Natalie Smithson has contacted me recently; this is an edited version of the emails she has sent me (May 17th – May 20th 2017) ….
Edward Brocklehurst is my great-grandfather and his brother Enoch is my great (grand-)uncle.
My grandma is Alice May Brocklehurst Bamford, the illegitimate daughter of Edward Brocklehurst and Florence Bamford. On her birth certificate, the birth date is shown as 5th May 1920 at Greasley, Basford, Nottinghamshire, (mother Florence Bamford , domestic servant and living at Bennerley Cottage, Awsworth , father Edward Brocklehurst); the birth was registered on the 8th June 1920.
Edward’s name is on this certificate although there is a line through it, and someone (I’m guessing Edward) has visited on the 12th June and had the registrar put a line through his name … to hide his ways perhaps ? I have a copy of this birth certificate, but I had to apply for it myself as my grandma destroyed most related document.
Edward never married Florence … and he didn’t hang around for long either !!
However my grandmother kept some contact with Edward …. he was at her wedding for example , and I know that she did attend his funeral … he lived (his later life) in Huddersfield and I know he died in the 1950’s (1954?) … I have a newspaper cutting of his death.
My grandma was very secretive about Edward and now I think I understand why; I only have one picture of Edward in his later life and its stamped foreign office in the corner.
I have been trying to solve the secret of why my grandma never spoke about her father, or kept any documents or photos … rumours were of someone doing wrong but we thought it to be a brother of my grandmother (whom we have no proof existed)
My grandma Alice married Bernard Taylor on Christmas Eve, 1940 … it was a register office wedding… the marriage will probably have been in either Doncaster or South Elmsall which is where Bernard was from.
My father is their son, Keith Taylor, an only child, who died 13 years ago, aged 56 years.
Physically, I do have Edward’s nose and my grandmother looked a lot like him. I must say he wasn’t the brightest of criminals and he didn’t seem to learn his lesson … I wonder if he continued into old age thieving and ‘womanising’ ??
