Drumaroad for the union of Ballykindlar. There is a place of worship at Clough for Presbyterians. (from Lewis’ Topographical Survey of Ireland)
Map showing Ardglass and Seaforde
Ardglass, Co. Down, the masts of the modern
day fishing fleet.
An eviction in Down
The Bowdens in England
The Boddens came to England between 1846 and 1849. In the winter of 1846-7 the famine was particularly severe in Ulster,it was known as ‘the black 47’ and this could explain when and why the Boddens moved. The 1851,61 and 71 census all show the first five of the Bodden children, including James, and their mother, Janet Teer,were born in Seaforde, Co. Down. After examining a better copy of the 1871 census, it now seems that John Bowden was born in Rosglass (rather than in the neighbouring town of Ardglass. Records of Dunsford and Ardglass parishes date from the time just after the family left for England.
Eleanor was the first to be born in England on Saturday 12 August 1849, in the village of Brigham (on the banks of the Cumbrian Derwent).
The 1851 census shows that Mary Ann Bowden was born in Ireland about 1837. James was born in Ireland about 1840, his brother John in Ireland about 1842, Jane in Ireland about 1844, and Catherine in Ireland in 1846.
An Irish ‘Cockle man’ with his donkey and cart. Cockles
were an important part of the diet in coastal areas of
Ireland (and England).
In 1849 and 1851 John Bodden was described on the census return as a labourer; in 1861 he was a ‘labourer at coal pit’, and finally in 1871 he was an agricultural labourer.
The Bodens lived at Ladywath Cottages Brigham, near Cockermouth Bodens from sometime in the 1860’s, until John’s death in 1876.
Ladywath Cottages Brigham.
The marriage of James Bodden and Mary Graham
As mentioned earlier James (28) and Mary (21) were married at St Joseph’s Cockermouth on 15 November 1868, the witnesses were James Graham and Jane Bodden. James, like his father in law Andrew, was a miner, and John was a labourer. The priest was John O’Connor, only he and James Graham were able to sign their names.
St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Cockermouth.
St Joseph’s was opened in 1856 in response to the influx of Irish immigrants who found employment in the thriving mills and coal mines of the town and the surrounding area.
The following year (8th of September 1869) saw the birth of Andrew Graham, as was the tradition he was named after his father’s father. Andrew was born at Brigham, presumably at Ladywath Cottages.
James Bodden’s Sisters and their children
James’ younger sisters had unconventional lives; three out of four of them had children before they were married. They all married shortly afterwards and most of the children seem to have been absorbed into their new families.
Catherine (Bowden) Barton
Catherine Bowden and her daughter Elenor Bowden (born Ladywath 18 September 1869) appear at Ladywath on the 1871 census. Catherine (name recorded as Boudden) married John Barton, a coal miner, in the autumn of 1871; so she and her daughter Ellen became Bartons. At the time of the 1881 census, they were living in the village of Gilcrux, near Cockermouth; the census suggests that they were one of several families living at the Royal Oak Inn. John Barton’s father who lived in the same village was a nailmaker. John (39) and Catherine (44) (Bowden) Barton appear on the 1891 census at Ellenborough, Maryport. There were eight children, including Thomas (18) and two lodgers in the four roomed house at Buckhanon Terrace. Ellenborough, near Maryport, Cumberland. There seems to be little doubt that the Bartons moved to Pelton in Co Durham some time shortly after the census, as the death of a John Barton was reported at Chester le Street in Durham in the summer of 1892. He was a 41 year old miner of Perkinsville, Pelton, Co Durham. His death was reported by his son Thomas; the presence of Thomas Barton, born in Brigham in Pelton in 1901, confirms that this was the case. David Thomas Coulson, 26, married Ellen Bowden, 25, at the (Anglican) parish church at Dearham, just inland from Maryport on 30 December 1893. Both bride and groom were from Ellenborough, David, a miner, decribed his father, James, as a fruiterer. James Coulson appears on the 1871,81 and 91 censuses as a greengrocer near Houghton Le Spring in Co Durham. It seems very likely that the couple met in when the Bartons were in Co Durham, and that after John’s death David Coulson moved to Cumberland with Ellen and her mother, or followed them there. | |
Unusually three witnesses appear on David and Ellen’s marriage certificate. John Barton, presumably Ellen’s 18 year old half brother, George Martin, there were two in Ellenbrough, a blacksmith from Distington, and a miner, born in Gilcrux, a village where Ellen and her mother lived in 1881. The third witness was Martha Armstrong, a single girl from Ellenborough who lived with her (unmarried) mother and coal miner brother. The 1901 census revealed that Ellen and David had crossed the Pennines by 1894, as the birth of the first of Ellen and David Coulson’s children, Margaret , in Ponteland, was registered in the Dec. ¼ 0f 1894 in Castle Ward Northumberland. The census shows the family at willington Square, Willington, Northumberland, near Tynemouth, David was a stoneman at the pit; in the family group is her illegitimate son Joseph Bowden born 20 April 1887 at Gilcrux, Cumberland, a 13 year old ‘coal pony driver’. |
Back in Cumberland, in the winter of 1894 Catherine, now a widow, married William Smith (38) a miner at Ellenborough. William was the son of Matthew, a ‘ship carpenter’; witnesses John Osmotherley and May Hamilton. 1901 found the Catherine Smith (born Catherine Bowden in Co Down) and her husband in North Gate, Willington, Northumberland, in the next but one street to Ellen and David Coulson. In the Smith household were Bartons, Catherine’s children, and Barton and Coulson grandchildren.
Births Dec 1898 | |||||||
Coulson | William | 10b | |||||
Applied for 29 10 2008.
Births Jun 1887 | |||||||
Bowden | Joseph | 10b | |||||
Elizabeth (Bodan) Wren
Elizabeth’s son John was born on 28 July 1873 (baptised 2 February 1874 at St Joseph’s, Cockermouth). Elizabeth married Joseph Wren, a coal miner, on 10 May 1875 in the register office at Cockermouth, and John adopted his mother’s new surname, Wren. Witnesses at the wedding were John Webster and Frances Bell, both of mining familes in Brigham. Joseph Wren lived with his father and siblings at Derwent Row Brigham prior to his marriage. In 1881 the Wrens were living at Billy Hill near Crook in South West Durham, next to the Shepherd’s Arms Public House.
The 1891 census found Joseph and Elizabeth (Bowden) Wren back in Cumberland at Ellenborough, Maryport where Joseph was a coalminer. The family included four children born in Crook, Co Durham, the youngest of these was Sarah Anne aged 4. The youngest child in the family Mary Ellen had been born in 1890 in Ellenborough. John Wren (born Bowden) was not in his mother and stepfather’s household, and cannot be found on the census in Cumberland, Durham, or Northumberland. John’s parents, Joseph and Elizabeth (Bowden) Wren, were still in Cumberland, where they had returned in 1891, but they had moved from Ellenborough, to another pit village on the outskirts of Maryport – Flinby. Catherine and Sarah Ann Wren, both born in Billy Row, were now pit brow lasses. They worked removing stone and clay from the coal and breaking up large lumps of coal at the pithead.
Pitbrow lasses 1902
The caption reads, ‘Cleaning the coal at the pit brow, the
women and girls remove the waste from the screens’.
In 1901 Joseph, Elizabeth and family were at Flimby, just down the coast from Maryport, Joseph senior and junior were both miners, Catherine, 22 and Sarah, 15 were both pitbrow lasses. There was also a 3 year old grandson, John, born at Flimby. 1911 search next month had Eliz died?(May 2009)
The John Wren,26, working as a joiner in Consett in 1901 may have been the brother of the pit brow lasses. He and his wife Mary (born Consett) were lodging in the household of William Dickinson at 80 Sherburn Terrace, Consett. In the same household was William Dickinson’s grandson William Graham (with no obvious link to our Grahams.
Consett about 1890, with the Anglican Church in the background
Jane Bowden and her son James (born 1864) were be found in the picturesque village of Blennerhasset in Cumberland in 1881, with her husband William Rumney, coal miner, and their four children. James Bodden, recorded as William Rumney’s ‘son-in-law’ but actually his stepson, 16, was working as a railway porter. The village pub, ‘The Goat’, has several photos of the railway line which used to run through the village, and where James would have worked. By 1891 James Bowden was no longer living with the Rumneys. He was in Cheetham, Manchester, where he was working as a clerk in a coal yard. He married Edith Elizabeth Hanson at the Parish Church (C of E) of St John the Evangelist’s at Cheetham, Manchester, on 7 November 1891. James gave his father’s name as John Bowden, a farmer. While his father was not John Bowden he may have been called John, and may have been a farmer. Illegitimacy carried such a stigma in those days that if James invented details about his father, he can hardly be blamed. James worked as a clerk, and both he and his wife were able to sign the marriage register. James Bowden appears on the 1901 census in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, with his wife Edith, three sons, two daughters, and his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Hanson. James was the manager of a coal merchant’s business. Dorothy, the eldest child, was born in Manchester in 1893. I intend to see if I can trace further generations of the Bowdens in Manchester.
The 1911 census returns became available in January 2009, and they reveal that James and edith had prospered. James, manager for a coal merchant in 1901 was now a coal merchant himself. They had also moved from the suburbs of Manchester to a much more agreeable location –Lytham on the Lancashire coast. They had no live-in servants, but their house in was comprised of 8 rooms (presumably ’not including bathroom or closet’ as directed in census instructions). The ages and birth places of the youngest of the children indicate the Bowdens moved from Manchester between 1905 and 1909; the two year old James of 1901 had become the 12 year old Bertie. Edith’s mother Elizabeth Hanson w as no longer with the family, perhaps she had died.
In 1862 John Bodden’s son John had married Mary Linden, at St Joseph’s Cockermouth. Both the bride and groom were born in Ireland (some Irish Lindens appear on the 1851 census of Cockermouth; it’s a name that appears mostly in counties Armagh and Down). Their first three sons were born in Cumberland: John in 1863, James in 1864 and Joseph in 1867.
