From Albion Place and our look at the story of George William Henshaw, Adeline takes us back to “Burr Lane, and on the West side were two cottages, fronting South. Askew’s lived in one, old Thomas Ball in the other”.
Old Thomas Ball (1784-1870)
‘Old’ Thomas Ball was born on February 22nd, 1784, the youngest son of Francis and Mary (nee Sudbury) and thus a brother of ‘Francis senior’ of Albion Place.
He worked in the lace trade like his father. However — as Adeline later correctly identifies — Thomas lived most of his life in Ball’s Yard in South Street.
It was one of his sons — lacemaker Frederick — who lived in this area of the town.
After his marriage in 1850 to Eliza Kirk, daughter of coalminer William and Elizabeth (nee Trueman), Frederick moved out of Chapel Street – but never very far! — to live at various times in Burr Lane, North Street and Albion Place.
He died in Burr Lane on November 30th, 1895, aged 76, and approaching four years later – on March 14th, 1899 – his widow Eliza died in the same lane, aged 80.
The Askews
The Askew connection to this area seems to be linked to the same Ball family. One of Frederick Ball’s younger brothers was lacemaker Edwin Ball who moved from Cotmanhay after the death of his first wife Sarah (nee Crich) in March 1857. A few months later he married Eastwood-born Hannah Askew, daughter of collier George and Susanna (nee Limb) and they lived in the Burr Lane/Chapel Street area.
Suffering from pneumonia, Hannah died in Burr Lane in June 1890, aged 59.
In 1892 Edwin married his third wife, Caroline (nee Frazer), widow of fruiterer John Bower Robey, of Robey’s Yard in South Street.
Edwin also died in Burr Lane, in February 1895, aged 73.
Old ‘bachelor’ Burrows (1804-1887)
Adeline has clear memories of one particular resident.
“Over these cottages was a room approached by a long flight of steps. Here John Burrows lived and worked his stocking frame. He was, I believe, the last man to work a frame at home and was an old bachelor, who lived alone in a room over a house in Burr Lane. When at last his work was not required he was employed at Carrier’s factory”.
John Burrows was the son of framework knitter John and Elizabeth (nee Wilcox). Born in Ilkeston on November 1st, 1804 he spent some years working in Belper but by 1860 had returned to Burr Lane where he lived the rest of his life as a framework knitter.
On September 24th, 1838 he married widow Ann Orchard (nee Trueman) the daughter of collier James Trueman and Sarah (nee Blore), about nine months after her first husband, framework knitter John Orchard, had died.
Ann died in Burr Lane, aged 66, on February 5th, 1860 – which is perhaps why Adeline describes John as ‘an old bachelor’ — and John died there on June 28th, 1887, aged 83.
There were no children.
This photo (above) of houses in Burr Lane just below (north of) Abion Place was taken about 1963, at the time of demolition. Was the house on the left, or a similar house, the home of John Burrows ?
Mr. Gregory, pit contractor (c 1818-1880)
“Next was Ball’s old family house. The house faced Ball’s Factory, the back being in Burr Lane. This house was tenanted later by Mr. William Gregory, pit contractor”.
William Gregory?? — The pit contractor was John Gregory living at 13 Burr Lane in 1871.
He and Anne Parkin, daughter of Isaac and Mary (nee Street) were born in Codnor and married in Heanor in August 1841. Almost ten years later they came to Ilkeston, lived in Bath Street but eventually settled in 13 Burr Lane.
John died in Burr Lane, aged 62, in December 1880, suffering from chronic bronchitis.
Mr. Gregory, machine builder (1831-?)
“Then came two or three cottages, all facing West, with backs to Burr Lane. Mr. Tom Gregory and his wife lived in one of them”.
Machine-builder Tom Gregory was a son of collier Isaac senior and Mary (nee Skevington) and brother of grocer Isaac junior who we met earlier in Bath Street. His wife, whom he married in 1852, was Ruth Knighton, daughter of framework knitter Joseph and Mary (nee Clay) and who came to the marriage with one illegitimate daughter Ann, less than one year old. This child later adopted the surname of Gregory. Two other children followed before the family moved to Litchurch about 1862.
James Alexander Barker (c1801-1887)
“Next came the hedge dividing Chapel Street from Burr Lane. Two new houses were next. Mr. Barker, his wife, two sons and two daughters lived in the first one.”.
We are now approximately where Burr Lane and North Street met.
This Barker family was James Alexander Barker, his second wife Matilda, their sons John and Francis, and their daughters Elizabeth and Ellen.
Born in London about 1801, James Alexander Barker was the son of Edensor-born Alexander Mellor Barker, gentleman, and his first wife Elizabeth (nee Potter) – the sister of coal master Samuel Potter of Ilkeston Park.
They had married on April 18th 1801 and James Alexander was their first child. There were at least six other children before Elizabeth died in October 1810.
Alexander then married Mary Potter, elder sister of his first wife and she died on May 22nd 1825, aged 55.
Alexander’s third wife, whom he married on March 5th 1835, was born Susannah Child, about 1789, the daughter of John and Mary (nee Lee) of Oxton, Nottinghamshire…. and she too was now on her third spouse.
Married on November 5th 1820, Susannah’s first husband was framework knitter William Bennett, the widower of her elder sister Elizabeth who had died on May 29 1817.
Widowed on May 3rd 1825, Susannah married her second husband, cattle dealer William Bower on February 12th 1827 … and just over three weeks later she was a widow once more.
At the time of their third marriage Alexander Meller (sic) Barker is listed among the ‘Gentry’ of Ilkeston (Pigot’s Directory 1835).
Susannah died on March 12th 1848, and her husband on January 22nd 1852.
Back to the son, James Alexander Barker — he had married his first wife Elizabeth Copeman on April 4th 1826 and the couple had three children before Elizabeth died in December 1834, aged 27.
The children of James Alexander Barker and Elizabeth (nee Copeman)
Eldest child Mary married Lincolnshire farmer Thomas Whaplate on October 17th, 1854 and lived away from Ilkeston.
Adeline recalls that “the eldest son, Alick, became a pork butcher in Bath Street”.
Born in 1829, Alexander ‘Alick’ Mellor Barker was the only other surviving child of this marriage.
He traded in Bath Street as a pork butcher and in 1858 he married Martha Evans, elder surviving daughter of boatman/contractor John and Alice (nee Blount) of the Potteries — at the bottom of Station Road. By 1871 they were at 66 Bath Street.
Alick died on July 8th, 1899 and Martha on January 10th, 1908, both at what was then 73 Bath Street.
James Barker was their only other child .. he died and was buried on December 26th, 1834, aged 16 months
James Alexander was established as a butcher in Ilkeston when he married his second wife Matilda Ball on New Year’s Day in 1841 and several more children were added to the family, more than Adeline has counted. (See the Ball Family)
The children of James Alexander Barker and Matilda (nee Ball)
“Lizzie married Mr. John Moss, outfitter in Bath Street”.
Daughter Elizabeth married South Street clothier and pawnbroker John Lowe Moss on March 4th, 1868.
Son John, born at 9.40pm on May 1st, 1847 was half an hour y0unger than his unnamed twin brother, who died after only 10 minutes of life (and thus before John was born). On Christmas Eve 1871 lacemaker John married Mary Ann Beardsley, eldest daughter of Mark, miner – and later innkeeper at the Spring Cottage in Wilmot Street — and Catherine (nee Phillips) and lived in North Street. They had at least 13 children
Born on November 17th, 1850 “Ellen was a dressmaker” Adeline declares.
Ellen lived a few doors away from brother John, at No 1 North Street with her illegitimate daughter Ada who was born in that street on October 26th. 1877
Ellen died at that same house, aged 60, on January 22nd, 1911, still a dressmaker. Ada also died there on October 24th, 1953 – two days short of her 76th birthday – having lived all her life at number 1.
“The youngest Frank, like his father, was a cowkeeper” states Adeline although he appears constantly on the census as a lacemaker. Francis Ball “Frank” Barker was born on November 15th, 1852 and for many years lived in a house in North Street, with his wife Martha (nee Barlow) and children.
The youngest child was in fact George who died from peritonitis in North Street on February 16th, 1877 aged 15.
Still living in North Street, James Alexander Barker died on New Year’s Eve, 1887, aged 86. Just over a year later, on February 12th, 1889, his widow Matilda died, also at North Street, aged 70. Four months later part of Matilda’s estate was put up for auction and this included the seven dwellings owned by the Barker family in North Street, sited on the west side, between Chapel Street and Station Road. The two nearest to Chapel Street were bought by Thomas Ball while the other five were purchased by Matilda’s son Francis.
———————————————————————————————————————————————
Some of the residents we have met recently will now enter the stage once more, as we look a little more closely at one particular block of Burr Lane housing
