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Crossley & Sons Carpet Manufacturers

By Lindsey |
General Genealogy

I discovered on Ancestry.com a personnel record for Maggie GRACEY b.1921 who apparently worked for Crossley & Sons carpet manufacturers as a Flax Reeler in 1914.  A quick google and I discovered this carpet company was primarily based in Halifax at Dean Clough Mills (but I think I also read had offices in Manchester).

My question relates to Maggie's address, given as 5 Smith Street.  No town or city is mentioned, so I would love to work out exactly where this was.  Was it actually in Halifax? I can't see it on a modern map. 

I know Maggie was living in Sculcoates, Yorkshire in 1901, and by 1919 was in Widnes.  I can't find her on the 1911 census.  I would love to work out where she lived in between 1901 and 1919, and hoping this gives me part of the answer.  If you were me, would you assume she was living in Halifax in 1914?

Hi and welcome to the forum.  I would suspect that she lived in the same town as she worked, especially since the employment records are for the area of West Yorkshire, so yes I believe Halifax.   Also if you scroll forward or back through other records you will see that many have been marked with "Hx", however some have, perhaps lazily, had the town missed off.

 

I'm confused about Maggie's date of birth - obviously it isn't 1921!

There appear to have been two Smith Streets in Halifax at the time of the 1901 and 1911 censuses. One is in North Ward in the Charlestown St Thomas parish (see map below) and the other is in East Siddal, a suburb to the south east of Halfax, beside the Calder River to  the east of the A629 Huddersfield Road and to the west of Southowram. Neither exist today and indeed the one in East Siddal isn't shown on the contemporary maps. No sign of Maggie Gracey in either location in 1901 or 1911. Of the two streets, I would guess the one in North ward is the more likely one as there are other carpet weavers in that street in 1901, and it is much closer to Crossley's former premises at Dean Clough Mills (today it's a Travelodge and offices).  In 1901 the occupant of 5 Smith Street in North Ward was a 68 year widower named Joseph Smith, so it's possible that he took in Maggie as a lodger.  In 1911 the occupants of 5 Smith Street were the Riley family headed by 54 year old Ben Riley a building contractor, with his wife Ann and three adult children, all living in a 7 room house.

Apart from something like employment or union membership records, or newspaper articles, I would be fairly pessimistic about finding much in the way of documentary evidence for her whereabouts over that period. She won't appear in any electoral rolls as she wouldn't have been eligble to vote, and as she presumably wasn't a householder, she won't appear in the street directories like Kelly's or White's. You don't mention her marital status so I assume that she didn't marry or have any children around this time.

Map is an extract from the OS 6 inch to the mile series 1888-1913 supplied by the National Library of Scotland. The digital image is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International licence

 

Oops, my mistake!  Maggie Gracey was born 1894 (in Belfast, Ireland).  She married William Rickard in 1919 in Widnes.  I mistakenly gave you the birthdate for her first child, Millicent!

Thanks for all the helpful info in your reply :-)