Elizabeth Rooney, my great-grandmother, was born in Chorley, Lancashire on the 7th of October, 1883 to John Rooney – an immigrant from Ireland who worked all his life as a farm labourer.

We know that John Rooney was born in 1844 and that his father’s name was also John. But there are 2 John Rooneys matching that description in the surviving Irish birth records, both Catholic – one from Derryneill, Down and one from Lurgan, Armagh, but our John Rooney is more likely the one from Derryneill, Down.

In the English census, taken on 3 APR 1881, our John reported that he was 37 at his last birthday. The John from Armagh, born in OCT, would have been 36 years, 5 months, 5 days on the day of the census. The John from Down, born in JAN, would have been 37 years, 2 months, 11 days on the day of the census.

On his wedding certificate, 8 AUG 1874, our John claimed to be 30. The John from Armagh, born in OCT, would have been 29 years, 9 months, 10 days. The John from Down, born in JAN, would have been 30 years, 6 months, 16 days.

So – best guess – our John Rooney is the son of John Rooney & Elizabeth Herold, married 09 Jan 1837 in Derryneill, Down. We don’t know when he emigrated to England, but we do know that John signed Elizabeth’s birth record using his mark, which tells us he was illiterate. It isn’t until 1873, that we have the first trace of him in England. In that year, his oldest child was born in Chorley, and the birth record of John Smith is most notable for the fact that his father’s name is nowhere on it.

Marriage & Family

Census records consistently tell us that his son was born in Chorley in 1873, but there is no matching John Rooney in the decade before or after the year his birth. John Rooney’s son was born a ‘Smith’ – his mother’s maiden name – and only later came to use John ‘Rooney’.

Illegitimacy was exceptional at this time – only about 4% of births in England. On the other hand, 33% of women were pregnant at the time of marriage, and John, 30, did eventually marry Elizabeth, 26, on the 8 of August, 1874 – making his son John legitimate. We have no way to know what caused the delay. Perhaps they didn’t have enough money to marry. Perhaps someone needed persuading. We just can’t know.

We do know the wedding took place in Fleetwood – 32 miles from Chorley – where the couple was living separately at the time of their marriage. John was living and working at Flake Fleet Farm, and Elizabeth was on Duck Street, presumably with her infant son. The distances are worth noting because a horse drawn carriage only goes 3-4 miles an hour, and traveling 32 miles from Chorley on foot was no small undertaking.

The couple was married in a Catholic Chapel in Fleetwood by Rev. Thomas Bridges, which strongly suggests they were married in St. Mary’s Chapel. It was newly completed at the time and Rev. Bridges was instrumental in building it. He was posted there until 1897. Elizabeth’s brother Robert Smith was in Fleetwood to witness the ceremony.

More children quickly followed. In total, 11 children: John, 1873-????, Chorley; Anne, 1875-1946, Duxbury; Mary, 1877-1932, Duxbury; Thomas, 1878-1878, died an infant; Jane, 1879-?, Duxbury; Thomas, 1880-1918, Duxbury;  William, 1882-1883, died an infant; Elizabeth, 1883-1932, Chorley;  Agnes, 1885-1886, died an infant; William, 1886-1918, Chorley; and Agnes, 1894-1986, Chorley.

Duxbury Park

The children’s birth records and the 1881 English census combine to tell us that the family was living at Hodsons, a house on the Duxbury Park estate, about 1.5 miles south of Chorley, probably from right after their marriage until at least their 6th or 7th child was born, about 1882 or 1883.

At it’s peak, at the end of the 1800’s, Duxbury Park comprised over 6000 acres. It was the ancestral home of the Standish family and the probable birthplace of Myles Standish. The property was sold in 1932 and the house demolished in 1956, but the coach house and stables survive, and if you’re hoping to walk in your ancestor’s footsteps, pack your clubs – the remainder of the estate is now a municipal golf course.

Thornhill Farm

In 1891, the Rooney’s were living in Chorley near a short road to the north of the city center called Botany Brow next to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. All the children, aged 12 and up were working in the mill – there are any number of mills near there. Elizabeth Rooney, age 8, and the younger children were still in school, possibly the school just a few blocks south of their home.

Botany Brow was and is covered in row houses, but they didn’t live in one of those. They lived on Thorn Hill Farm. Their nearest neighboring farms were Wigan Hill and Wiggan’s Farm, though the census indicates no Wiggans were actually living there in 1891. The Wiggan’s Farm was occupied by Ralph and Jane Pass; Wigan Hill by John & Elizabeth Crosdale.

John & Elizabeth Pass Away

On March 2, 1894, James and Elizabeth’s 11th and last child was born, a girl, the second of their children to be called Agnes. She was 5 years old when her father, John, died of bronchial pneumonia on the 6 OCT 1899, at 18 Cowling Brow, Chorley, their home near the brickworks.

I found 12 births for the couple – 4 died in infancy, 2 died during WWI, 3 emigrated to America and 4 remained in Lancashire.

The eldest son, John, was out of his parents house by 1901 and I find no further trace of him.  Annie married William Rothwell in 1902 at Chorley Register Office and died in Chorley in 1946, at age 70.

By 1911, Thomas, the third Thomas and 7th child, was living as a single man in Standish House, Chorley, working as a general labourer for the public works. He volunteered for duty in 1914, at the start of WWI, and died during WWI, but not in it. He passed in Chorley about a year after what would have been the end of his 3 year service but his service record indicates only 69 days of service at “Home”, meaning somewhere in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, or England. He could have died of Spanish flu, a wound, or anything else. We only know for sure that it was in the spring of 1918, at the age of 38.

Elizabeth Smith Rooney did not stay a widow long. She remarried in 1905 to John Marsden. He owned the farm next to her parent’s farm at Morris Fold, so they probably grew up together.

Elizabeth died of cardiac degeneration and a cerebral hemorrhage on the 9 DEC 1910, in the presence of her second husband, John Marsden. When the 1911 census was taken the following April, five of John and Elizabeth’s children were still living in their stepfather John Marsden’s farm, but they quickly scattered to the winds. Both William and Jane married that year – William to Alice Costello at St. George’s in Chorley, and Jane to John Kelly.

Like his brother Thomas, William also joined up in 1914 but was killed in Flanders on May 11, 1918. His enlistment record was partially burned by bombs in WWII, but it’s still legible. He was a cardroom hand when he signed up and a Lance Corporal when he died. He is now buried at the Houchin British Cemetery in Pas de Calais, France.