THE QUALTROUGH FAMILY

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ESTHERQUALTROUGH (KERNODE) AND THE MOORE FAMILY

Articles from the United Kingdom - written by Elaine Bye (Aspin) in May 2015

FORWARD by Malcolm Qualtrough

Elaine is a descendant of the Qualtrough Family and has traced her ancestors back to two lines of the early Qualtroughs: William Qualtrough who married Isabel Kelly in 1754 at Rushen, and William Qualtrough of the Kentraugh Mill (Born in 1723 and married to Margaret Crebbin)

Esther was one of eight children - their mother was born Margaret Qualtrough and their father was William Qualtrough who was born in 1787 in Rushen. Margaret died in 1822. William re-married 10 months later to Elizabeth Qualtrough and she bore him three more sons.

See the Article Sorting of a Riddle for the explanation

See Chart 73 Showing the Ancestors of William Qualtrough and his two Qualtrough Wives

See Chart 72 Showing the Descendants of William Qualtrough and his two Wives

Elaine continues to research thefamily of her Grandmother Millicent Janet Moore and Great-Great Grandmother Ann Jane Kermode both of the Isle of Man.

ARTICLE by Elaine Bye

My Dad was always very proud of his Manx connection and had very happy memories of holidays in Douglas when he was a child. My husband Mick and I visited the Island in 2003 to do some research but unfortunately we left it too late to share the experience with my Dad who had died the previous year.

Esther Qualtrough, my great, great Grandmother, was unlucky in love and was widowed by the age of 37. She had married Thomas Kermode on 7.12.1844 at Braddan. He signed, she made her mark and the witnesses were James Cain and Jane Quinn, both made their mark. Thomas was a journeyman shoemaker and the couple had 3 children. They were at 19 Sand Street, Douglas in 1851 with William (aged 5) and Ann Jane (aged 2). Thomas was buried on 23.2.1854 and by 1861 Esther and her three children (George Richard was born in 1851/2) were living in Back Strand Street, Douglas. Esther had no occupation but William was a 15year old messenger lad. Looking at old maps I think Sand Street became Strand Street sometime in the 1850s so the family had not moved far.

Esther herself also died young and was buried on 10.2.1865 in Braddan – she was 48. In 1871 the three children were living together in Garrett Place, Off Market Street. William, aged 25, was a grocer’s assistant, Ann, aged 22, was described as a housekeeper and George, aged 18, was a gardener. They were all unmarried.

Next door to the Kermode siblings in Garrett Place was the Moore family including Joseph, a 19 year old plasterer! Ann married the ‘boy next door’ on 30.11.1872 at St Barnabas, Douglas.

Ann Jane and Joseph had 7 children of whom 2 died as infants – Philip in 1879 aged 2 and Herbert Ernest aged 15 months in 1890. There is a stone in Kirk Braddan cemetery commemorating Philip and Ann Jane herself was interred in the same grave in 1892. She died of heart disease and syncope at the age of 44.

By 1901 Joseph had taken his family to Liverpool where he continued his work as a plasterer. His eldest son George Henry, known in the family as Harry, had married in 1897. Sadly the second Philip died in 1905 and Esther Clara then had two illegitimate children in 1908 and 1912. Millicent Janet, my grandmother, married Alfred Aspin in 1907 and had five children, losing one at 2 days old in 1908. My father, the youngest child, was born on 24 May 1914 and Millicent wanted to name him Victor as he was born on Empire Day which was Queen Victoria’s birthday but Alfred insisted on using his name despite the death of the previous baby Alfred.

Alfred Aspin had been in the Grenadier Guards in the early 1900s and was still a reservist when WW1 broke out in August 1914.  He was called up straight away and posted to France in November 1914. He was killed at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle between 10-12 March 1915 and has no known grave.

Millicent was now a widow with 4 young children and life must have been hard. My father remembered living in a two up two down house with his Uncle Tom Moore, Uncle Fred Aspin (his father’s identical twin), Uncle Ned Plunkett (Aunt Esther’s widower) and his four children. Dad was only a baby but it must have been quite a squash! 

Joseph Moore suffered greatly from rheumatoid arthritis and was looked after by his son Harry and his wife Mary Elizabeth (known as Polly) who lived with him in Romilly Street, Liverpool and Millicent who visited to help. He died in 1926 and Polly died the following year. Millicent and her family then moved to Romilly Street to look after Harry. Apparently poor Joseph’s coffin had to be especially deep because his knees were too bent up with arthritis to lie flat.

Harry, Tom and Millicent died within 5 years of each other between 1935 and 1940.

Back to Ann Jane’s brothers - William and George Kermode. In 1881 William was still an unmarried grocer’s assistant lodging in Douglas. George was an unmarried plaster’s assistant living with James & Jane Moore, Joseph’s parents.

There is a George Kermode dying in the House of Industry in Douglas on 28 November 1890 aged 38 which certainly looks like the right George. Sadly the 1901 Census has William Kermode, a 51 year old unmarried grocer’s porter, as an inmate in the same House of Industry. There is also the burial of a William Kermode aged 54 on 24 October 1901 at St George’s, Douglas. Again this looks like my William. Not a happy end for Esther Qualtrough’s two sons.

A little more on my line – my father left Liverpool after WW2 and took his family to Surrey where I was born and my sister and I were brought up. Dad worked as what would probably now be called an estate manager for the then Queen’s orthopaedic surgeon until I was 11 and he later worked for Paul Getty (at the time the richest man in the world) at his mansion near Guildford, Surrey. 

My sister moved to Colchester, Essex following her marriage and Mick and I moved to Basingstoke, Hampshire. My Dad retired to Weymouth, a seaside town in Dorset and he then moved to be near me in Basingstoke where he died in 2002.

© 2021 by Malcolm Qualtrough, Elizabeth Feisst and the late John Karran Qualtrough. 

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© Copyright by Malcolm Qualtrough, Elizabeth Feisst and the late John Karran Qualtrough.