Catalogue description FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS RELATED TO MRS JOHNSTONE

Johnstone, H, Mrs, fl 1981, of Withington, Manchester

Mrs Johnstone attended the Family History Research Course given at Manchester Polytechnic. These photographs relate to the Heald and Thorlby families, the depositor's parents' families. See attached sheet for further details.

John Heald, depositor's paternal great-great grandfather came from Halton in Lancashire and moved to Barcicroft Farm, Burnage Lane in 1840. On the 1861 Census for Burnage, he gives his age as 63, which would mean that he was born c. 1787, and his occupation as farmer. His son, William Heald, depositor's paternal great grandfather, is described on the 1861 Census as a farmer aged 28, therefore born c. 1833. In 1871, he is described as a labourer working on his brother's farm. This would be Bolton Wood Gate Farm, Burnage, where his brother, George, worked. George died in 1896 aged 67, therefore born c. 1829. William's sons, Robert and James started Heald's Dairy in Didsbury in 1893, but after James died in 1897 aged 28, Robert emigrated to Canada and the business was carried on by James' widow, Agnes Ann Heald nee Gibbons. In 1900, the Dairy moved to Ford Bank Farm, Didsbury.

On the depositor's father's father's side, Joseph Henry Thorlby, depositor's paternal great-grandfather, was a farmer from Helpringham in Lincolnshire. He married Mary Ann Brickels in 1856 when she was only 13. His son Arthur, who married Sarah Alice Heald, was a horse-dealer and farmer at Barcicroft Road, Burnage.

The depositor's mother was Isabella Scott, born 1900 and died 1945. She was the daughter of David Scott, originally from Hawick, but who was a druggist and worked as the assistant of Josiah Boot in Nottingham. David's wife, Margaret, the depositor's maternal grandmother died in 1934 aged 91. She had been illiterate, but was taught to read and then read everything she could lay her hands on. Her family were supposed to have connections with Wheeler's Worldwide Wonder Circus, but this has not been verified as yet.