Haggbridge.com – Page 5 – Never let truth get in the way of a good family story!

Ken Bainbridge & The Half Way Sign

“200 hundred miles from London, 200 hundred miles from Edinburgh” announced my grandfather as we drove past the sign in his new Ford Orion, on route to our next Swinsty Reservoir fly fishing adventure. It must have been 1987 or thereabout when Reg BAINBRIDGE showed me his brother’s handiwork on the Great North Eastern Railway line. However my memory is...

Ford Mustang Versus Shuttle Atlantis!

We had never experienced a rocket launch in person. It was the summer of 2011 and, purely by coincidence, we had flown from England to visit family in Florida in the same week STS-135 was scheduled to launch with the orbiter Atlantis. This was the 135th and final mission for NASA’s Space Shuttle program. The NASA shuttle program had been...

John Ogden & The Right Whales

Lancastrian, John OGDEN (1609-1682), was an accomplished stonemason and 10th Great Grandfather on the Morris side of the family. He emigrated to the New World in 1641, arriving in Rippowam (now Stamford, Connecticut) to build a dam and grist mill for the community. In 1642 he was hired to build the first permanent stone church in Fort Amsterdam, Manhattan Island....

Adelaide Edgar & The Last Onion

Adelaide EDGAR, our great grandmother, was the tenth of twelve children, born 2 August 1888, to John Thomas ONIONS and Ann LUMSDON, in the family’s Price Street tenement, York. She was raised at No. 3 Rosary Terrace, off Holgate Road, where the family moved in the mid 1890s. The Two-up two-down terraced home overlooked the railway tracks and engine sheds...

John Thomas Onions & The Engine Wrights

John Thomas ONIONS, our great grandfather, was born in Gateshead to an unwed mother, Martha, 21 September 1842. He was 2 years old when his mother married but was still listed as John Thomas Onions in his grandfather’s last will and testament in 1845. Until the Legitimacy Act of 1926, illegitimate children had no legal kin except their mother, a...

Martha Onions & The Bastardy Laws

Martha Edgerton ONIONS, our 2nd great grandmother, was born in Oak Green, West Bromwich, Staffordshire, and baptised 22 February 1822 at All Saints Church, by her parents Jemima ABEL & Benjamin ONIONS. Martha relocated (walked) north to Gateshead, County Durham, with her family when she was only 4 years old. The next available records for Martha are from the 1841...

Benjamin Onions & The Tinners

Benjamin ONIONS was born 1795 on the cusp of the Georgian and Regency Eras in the parish of Dawley Magna, Shropshire, to parents William ONIONS & Margaret KING, and baptized at Holy Trinity Church. The industrial revolution had thrust Shropshire forward as a centre for the iron industry. Dawley Magna’s ironworks used the locally mined ironstone and coal, employed hundreds...

James Hardacre & Walking Pictures

James HARDACRE (1861-1947), is our 2nd Great Grandfather, from Settle, North Yorkshire. He was the fourth of six children born to Cooper & Casker, Richard HARDACRE, & farmer’s daughter, Mary CLAPHAM. James appears to have excelled at school and chose a career in teaching. After taking teaching positions in Halifax, Skipton, and Redmire, James settled in Nether Poppleton as Headmaster...

The Gracia sisters & PacTel San Francisco

Eight Gracia sisters were born between 1901-1914, seven reaching adulthood, interspersed between four brothers. None of the sisters had reach the age of 18 by the time their father passed away on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918. From 1920 until the mid 1940’s six of the Gracia sisters worked as Telephone Operators and, of those, five worked for PacTel San...

Ann Fussey’s Award for Respectable Servitude!

Our fourth great grandparents Ann SPROXTON (1797-1875) of Roos and Anthony FUSSEY (1784-1860) of Ryehill married in Sheckling cum Burstwick in the winter of 1814. The village names may appear unfamiliar but they are all in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the far east! To say the couple were productive is an understatement. Ann delivered fifteen children in 25 years,...