The photograph of my great grandfather David Clarke, working at his desk as an Accountant in Oldham (around 1885), is the oldest visual link in my family.
David Clarke’s was born on 26th August 1842 in modest circumstances in Weston Favell, Northamptonshire. He married a much younger woman, Sarah Kenyon on the 9th April 1882. Sarah was born in 1862.
The Marriage Certificate records David as an Accountant. It confirms Sarah's address as 119 West Street, Oldham and her married sister Betty Nicholson was one of the witnesses. The other witness was George / Georgie Kenyon (presumably her brother). The couple were married in a Baptist Chapel.
The Marriage Certificate entries are not clear on the photocopy but we can be fairly certain from Census data that David's father was Henry Clark who was a Shoemaker
In the 1891 Census, my great grandfather was recorded as an Accountant (47) living at the Whitehouse, Willaston, near Nantwich, with wife Sarah (29) born Oldham, Lancs; daughters Florence Eveline and Rosella born Manchester, and younger children Lillian Annette and David Kenyon (my grandfather) who had been born in Willaston, near Nantwich.
In the 1881 Census, David is recorded as being 36, unmarried, lodging with Henry Lyon at 13 Manor Terrace, Liscard, Birkenhead. At that time he was described as 'Bookkeeper to Wallasey Local Board' (i.e. treasurer to the Local Council) and was also recorded as having been born at Weston Favell, Northants.
The 1881 Census also includes Henry Clark, Shoemaker (66) b Weston Favell and his wife Anne Clark (58), dressmaker, b Rockingham, Northants. It appears from BMD research that Anne's maiden name was Hughes.
In the 1861 Census, Henry (46) is recorded again as a Shoemaker, living with his wife Anne (Milliner & Dressmaker) and son David - who was then 18 and employed as an Accountant's Clerk. The same basic information recurs for 1851, with David then aged 8 years.
Going back another generation, Henry is recorded as still living in the household of his father William Clark (65) and mother Catharine (65). He was 25 and both he and his younger brother Joseph were Shoemakers.
The record stretches back then to William (bca 1776) - and links onwards to Henry (bca 1815) and then to his son David (b 1842), and to Keith's grandfather Captain David Kenyon Clarke (b 1888 in Nantwich, Cheshire).
It is significant I believe that the elder David was married in a Baptist Chapel. The shoemakers of Northampton, who had work placed with them in their cottages by unscrupulous agents, were apparently notorious for alcoholism.
Henry appears to have secured a better life for his son by marrying late, having only one child, and going 'tea-total'. Good for him - and ultimately for the family!
Henry's father William was an Agricultural Labourer, also from the village of Weston Favell, Northamptonshire. No doubt he descended from a long-line of villagers who originally cultivate 'furrow-long' (furlong length) strips of land in the village Open Fields. The strips were re-allocated every year to ensure that, over time, everyone had a mix of the better and inferior land.
This communal system was destroyed when the overall owners of the land (aristocratic families) 'enclosed' the land into fields - dispossessing the peasantry in the process. There is much written about the iniquities of the Highland Clearances and Anglo-Irish Landlordism - but the truth is that English countryfolk have an equal grievance.
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