I am still trying to find William Clough and/or his siblings. I have revived my post in a hope that someone may have some local knowlege of the area and has heard of the places mentioned in my previous posts or have any suggestions as to where to search next. I contacted the web owners of the Todmorden and Walsden site by email and did not receive a reply.
It would be so wonderful to trace these children. This is a story that I wrote for a competition on another forum about how important Richard Clough and the family he left behind in Todmorden are to me.
.......In January 1996, long before I started researching my family history, my husband, young son and I visited my parents-in-law in the Newhey/ Littleborough area of Lancashire. We had a wonderful holiday; indeed, this was my first overseas journey from Australia. Even though the temperature was below zero at times and the whole landscape was covered in snow, I felt strangely at home.
We visited Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and the grave of Sylvia Plath Hughes in the churchyard at Heptonstall. I was fascinated by this place, spending considerable time exploring the old church ruin, paved with sombre gravestones. We even thought it would have been an interesting church to have been married.
Our plucky little hire car bore us eventually to Haworth where we braved the steep, frozen, cobblestone high street leading up to the Parsonage and a solitary, black raven. Here the Bronte sisters had once lived, overlooking the bleak, snow covered Haworth moors.
In 2007, I began researching the life of my great, great grandfather, Richard Clough, before his arrival in Australia in 1832. I discovered some incredible coincidences. Richard had married Grace Dex, at Heptonstall Church in 1823. In 1831 Richard, according to various documents, lived in the Todmorden area and was married with four small children when he was arrested for stealing a horse. Apparently, his own horse died, resulting in him no longer being able to carry on his business as a coal carrier. He became distressed at the prospect of being unable to feed his family and so he took another horse belonging to a neighbouring farmer.
I have a copy of a memorial and petition, (obtained from the National Archives) addressed to Viscount Melbourne and signed by 72 of the clergy, gentry, freeholders, merchants, tradesmen and inhabitants of Todmorden and its vicinity, including the owner of the horse, (who also wrote a separate memorial to the Home Secretary): all pleading for Royal Clemency, but unfortunately he was convicted of horse stealing before these documents reached the court. Thus, Richard Clough was transported to Australia.
The incumbent of the Cross Stone church in Todmorden (1829-1841), John Fennell, was also a signatory of the petition. He and Patrick Bronte were friends and former colleagues and in 1812, John Fennell had introduced Patrick to his niece, Maria Branwell and they married in December 1812. Their first home was Hightown, near Hartshead, Yorkshire where Patrick Bronte was curate (1810 – 1815). Coincidentally, Richard Clough’s wife, Grace Dex, was also born in Hightown, Hartshead in 1801. In 1820, Patrick Bronte became curate of Haworth. In 1829 the three Bronte sisters, then aged 9-13 years, visited their Uncle Fennell at the Cross Stone Church Todmorden.
I feel I have a special connection with my great, great grandfather, Richard Clough. People usually visit the homeland of their ancestors only after thorough research. Not so in Richard’s case! I had unknowingly walked the streets which he had frequented all those years ago and I had visited the home of the Brontes: the young nieces of Richard’s local vicar.
Richard was pardoned of his crime in 1847 in Australia. This was conditional of him never again returning to England. So, I returned for him – 165 years later.
Margaret
