HICUZ 79 REV C

Copyright 1990 et seq, Donald Rowe

Well folks, it’s time for me to really bore you, or excite you with the thrill of discovering ancestors, and doing a few hours of work on connecting us.

I present this info in several sections.

I’m providing an expanded view of our Wroe/Rowe family tree, incorporating references to film numbers and other source materials so that Wroe and Rowe cousins can search further. I recommend Rowe cousins capture this to a computer file.

            Richard Wroe of Kersal, b abt 1680. (Kersal is part of Broughton)

John Wroe, b 12 March 1713, m Mary abt 1687/90, of Salford, yeoman,

]  shopkeeper in Salford, d 1769  @ 56 - John d 1769  @ 56 – his

siblings: James b 1707; Richard b 1711/12 m Alice; Thomas bap

1717 of Kersal m Mary; Joseph bap 1720 of Kersal; Peter b 1723 Kersal; Mary b 1726;  William d 1730.

            Richard Wroe, b 30 Dec 1743, m Elizabeth Holland 2 Dec 1763, d 1786 @ 44

                        ]

            James Wroe, b 2 Dec 1770, m Ann Plant 25 April 1799. He d 19 Apr 1837 @

]  66; gentleman, later Clerk of Police, Salford, England

]                      

            Richard Wroe, b Cheetham, bap 29 June 1800, m Margaret Stansfield.

Weaver, carder in Bradford, Manchester district.

                        ]

Siblings  of Richard Wroe:  (all born Cheetham)

            James Wroe, chr 26 May 1804 Manchester Cathedral

            Thomas Wroe, chr 26 May 1804    “               “

            Sarah Wroe, chr 27 Nov 1811         “              “

            John Wroe, chr 3 Oct 1813              “              “

                        ]

More about Richard and Margaret (Stansfield) Wroe

Richard Wroe - baptized 29 June 1800 in Cheetham, Lancashire County.

Margaret Stansfield - born 1800 in Workington, Cumberland County.

They resided at: 5 Brook Street, District of London Road, Manchester in 1839. In 1851 the census indicates they lived in the Bradford section of Manchester in Cope's Buildings - rooms or apartments (flats) 108 and 109.

Occupation: (Thomas' Wroe/Rowe’s Maine death certificate lists Richard as a weaver). Over the years Great Great Grampa Richard Wroe actually worked in a variety of trades associated with the weaving industry:

1822 - labourer; 1825 - labourer; 1828 - carder; 1830 - labourer

1832 - carder; 1834 - carder; 1837 - carder; 1839 - card-grinder

            Thomas Wroe/Rowe, b 8 March 1830, bap 21 Mar 1830; m (?) Mary Ellen

]  Meagher, b April 1830/32, Ireland. He a laborer, d 13 July 1892 in

Portland, Maine.       

Thomas Wroe/Rowe worked as a railway labourer in 1851 and in that census year was living at home as a single young man.  This work no doubt influenced his later work as an iron-founder and sheet-metal smith in Portland, Maine.

Several Public Record Office (PRO) documents are in hand, each marriage certificates for siblings of my great grandfather Thomas Wroe/Rowe. They provide a little more information which may help further research.

            Elizabeth Wroe, age 21, listed as a spinster, married Thomas Davies, a bachelor mechanic and 24, on 4 Feb 1849. The ceremony was performed and recorded by W. W. Johnson of the Cathedral and parish of Manchester, England. His father is shown as Thomas Davies, a weaver; the address is listed as 8 Butler Street, and Thomas apparently signed the form. It shows Elizabeth’s father as Richard Wroe, a carder, of 9 Bradford Street. The address for the Wroes will help, and knowing Thomas Davies’ father was Thomas also helps. A John Davies was present as a witness, possibly a brother or uncle.

            One week later, at the same church, Elizabeth’s brother James Wroe, 23, a bachelor mechanic, married Mary Porter, 22, a spinster. Both are listed as being from Bradford. Mary’s father is listed as William Porter, a publican; Richard Wroe is again listed as a carder.  William Wroe, James and Elizabeth’s brother, was the witness for James’ marriage. Both weddings were performed and recorded by W. W. Johnson.

I suspect that James Wroe and great Grampa Thomas Wroe both worked on the Railway system in Manchester. Perhaps, as Thomas Davies was a mechanic also, he might have worked with them. Also of interest is the fact that both forms listed the county as Lancaster, rather than Lancashire. You might recall that Thomas Rowe(Wroe)’s death certificate from Maine showed Lancaster; this had earlier thrown me off the trail looking in the city of Lancaster.

A source film at the FHC was #0087244, the 1851 Census returns for England, Lancashire County, Manchester city was reviewed. I found my great grandfather Thomas Wroe, his siblings and parents in the Bradford District residing in Cope's Building, within the Parish of Manchester, Ecclesiastical District of All Saints, Newton

PERSPECTIVE OF THE TIMES - 1851 - just the year before the American merchant vessel Josephus was built in Maine. There was a Gold Rush on, in both Australia and in California. Clipper ships were jammed with many emigrants from Britain and Ireland, then suffering the lingering effects of the Potato Famine. America's West had recently expanded, thanks to a land-grabbing war with Mexico - Fort Brown in Texas was one of the places American troops embarked from. My older kids' great great grandparents had suddenly gone, within thirty years, from subjects of the Spanish crown to citizens of a Mexican Republic run by Generals, to American citizens (but without the vote). Quebec's Portneuf County had a new parish where Shanaghans abounded. American Indians continued to be driven West, exterminated, and deprived of their lands and culture. Wagon trains dug ruts in the earth through states and territories West of St Louis, Missouri - slavery often followed. Gerharts farmed in Pennsylvania, and McDonalds in Nova Scotia. Great Gramma Ellen Bowler was just a wee child in Ireland; Great Grampa Thomas Wroe was 21, had probably just met Mary Ellen Meagher, and worked hard, long days for little pay on a Railway near Manchester.

The official British census, in enumerating the peoples of Great Britain, would officially structure the society into seven classes: The Monarch, Queen Victoria, austere and certainly remote from her subjects, was at the top. There followed in descending order the royalty; military officers; other professionals (doctors, lawyers, professors); then three lower but no less relevant classes of working people. Below these seven defined "classes" were women and children. And as a sign of that times and culture (not too different from how America, not quite forty years from its latest war with Britain and classifying its slaves and Indians in a similarly degrading way) the 1851 British census gave examples of "derelicts" who might escape being listed in its census process. Among the "derelict" types were its own sailors - hard for me to accept as a former Naval officer, yet quite understandable as an historian. So there you have 1851, as "The People's Princess" is led in a flag- draped coffin to her final resting spot. I wonder how history, and particularly the British people, will view the English monarchy, in a year in which Scots and Welsh will vote on re-establishing their own Parliaments and the whole Irish people may end their power games and reconstitute a unified country. How will this all look in twenty years. STAY TUNED!