This
lovely undated photo was taken at Esholt Hall in the West Riding of Yorkshire, possibly at
Whitsuntide in 1895.
It shows
six of Arthur and Ellen Dale’s nine children. Arthur was Head
Gardener at Esholt Hall in the Aire valley and the Dale kids grew up in the
Gardener’s House in the grounds.
Annie,
aged 5, is on the left holding the hand of her sister, 10-year-old Martha
Helena (nicknamed Cissie). Arthur Clement (3) is
sitting on the knee of Mary Edith (aged 12, the eldest of the Dale
kids). Lillie (8) is standing behind and Edward Wilson Dale, just
turned 7, is on the right with the look of a lad expecting to get into trouble
any minute.
Baby
George, aged 1, does not feature. Two more additions to the family
were still to come - Charles Victor was born in 1897 and Frances Emily in
1901.
The kids’
parents, Arthur Dale and Ellen Parkin, had married at Greenbank Chapel in
Darlington, Co. Durham, on 2 September 1882. Arthur was aged 28 and had moved
from Pilsley, a village on the Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire to work as a
gardener at Woodside House, Darlington. It was there that he met
Ellen, aged 23, from Thornley near Wolsingham. She had taken a job
at the House in 1881/82.
Arthur and
Ellen moved to the West Riding of Yorkshire in early 1883 when Arthur
successfully applied for a job as gardener at Virginia House in North Grange
Road, Headingley, Leeds, the home of a surgeon. A family house came
with the post and the two eldest children, Mary Edith and Martha Helena, were
born there in 1883 and 1884 respectively.
In 1885/86,
Arthur was appointed Head Gardener at Esholt Hall, home of Major-General
William Crompton-Stansfield (a retired solider and veteran of the Crimean War),
his wife and three grown-up daughters.
The Esholt Estate is on the banks of the river Aire between Apperley
Bridge and Shipley, 8 miles up the valley from Headingley. The
Major-General died in 1888, followed by his wife in 1890, but their daughters
continued to live at the Hall.
The
Gardener's House was the birthplace of seven Dale kids starting with Lillie in
November 1886. It is the background to the undated photo below.
The back
row, left to right, features Lillie, Charles Victor (in his father’s arms),
Arthur, Ellen, Martha Helena and Edward Wilson. George is the little
lad in the sailor suit in front on the left and Arthur Clement is sitting on
the grass on the right. The eldest daughter, Mary Edith and her
sister Annie are absent although a figure can be seen leaning towards the open
window on the right.
My guess
is that the picture might have been taken in the summer of
1899. There was cause for celebration that summer – a plan by
Bradford Corporation to acquire around a third of the 1,700 acre Esholt Estate for a
sewage works was rejected by a Committee of the House of Commons[i] on 30 June 1899. The Shipley
Times and Express of 8 July 1899 reported plans for a celebratory tea
party to be held in August for the villagers (and presumably the staff at the
Hall). Perhaps the photo below of Arthur, Eleanor and their children
was taken on the day of the party when everyone was dressed in their best and a
professional photographer was on hand?
The
location of the Gardener’s House in relation to the Hall, Estate and
surrounding area (as they would have appeared in the 1890s) is shown in the map opposite. It is an unusual spot on a bend
in the river - a huge triangle of land bounded by a road and railway to the
west, and railway to the east and south. There were, and still are, no through roads
open to traffic. The Estate was still
relatively rural and unspoilt in the 1890s - in some ways it looks like the
Dale kids grew up in an idyllic setting - at least if they could ignore the stench from
the river, particularly in summer.
The Crompton -Stansfield sisters were very attached to their home and determined to defend it but Bradford Corporation did not abandon its plans for a sewage works. Despite another temporary reprieve in July 1901[ii], when the scheme was again rejected by Parliament, it became clear that the writing was on the wall. The deal was done in February 1904 when it was agreed that the Corporation could buy the whole Estate at a price to be fixed by arbitration.
By that time, the Dales had already left Esholt, moving to Dick’s Garth Road in Menston where Arthur and Ellen would live for the rest of their lives. Arthur was still working as a gardener in 1911 but by 1921, at the age of 67, he was employed as a yardman by JJL and C Peate Ltd, woollen manufacturers, at Nunroyd Mill in Guiseley.
Arthur died on 16 August 1930 and Ellen five years later on 31 August 1935. They are pictured below in later life, probably the late 1920s.
As for what happened to their children:
Mary Edith Dale
Mary Edith, who was in service by 1901, emigrated to Australia in 1909. She sailed from London to Sydney aboard the Ophir on 19 March, arriving five weeks later on 1 May. The crew included her future husband, one “H Martin”, from Grays in Essex, a refrigeration greaser. It looks like he and Mary had a shipboard romance as Henry Samuel Martin from Grays, Essex married Mary Edith Dale at All Souls in Leichardt, Sydney on 4 October 1911.
Before their marriage, Henry continued to work for
a while on UK-based ships, on the run between London, Sydney and
Brisbane. However, in September 1910 he appears to have made a
permanent move to Australia, signing up as a fireman on the Kakapo sailing
between Tasmania and Sydney. He then transferred to the Karoola in
January 1911 on the Sydney - Fremantle run. He docked in Sydney two
days before his wedding in October 1911. Henry and Mary had five
children – Arthur Billington, Charles Henry Dale, Constance Eleanor, Nancy
Rosalie and Elsie Mavis. When Henry died on 22 October 1946 his
obituary described him as a marine engineer who had spent the greater part of
his time at sea, later establishing a dairy in Fairfield Road.[iii] Mary Edith died in
Sydney in 1955.
Martha Helena (Cissie) Dale
Martha Helena worked in a worsted mill before her
marriage to railway clerk Ernest Dolby on 7 April 1913. Martha and
Ernest lived in Menston for the rest of their lives. Their only
child, Charles Kenneth, was born in 1921. Ernest Dolby died on 27 December
1938 at the age of only 53 and Martha Helena died on 28 October 1959.
Edward Wilson (Ted) Dale
Ted Dale went into the leather industry after
leaving school and was working as a leather currier in Leeds in
1911. He married Amelia Mathers Hampshaw later that
year. They lived in the ‘Alphabet Streets’ off Kirkstall Road which
was very handy for his workplace, Paul’s Tannery, where he rose to the level of
foreman. Ted and Amelia had eight children (Annie, Alice, Arthur,
Bessie, Harry, Renee, Joan and Clarice). Both Amelia and Ted died in
the summer of 1938, a month apart. She was 49, he was 50.
George Dale
Lillie Dale
Lillie worked as a burler and mender at Greenholme
Mill in Burley-in-Wharfedale. She didn’t marry and lived in Dick’s
Garth Road throughout her life. She died shortly after her
sister-in-law Martha in December 1963.
Annie Dale
Annie Dale
was living with her maternal grandmother in Co. Durham in 1901 and was in
service in 1911, working as a maid at Hillside House, Menston. She
emigrated to Australia later that year, leaving London aboard the Orontes
on 4 August 1911[iv] and
arriving in Sydney on 14 September. She was just in time to be a
witness at her sister Mary Edith’s wedding in October. Annie’s
future husband, 25-year-old widower James McCall Ferguson, a grocer by trade,
was a fellow 3rd-class passenger on the Orontes. Their
ticket numbers are far apart so it looks as though they didn’t emigrate
together but met for the first time on the boat – the second shipboard romance
in the Dale family. They married in Woollahra, NSW, on 19 September
1912[v]. James was working as a fireman when he
enlisted in the army in 1918. James and Annie had three sons, two born before the First World War (Donald Arthur and James Dale) and another, George Edward, in 1921.
James died
on 22 November 1939[vi] and
Annie outlived him by nearly 40 years, dying in 1978 in the Liverpool district
of Sydney.
Arthur Clement Dale
The third Dale to emigrate to Australia was Arthur
Clement. He was living at home in Menston in 1911 and working for a greengrocer. It
seems likely he was the ‘Arthur Dale’ who sailed on the Orontes on 28
February 1913 – the ship which had carried his sister Annie to the other side
of the world in 1911. He must have reached Balmain by 1915, as an 'Arthur Clement Dale' was in court for reckless driving in a horse and cart![vii] In 1917 Arthur
Clement was working as a fireman (perhaps with his brother-in-law James Ferguson)
when he enlisted. He was eventually demobbed on 13 February
1920.
He later worked as a labourer and was living at 7
Clare St, Balmain in 1935. It doesn’t look like he ever married and
he died in Balmain, Sydney, in 1951.
Charles Victor Dale
Charles Victor sadly died of peritonitis on 7
February 1904 at their house in Dick’s Garth Road. He had just turned
7.
Frances Emily Dale
The youngest of the Dale children, Frances, stayed
in Yorkshire and married Lloyd Wishart Haxby in Menston Parish Church on 29
January 1921. They lived in Yeadon and then New Scarborough and had
two children, Thomas Colin and Kathleen Elizabeth
(Betty). Both Lloyd and Frances died in 1980.
Sources
ancestry.co.uk
findmypast.co.uk
thegenealogist.co.uk
freebmd.org.uk
scotlandspeople.gov.uk
britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
trove.nla.gov.au
naa.gov.au/explore-collection/defence-and-war-service-records/army-world-war-i-1914-18
[i]
Yorkshire Post, 1 July 1899. The
Corporation were planning a sewage works on the Esholt Estate. The
condition of the river Aire had deteriorated rapidly over the previous fifty
years and the need to deal with the waste from Bradford had become increasingly
urgent.
[ii]
Bradford Daily Telegraph, 9 July 1901.
[iii]
‘The Biz,’ 31 October 1946.
[iv]
The fact that Annie is shown as
Scottish in the passenger list put a doubt in my mind as to whether this was
our Annie. However, this must be an error as the limited Australian
records available online show that James certainly married an ‘Annie Dale’ and
death records give the names of her parents and Arthur and Eleanor Dale.
[v]
According to two family trees posted on
Ancestry – I have not seen an original document showing this date.
[vi]
Sydney Morning Herald, 23 Nov 1939.
[vii]
At the Balmain Police Court, Arthur
Clement Dale was fined £4 with the alternative of one month’s gaol, for driving
a horse and 'sulky' through Darling-street, Balmain, so furiously as to
endanger the safety of the public. It was stated that the defendant
galloped the horse along the street, shouting and hitting the
animal. When he came to a cross street he turned around and came
back again. A crowd of children coming from a picture show had to
run in all directions to get out of the way. Singleton Argus 12
June 1915.
