© 2016 David E. Spencer
Thomas and his wife Lucy Boardwell had two sons and six daughters.
Their eldest child was their son Lawrence Boardwell Ashworth, born in Higham, near Burnley in 1878. In his youth he worked in the local cotton mill. As the son of the mill manager he was well placed for finding managerial work in the cotton industry in India where he lived with his wife Margaret Alice (nee Moorhouse) whom he had married in 1903 at Nelson. Their son Lawrence Moorhouse Ashworth (known as "Larry") was at boarding school in England whilst his parents were in India. Lawrence junior spent his adult life working at Ford motors in Dagenham near London.
Lawrence & Margaret Ashworth and their son Larry
The eldest daughter of Thomas and Lucy was Jane Elizabeth (1979 - 1933) who married Nathaniel Anderton, a local cotton weaver at Higham Wesleyan Chapel in 1907. They had a son called Neville who died in his teens.
Jane Elizabeth with husband Nathaniel and son Neville
The next two children of Thomas and Lucy were twins Thomas Henry (known as "Tenny") and Mary Lucy (known as "Polly") who were born in 1881 at Higham.
Tenny was a "tackler" in a cotton mill - an occupation more officially described as a "cotton loom overlooker" that involved maintaining and managing a set of looms and the weavers who ran them. Tenny married Fanny Hargreaves in 1911 at Higham Wesleyan Chapel but never had any children
Tenny lived into his 90's so I remember him well. He was a keen walker and was still regularly climbing Pendle Hill almost until the last days of his life. He was eccentric with a penchant for all scientific and technological devices and gadgets. He had, for example, built a telescope with a lens crafted by his own hands from a ship's porthole glass. As a wedding present he bought me the best sliderule available at the time - my wife was delighted!.
I never knew my grandmother Polly - she died a few months before I was born. She married Charles Percival ("Percy") Spencer, a local printer and Wesleyan local preacher in 1907 at Higham Wesleyan Chapel. They had four sons, three of whom followed Percy into the printing trade. There are living descendants of this marriage including me.
Mary Lucy ("Polly") Spencer & sons Walter, Leslie and Sydney
Eliza Selina was the next daughter of Thomas and Lucy. She was born in 1885 and lived in Higham until her death in 1963. She never married.
Alice May was born in 1887. She married Jim Green who hailed from Harle Syke near Burnley who had earlier emigrated to Glen Waverley, near Melbourne in Australia. They had two daughters and a son. There are living descendants of this marriage.
Jim and Alice Green and their children
Agnes Ann was born in 1889 at Higham. In 1923 she married Wille Smith Emmott, a local farmer. They had a daughter, Mary, who in all honesty was my tutor and mentor for many years in my pursuit of family and local history. Mary's death in 2006 left a major gap in my studies and I will always be grateful for her help. There are living descendants of this marriage.
The youngest child of Thomas and Lucy was Sophia Margaretta (known as "Cissie"), born in 1891. She married Harold Dyson in 1915. Like her elder brother, Cissie and her husband worked in the cotton industry in India. They had a son who never married.
Sophia Margaretta ("Cissie") Dyson and her son Allan