Charlesworth Independent Chapel

[JillianR]

The DFHS has some great CDs available, now that I can find them, and I've sent off a question about payment methods. Thankyou to everyone.

[Guest]

Hello Jillian,

I didn't make the connection . Yes, I was in touch with Roger McCarthy a couple of years ago.

Strange how these things come about - I had another query (by e-mail) about Top Chapel just a couple of days ago

Graham

[Deeny]

In the opening chapter of his book, A Vivid Life: A Journalist's Career (1934), Frederick James Higginbottom (1859 - 1943), the son of Mathew Fielding Higginbottom and his second wife Margaret Sykes, claims:

"My father came from Derbyshire stock, bred on the hills around the Glossop valley; sturdy yeoman farmers, most of them. His grandfather John o 't' Tops, as he was known, farmed at Hollingworth Head, on the height above Charlesworth where, in the hillside graveyard of the Independent Chapel, lie massive family tombstones side by side. "

In another paragraph he says," At Charlesworth my grandfather, Samuel Higginbottom, was born."

This account of Frederick's ancestry conflicts with the version of the family history given in the 1950's by his father's cousin Louie who states in family correspondence that Samuel Higginbottom's father was also called Samuel. Census records and parish registers show that grandfather Samuel Higginbottom was born at Saddleworth in Yorkshire, later moving to Stalybridge where he became a wealthy businessman.

I am wondering if Frederick is confusing his maternal Sykes family history with his paternal line, or if he is merely muddled about the generations and earlier Higginbottom's were actually resident around Charlesworth. Does anyone know if there are indeed massive Higginbottom tombstones, side by side in the Independent church there? If so, can anybody supply me with the relevant MI's?

Deeny

[Waitabit]

Try here, you may find something to help:

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DBY/Charlesworth/