The Smith, Hill and Bown Families of Totley

        The Smith Family. Back left to right: Charles jnr, William and father Charles. Front: Annie, Nellie, Louie on mother Lucy's knee.(photo courtesy             of Mary Robinson)

An enquiry from Sandra Woods on behalf of a friend has led to an interesting search in various records. The original enquiry stated that James Smith married Mabel Howarth on 8 December 1945 and gave his address as The Old School House, Hall Lane, Totley, and his father's name as Charles Smith. Nothing else of the Smith family prior to 1945 was known; could we help. 

The Smiths
We hold a copy of the Electoral Register for 1936-37 and, on checking it, there was Charles Smith at the Old School House with Lucy Isabella Smith and William Smith. A search of Christ Church, Dore parish records produced a marriage for Charles Smith, son of Thomas Smith, to Lucy Isabel Hill, daughter of Charles Hill (deceased) on 7 May 1906. The baptism registers showed five children being born to the couple: Charles in 1907, Annie in 1909, William in 1914, Louie in 1916 and James in 1922. Charles Smith's occupation in 1907 and 1909 was coachman, very probably employed by William Aldam Milner of Totley Hall. Subsequently we traced another daughter, Nellie, born in 1913 but the baptism is not in the Christ Church parish register.

The 1911 Census shows Charles and Lucy Smith with Charles junior and Annie living on Hall Lane, Totley and Charles's occupation is given as groom. He was not a local man being born in Fimber, Lincolnshire sometime in 1880.

At this point we received an email from Mary Robinson who had seen a posting about the enquiry on our website. Mary is the daughter of Louie Smith and granddaughter of Charles and Lucy. She tells us that Charles, who was known as Charlie, came to Totley in 1901 as a butcher and journeyman lodging with Charles and Hannah Hailstone at Totley Rise. After their marriage, Charlie and Lucy lived in Grange Terrace for two years and from there they moved to the Old School House.

Charlie Smith worked as a pit pony man at the gannister mine but he also did other part time jobs, helping with haymaking in summer and killing pigs for local butchers. On Mondays, if he was not working at the mine, he walked to Bakewell Market to drive home the cows bought there by local farmers. This was a distance of about twelve miles each way! Mary says that he was always relieved to get back over the moors before darkness fell.

The Smith family had moved to one of the row of cottages at Lane Head by 1914 when William was baptized and Charlie was recorded as a miner. When son James was baptized in 1922 Charlie was shown as a gannister miner. Another daughter, Jessie, was born in 1925 but her baptism is not in the Dore Parish Record transcriptions.

The Smith family were next door neighbours of the Salts and mentioned several times by Jo Rundle (nee Salt) in her articles for the Totley Independent and her book A Chip Off the Old Block. One snippet says that Annie Smith died of meningitis and a check in Dore Burial Registers indeed shows Annie's burial on 20 July 1920, aged 10.

The Smith family moved back to the Old School House in or around 1932 according to Mrs. Erica Hillman in a letter to Totley Independent in November 2011. Charlie and Lucy both died in 1943, Lucy in August and Charles in December. They are buried in the churchyard at Dore but, so far, we have been unable to find their gravestone.

Lucy Isobel Hill
Lucy Isabel Hill was the daughter of Charles Henry Hill and his wife Hannah Eliza Bown. She was baptized at Christ Church, Dore on 1 July 1885. Lucy's father, Charles Hill was a fruit merchant and the family lived at Holly Mount, Bradway Bank. Lucy was their third child; her brother Charles Thomas Rowland Hill was born in April 1881 but he lived for only seven months.

Lucy's older sister, Florence Lilian, was born in 1885 when Charles Hill was a fruiterer living at Totley Rise. The Hills moved to South Street in the Park district of Sheffield. Charles died there on 5 August 1890 and Annie was left with two small children. We have been unable to find the family in the 1891 Census but in 1901, the 17 year old Lucy Hill was living with James and Mary Ann Larder at Grange Terrace, Totley as their adopted daughter. In 1906 she married Charlie Smith at Christ Church, Dore.

Hannah Eliza Bown
Lucy's mother, Hannah Eliza Bown, sometimes known as Annie, was the oldest daughter of Thomas Bown and his wife Jane, nee Wood. Hannah was baptized at Christ Church, Dore on 30 November 1861. Her parents, Thomas and Jane were married in 1861 in Bawtry, which was where Jane's own parents George and Hannah Wood were living.

More children were born to Thomas and Jane Bown. George Henry was baptized at Christ Church on 10 January 1864 and Mary Elizabeth on 6 Mar 1870. Another son, John Charles, does not appear in the baptism transcriptions but his burial is recorded, aged 6 weeks, on 17 August 1874.

Another son was born who also died in early infancy: Tom Edward was baptized on 21 December 1875 and buried on 11 July 1876. Tom William was born next being baptized on 21 October 1877. Then after a gap of several years, Emily Ethel Bown was baptized in 1882 but she too survived for only a short time; her burial was on 5 August 1882 aged 5 weeks.

Hannah Bown grew up at the Cross Scythes where her father Thomas was a publican, farmer and blacksmith. In the 1871 Census, she is listed as a scholar so may possibly have attended Totley School when it was still in the Old School House in Hall Lane. On 6 October 1880, when aged 19, she married Charles Henry Hill, a 20 year old fruit and potato merchant and by the time of the census the following year, the couple were living at 185 South Street, Park, Sheffield with their two month old son Charles Thomas Rowland Hill and a young servant called Mary Eaton. Sadly their baby son died and was buried at Christ Church, Dore on 7 September 1881 aged only 7 months.

By the time their daughter Florence Lilian was baptized at Christ Church on 22 June 1883, the family were living at Totley Rise. When Lucy Isabel was baptized on 1 July 1885 the Hill family were shown as living at Holly Mount, Bradway Bank, on what later became Queen Victoria Road. Between 1885 and 1890 they moved back to Sheffield again and on 5 August 1890 Charles died at 64 South Street. He left a will with an estate of £132 8s. 10d. so Hannah was not left destitute.

There is no sign, so far, of Hannah Hill and her two daughters in the 1891 Census. We next hear of her on 27 April 1892 when she married William Smedley, a 41 year old widower, at Christ Church Dore. William was a farm bailiff and the couple set up home at Totley Hall Farm. A daughter, Dorothy Jane, was baptized on 21 Feb 1894 and in late 1895 a second daughter Mary Louisa was born. The year 1898 brought more tragedy for Hannah when her husband William died at the age of 48. He is buried at Dore churchyard in the same grave as his first wife, Mary Jane.

In 1901 Hannah Smedley was a servant to Fanny Spooner on Bolehill Road in Crookes, Sheffield and her daughter Hannah, known as Jennie, is with her. Daughter Florence Hill was a servant to Harry Wilson in William Street, Sheffield. Lucy Hill and Mary Louisa Smedley are both living with James and Mary Ann Larder in Totley. Sisters Mary Louisa and Jennie Smedley were pupils together at Totley School in the early 1900s, Jennie having previously been at Walkley School Board.

So far we haven't been able to find either Hannah Smedley or her daughter Florence Hill in the 1911 Census but Jennie Smedley was working as a servant for William Ogden in Darnall and Lucy of course was married to Charles Smith by this time. Between 1911 and 1919 Jennie moved to Newcastle Upon Tyne where she married Martin H. Ashbourne. They went to live in Rotherham and had two sons: Dennis, who died as a baby, and Arthur. Mary Louisa Smedley also married and emigrated to Canada.

Early in 1925, Hannah Smedley married, for a third time, to William J. Jarvis. They lived in Oxfordshire and were married for twenty years before they both died in 1945, William in the first quarter aged 86 and Hannah in the third quarter aged 85.

         Thomas and Jane Bown family gravestone, Dore churchyard

Thomas Bown

Thomas Bown was the second of eleven children born to Henry Bown, a labourer, and his wife Eliza nee Coxon, who had married on 19 October 1835 at St. Oswald Church, Ashbourne, Derbyshire. Their first child, Sarah, was baptised in Hognaston, Derbyshire on 28 February 1836 and the the Bown Family must have moved to Totley soon after because Thomas was baptized at Christ Church, Dore on 6 May 1838. 

By the time of the 1851 Census Henry had become a banksman in a coal mine. Sarah and Thomas had left home. Thomas, aged 12, was living with the family of Joseph Hancock in Causeway Head and was working as a farm labourer. His parents went on to have seven further children born in Totley: Elizabeth (1840), Charles (1842), William (1845), Henry (1847), George (1850), Mary (1852) and Edward (1854) but they later moved to Abbey Houses, Beauchief, where a fourth daughter Frances was born in 1858 and a seventh son, John, in 1860. 

In the next Census on 7 April 1861, Henry Bown was said to be an overlooker in a brick yard. His son Thomas was living in Totley Hall Road and was working as a blacksmith. On 11 July that year Thomas married Jane Wood, the daughter of George Wood, a hostler and his wife Hannah, at St. Nicholas Church, in Bawtry. The couple may have met when Jane was living at the Parsonage in the household of Rev. John Aldred, the Perpetual Curate of Dore. Jane was employed as a Ladies Maid possibly by Mrs. Aldred. 

In 1866 Thomas was sworn in as one of Totley's two constables and by 1867 Thomas and had become the publican at the Cross Scythes, an occupation he initially combined with those of farmer and blacksmith. The couple had seven children in all of which five lived into adulthood, Hannah Elizabeth (1861), George Henry (1864), Mary Elizabeth (1865), Margaret Jane, (1870), John Charles (1874), Tom William (1878) whilst two others died in infancy, Tom Edward (1875-1876) and Emily Ethel (1882-1882). The children were all baptised at Christ Church, Dore and records have survived showing that George, Margaret and Thomas attended Totley Church School; perhaps the others did too. Thomas became an Overseer to the Poor around 1884, and in 1886 he gave up farming, selling off all his stock and equipment. 

In the 1891 Census, Thomas and Jane were being helped at the Cross Scythes by four of their children: George, Polly (Mary Elizabeth), Maggie and John. Hannah had married Charles Henry Hill, a fruit and vegetable merchant, on 6 October 1880 at Dore Christ Church and the couple had made their home in Sheffield.

Eventually Thomas and Jane left Totley and also moved to Sheffield and in 1901 they were running the Hallamshire Hotel on West Street. In September 1903 they sold Cross Grove House, a property adjoining the Cross Scythes which they had built for their own family use. 

Jane Bown died on 27 August 1905 and was buried in Dore churchyard two days later. She was aged 65. Perhaps it was at this time that Thomas decided to retire as in 1911 he was living at 46 Hands Road in Sheffield with his daughter Polly who had married Hugh Clynes, a letter cutter and engraver, in Sheffield in 1904. Thomas Bown died on 29 July 1914, aged 77, and was buried with his wife Jane on 4 August.