William Hoodless is my 3 x Great Grandfather and probably the reason why I have had a life long interest in genealogy and ultimately have undertaken this one name research. It was he who inherited and kept up the documentation of births, marriages and deaths in the family bible which he inherited from his mother Elizabeth Millican and William Head. William Head was the man who helped raise William after the death of his father John in 1854 when he was only three years old.
According to the family bible William Head marries Elizabeth Millican on 16th November 1856. I have not been able to find documented evidence to support this. By 1861 they are living at 3 Bentinck Street, Elswick, Newcastle on Tyne. William is nine years old, his mother is listed as Ann Head for some reason, although the birth date and location align with Elizabeth.
This photo is of a house in Bentinck Street, Elswick around the same time that William was living there. The area was close to the site of the Elswick Works, and primarily housed the workforce for the works founded by the great inventor and famous Victorian industrialist William Armstrong. Armstrong developed and invented the hydraulic engine and went on to produce armaments for the government and eventually went on to become Armstrong Vickers shipyard.
William Head is described as a factory worker in 1861 and probably worked at the Elswick Works, long hours of hard back breaking work in difficult and dangerous conditions.
By 1871 William has moved back to the Cumbrian coast although his mother and stepfather stay on in Newcastle. He is boarding with the Moore family in the small shore side mining village of Flimby. I would love to know what caused him to make the move back to the west coast and go down the pit and if he was in touch with his uncles, aunts and cousins on his father’s side. Whatever his motivation, he met and married Mary Jane Fletcher in Flimby on 6th July 1873.
Below is a tree detailing their children and grandchildren. They had nine children, their second child James died at the age of 4 years.
William-H-1851William worked as a coal miner all his life. Men risked their lives on a daily basis doing back breaking labour in difficult and dangerous conditions because the money was slightly better than other occupations. Many paid a high price.
William and his family moved around as the work led them to various collieries in the area. My 2 x great grandfather John Joseph Hoodless was born in Southwick, Durham a year after they married. He had joined his father down the pit by the age of 16. According to the census and other documents this is where they were over a 30 year period:
- 1871 – Flimby had two collieries Flimby Moor and Robin Hood
- 1873 Wearmouth Colliery, Southwick, near Sunderland.
- 1881 Camerton Colliery near Workington, Cumberland.
- 1891 Ellenborough near Maryport,
- 1901 Back to Camerton
- 1904 St Helen’s Colliery, Siddick, near Workington.
Tragically William Hoodless was killed in a mine explosion on 7th January 1904. There is more information about this below. After the accident rescuers were unable to locate William’s body and the pit was sealed shut with him still inside to let the fire and gases burn off. According to family lore, Mary Jane, known in the family as Mother Hoodless never went to bed afterwards, but sat up and slept in a chair waiting and even after his body was retrieved three months later, she still refused to go to bed. It was great to see a reprint of a newspaper article from 1938 confirming this family legend.
The 1911 Census above is for a small five roomed miners cottage at 97 Shore Side, Siddick, the village that provided housing for St Helen’s Pit. These cottages had two bedrooms and an attic with wc facilities outside in the backyard. There are no less than 10 persons living under this roof with Mother Hoodless, a widow for the past 7 years. The seven adults listed are her sons Thomas aged 22 is a coal hewer and Harold age 17 a pit driver at the same pit where they lost their Dad and younger son Herbert still only 11. Two married daughters Annie and Elizabeth as well as Elizabeth’s husband Ben Taylor who is also a coal drawer at the pit. There are also three grandchildren – Annie’s eldest daughter Millie aged 9, my great grandmother Mary Jane is 13 and Annie’s son James is 7. What a crowd! I personally like to think the house was full of love and laughter at this time and no one saw the foreshadowing tragedy of World War I ahead.
