Friday 27 November 2015

More from Tony Goulding ............ The "Twinning" of Vicars Road

For a little time now I have been aware that my posts have taken a somewhat morbid turn so here is a slightly more uplifting story to redress the balance.

High Lane, Primitive Methodist Church, 2015
During a recent reconnoiter among the records of the High Lane, Primitive Methodist Church I noticed the following curiosity in the baptismal register.

Recorded within the space of six weeks   during the spring of 1907 were the christenings of two separate sets of twins with both families residing on Vicars Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Even more extraordinary too, is that sandwiched in between these two events was a third instance of twins being baptized making it three consecutive multiple birth christenings from one relatively small congregation.
COPY OF BAPTISMAL REGISTER -- PIC 2

 Firstly on February 18th. Alice and Louie Fallows were christened, next came John and Daisy Wilson on March, 13th. followed on March,31st. by the double ceremony of Albert and Harry Roberts.

Baptismal Record 1907
The Fallows family are recorded as living at 10, Vicars Road whilst the Roberts are located just "next-door-but-one" at No. 14

Unfortunately the Wilsons did not live at 12, Vicars Road but at 35, School Lane Didsbury!
Alice and Louie's parents were James Albert Fallows, a gardener, and his wife Mary Jane (née. Fryer) who already, in 1907, had two other children Doris aged 5 and 3 year old Ethel.

Sadly Louie did not survive to reach his first birthday, but the parents and their three daughters appear on the 1911 census still living in Chorlton- cum-Hardy at 15, Halstead Avenue.

Baptismal Record 1907
The Wilson twins were the offspring of Henry Wilson, a railway signalman, and Mary Jane (nee. Fothergill) and were the couple’s first children, even though the mother was very nearly 40 years old.

Henry and Mary Jane married in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the summer of 1906 in Mary Jane's home town of Gars dale. The census of 1911 show John and Daisy and their parents back in Yorkshire residing in the Armley area of Leeds.

The Roberts; Shropshire born George Evan, who delivered milk around the township from his cart, and his wife Elizabeth (nee. Morely) were married, in 1899, in the Wesleyan Chapel of the Methodist Central Hall Oldham Street.

According to the information given to the 1911 census they had the largest number of children, of the three couples,   a total of five being born alive - two (neither of the twins)  dying young. It is also recorded that the family had moved to Hardy Cottages - in 1901 they had been at 3,Richmond Grove.

© Tony Goulding, 2015

Pictures; from the collection of Tony Goulding

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