Henthorn Family Tree

12/02/2023

If you have ancestors named Henthorn who lived in the Crompton area of Oldham, Lancashire, UK - I would love to hear from you - we might be related!

07/06/2022

Many thanks to my good buddy John Smith for sourcing some great Manchester memories on You Tube. In this clip, you will find Harry making a star appearance at 26 mins and 42 seconds - never happier than when he was working with hot metal!

A collection of films about Manchester's past. Including chapters on Belle Vue, Manchester Ship Canal, Manchester Evening News, Manchester United and Manche...

11/11/2021

Remembering members of the extended clan who fought and those who died in two World Wars

23/05/2021

18/05/2021

So, what have we discovered on our journey looking back at the direct Henthorn descendants line over the past 500 years? First and foremost, the Crompton/ Shaw area of Oldham play a huge part in their lives - EVERY descendent was born, lived and died in the area, right up until Harry's (1920-2009) death in Lancaster Hospital.

The average life expectancy of a Henthorn male is 57 years! Obviously, this has increased in recent times and is skewed by early (premature) deaths due to socio-economic factors over time.

The Henthorn's are not a religious clan - refusing to contribute to church funds over many generations. There is always an exception to the rule, as we saw with the numerous family baptisms into the Mormon way of life and their pilgrimage to America.

On average, each generation produced five children. Of those five children, three would be boys and two girls.

The most popular Christian names over the past 500 years have been (girls) Ann, Mary and Sarah. (Boys) Thomas, James and John.

It's fair to say that we are working class! Our early ancestors plied their trade primarily as stone masons and the industrial revolution saw the Henthorn's 'take advantage' of jobs in the cotton and mining trades.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this 'journey' as much as I have enjoyed investigating and pulling it together, I hope it is a 'useful start point' for future generations who might have an interest in finding out about their past.

I intend developing the tree further over the coming months (and maybe years) and will keep you posted (literally) of any interesting 'finds'.

For now, here's wishing our current and future generations, good health and happiness.

Tony Henthorn (Born 1959 in Oldham - of course!)

13/05/2021

For this eleventh (and final) chapter in the direct ‘Henthorns of Crompton’ lineage, from which I am descended, we shall take a brief look at the times of:

Great Grandfather x 10 John Henthorn (B 1589 Oldham, D 1654 Oldham)
Great Grandfather x 11 Robert Henthorn (B 1545 Oldham D 1610 Oldham)
Great Grandfather x 12 Thomas Henthorn (B 1524 Oldham D 1572 Oldham)

The only additional information we have about these final three (identified) gernerations are that John had a wife called Sarah (1606 -1656) and an older brother, Robert. Robert was married to Ellin (1545-1592) and had a brother named Henerie (1545 – 1588). We do not know the name of Thomas’s wife but believe he had a younger brother named John.

During the lives of Robert, Thomas and John; The Plague struck Manchester – allegedly wiping out up to a quarter of the population in 1603, William Shakespeare was born (1564) and the Anglo-Spanish War was fought (1585 – 1604).

11/05/2021

The Henthorns – Chapter 10

Today we look at my Great Grandfather x 8; Thomas Henthorn

Thomas was born in 1636 (we have no death date for him although I suspect he is not still alive!) He married Sarah (born 1640) in 1660 in Crompton, Oldham – where he and his family lived all their lives.

The Son of John Henthorn (1589 – 1654), he was one of six children born between 1622 and 1648 to John and wife Sarah. We don’t have any details of Thomas’s profession, but it is highly-likely he was engaged in the stone masonry industry, like many of this Henthorn branch

When Thomas was six, the English Civil War was in full flow and in July 1642 a Manchester linen weaver is killed – the first casualty of the war.

Wikipedia has a number of interesting ‘observations’ about Crompton: Because of the poor soils and rugged terrain, Samuel Lewis said Crompton's inhabitants were "a race of hardy and laborious men". They have also been described as having a reputation for being a "hardy, frugal and somewhat independent breed", which has been attributed to the tradition of absentee landlords and self-sustenance in earlier times. There had been a chapel of ease at the hamlet of Shaw since at least the early 16th century, but, due to ecclesiastical arrangements for the parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, the inhabitants were obliged to contribute money towards Oldham Parish Church, which in turn had obligation to the mother Church of St Mary the Virgin at Prestwich. On several occasions during the 15th and 16th centuries, the Archdeacon of Chester had to intervene because Crompton's inhabitants refused to contribute towards holy bread and candles used at Prestwich. In 1826, a poll was taken regarding the re-building of Oldham Church. Not one person in Crompton voted in favour of the rebuilding and when a rate was levied to raise money for the new church at Oldham, the people of Crompton refused to pay.

Perhaps this helps to explain my own attitude towards the church and religion in general!

09/05/2021

The Henthorns – Chapter 9

Today we look at my Great Grandfather x 7; James Henthorn (Senior)

As we go further back in time, it becomes increasingly difficult to effectively track our ancestry line. Records are more sparse, harder to interpret and often lost or destroyed. We start to hit this issue when looking at James.

James was born in 1663 in East Crompton, Lancs. Again, we know he was an accomplished stone mason and spent all his 65 years in and around the Shaw area, being ‘laid to rest’ there in 1728.
Hi married Martha Wylde in 1686 and they had five children, including James (Junior) who we featured in Chapter 8.

We believe that James senior was one of four children born to parents Thomas and Sarah. We have basic details on his younger brother, Jonathan (1667 – 1686) who died before his twentieth birthday. We know very little about his two other siblings, perhaps due to them being ‘infant deaths’

During James’s lifetime we saw the birth of Capability Brown (1716), the building of the first Cotton Exchange in Manchester (1729) and in 1730, 2 years after James’s death, The Sawyers Arms in Manchester (an old haunt of mine) was first licensed

08/05/2021

It would have been mum's 101st birthday today - 'Happy Birthday Winnie'