THOMAS WRATHALL married a young woman called GRACE probably around 1740. In their turn, they had two known sons, STEPHEN and WILLIAM.

STEPHEN WRATHALL married a MARY ROBINSON probably around 1775 and went on to have about eight children, many of whom I know nothing further. Stephen and Mary lived in Westhouse, Thornton in Craven, though whether it was they who moved from Linton or whether it was Stephen’s parents, I do not know.

Ann was born in 1778, Mary followed in 1780, then there was Thomas (1782), Stephen who was born, and died, in 1785, Grace who was born 1786, Nancy in 1789 and then finally two boys, John of 1792 and James (1798)

It is JOHN WRATHALL with whom I continue. He was born in Westhouse and by 1815 he had become a husbandman. That year was the year of his marriage to ELLEN BAINES of Dent. Ellen was born in 1788 and she died sometime after 1851. Their wedding took place in Ingleton on July 29th and their witnesses to the wedding were Henry and Mary Proctor.

John continued to farm and, together, he and Ellen raised 5 known living children, all of whom were born in Westhouse, Thornton in Craven over an 18 year period. From the birth of Stephen in 1815 to the birth of James in 1833 .
By 1861 John and Ellen were living at Moor Garth, Burton in Lonsdale and ten years later he had retired from farming and was a widower. John and Ellen’s eldest child was STEPHEN WRATHALL ( b 1815 in Westhouse) and he married a lady called Elizabeth. He became a father like his father and in 1851 was working out of Low Biggins. Stephen and Elizabeth appear to have had one child, John who was born in 1846 in Austwick. By 1901 Stephen was widowed and living with his younger sister Nancy and her family at Wilson Wood, Ingleton,

Mary was the second child, born 1817 of whom no more is known. There was also a son John who was born in 1831 and he became a farmer in Barnoldswick. His descendants would seem to have moved to Manchester

ANTHONY was born in 1827 in Westhouse and he married a lady called JANE. I believe that her surname may possibly have been BENTHAM for reasons I shall come to shortly.
Anthony was a farm at Southerscales in 1861 and he and Jane had six children.
John, Lucy & Thomas have been elusive but there is information on their siblings Stephen, Anthony Richard & John.

In the 1871 census there is a STEPHEN WRATHALL living at Brunscar, Ingleton with his uncle John Bentham, a farmer of 160 acres. The age fits with Anthony’s son son Stephen who is not resident at home with his parents at this time. I believe that this is most likely one and the same. In 1901 in Habergham Eaves there also appears a Stephen Wrathall born Ingleton who is of the right age and would have been My great great grandma Ellen’s cousin. This Stephen had five children, one of whom was called Anthony and judging by his children’s birthplaces, Stephen and his wife moved from Sedburgh to Padiham and then to Burnley. Stephens son Anthony married Jane Ralphs and his descendants now live in Nova Scotia.

Anthony’s other children Anthony Richard married Mercy Lambert and John married a lady called Mary. John became a fruit dealer and in 1891 was living at Victoria St, Ingleton and he and his wife did not appear to have had children.

I was amused to find that Anthony farmed at Bullpot farm in Casterton which was up the road from where I went to school, though at the time I had no inkling that there was a family connection. In my time at Casterton all I knew of Bullpot farm was Bullpot Lane leading up to it, which is where we would go for an illicit cigarette.

Finally there was NANCY who was nine years younger than her brother Stephen but not the youngest child. She was born in 1824 and was John and Ellen’s third child.

Like the other children, she was born in Westhouse and, at the age of 20, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter ELLEN who was my great great grandmother. Nothing has ever been found that gives a clue as to who young Ellen’s father was and certainly Nancy didn’t marry for some time. I have been unable to trace Nancy in the 1851 census although the young Ellen was living with her grandparents. Nancy does pop up in 1861, living with her parents at Moor Garth, Burton in Lonsdale but her daughter had by then moved away and was working as a live-in servant locally.

In that same year of 1861 Nancy married a widowed farmer of 179 acres, William Slinger of Ellerbeck, Ingleton. William was two years older than Nancy and does not appear to have had children from his previous marriage.
William and Nancy appear to have only had the one child, a son James who was born in 1865. JAMES SLINGER married a girl called ELIZABETH and the 1901 census shows them to have had six children Mary Ellen, Thomas Morphet, Margaret Annie, John, George and Sissy May who were all born between 1888 and 1899 in Ingleton. In 1901 James was a farm labourer working in Draughton, Skipton .

His older half sister ELLEN, the illegitimate daughter of Nancy had married shortly after her mother had married William Slinger.
Her husband was JOHN MASON who was living in the Ingleton area. In 1851 Ellen had been living with her grandparents at Westhouse but by the time she was seventeen she was working as a house servant at Longber, Ingleton. Three years later, in 1864 the year of her marriage , she was working at Broats, Ingleton and her future husband was living at Longber End, Ingleton and working as a coal miner. John went off at various stages to look for work whilst Ellen lived at Longber End with her in-laws, Richard and Elizabeth Mason who were greengrocers.
Most of Ellen & Johns children were born in Ingleton but by 1878 the family had moved permanently to Burnley, where they lived initially on Ridge Row while John continued as a coalminer. By 1901 he had started his own coal delivery business.

Their daughter Mary Ellen Easter was my great grandmother and she married Joseph Hebden and more of Mary Ellen’s life can be found by clicking on the Mason and Hebden links below.
Strange to think that people like my 17th great grandparents would probably have known each other and that their great great great (etc) grandchildren Joe Hebden and Mary Ellen Easter Mason would have eventually met and married, not in the Yorkshire Dales but in the milltowns of Lancashire.

Barbara Wrathall is a distant cousin in Canada who has done a great deal of research on our Wrathall origins and her site takes these back even further to Burnsall and the late 1500s. The churches of Burnsall and Linton would have been familiar places to my Wrathall forbears just as they would have been to my Hebden forbears.

Many thanks also to Derek Wrathall whose website provided me with so much information about my Wrathall heritage.