Family roots and links with Whitworth

Can you help these people trace their routes to the Rossendale Valley?

Malvern Hostick from Lincolnshire/London wrote:-

After reading the fascinating pdf from Beryl Howarth, I am wondering if she, or anyone else can tell me of the Hargeaves cotton mill, which I believe may have been on Tong Lane in the first half of the 20th century. I am compiling information about the late Joan Hargreaves, (and her family,) born 1920 and brought up at Abbotsford on John Street. She moved, by herself, to London after the war, returning to her Abbotsford home at Whitworth in the early 1950’s.
A potted history can be found here:
http://www.malvernhostick.com/xxJoan%20Hargreaves/Joan%20Hargreaves%202.html

Her artwork is now housed at the MMU Archives and the Whitworth Gallery, with historical family paintings at the Rossendale Museum.
Joan left a large archive of the mill business, with family history documentation and photographs. These, (on behalf of the executors of her estate,) I am hoping to deposit at the Lancashire Record Office within the next month or so. This, I am sure, will be of interest to all Whitworth historians.

I am in the process of building a web site surrounding Joan and her family, and would be interested in any information or recollections of the Hargreaves family and their cotton mill, particularly of course from Beryl.

Malvern Hostick - malvernh20@aol.com

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Margaret Duffus from Australia wrote:-

Wishing to make contact with any Whitworth family. My James Whitworth, aged 40 years was transported to Tasmania in 1841 for attempting to forge a cheque. He was a cotton spinner/superintendent in one of the local cotton mills. He left behind a wife (Ann) & many children: James, Thomas, William, John, Mary, Richard & Mary. He remarried, to a fellow convict in 1847 & produced a further 12 children. He died in 1889, Hobart, Tasmania.

Contact Margaret at duffusum@westnet.com.au

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Arthur Cornwall from Australia is trying to trace the Rudman family

If your name's Rudman and you have connections with Whitworth and the Rossendale Valley then Arthur Cornwall (Arty) would like to hear from you, as he's interested in tracing his family tree, and their former links with Whitworth. Arty's genealogy web site is here.

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Earle Flynn from Norton, Massachusetts, USA wrote:-

I have been researching for the past three years on the Flynn Family History as they moved from Ireland to Lancashire and then finally to Fall River, Massachusetts. The Flynns and Carrolls finally ended up in the Rossendale Valley - Stacksteads and Whitworth prior to their emigration to the USA in the late 1880s. Fall River, MA was a large cotton textile manufacturing center at the turn of the century. At one point there were 110 cotton mills in the area. Like the Lancashire Mills, Fall River was doomed and today there are no mills producing printed cloth. There is a lot of empty space available just like in Whitworth.

Earle's e-mail address is If you have any family connections, he'd be pleased to hear from you.

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Connie Everitt from Kitimat, British Columbia Canada wrote:-

I am working on my genealogy and was looking for information on Whitworth because my 4-X Great grandfather James KAY (b. 1795) & his brother Edmund(Edward) Greenwood KAY ran a woollen manufacturing business out of Millhouse Mill which is located on Holt Street. James was married twice as far as I know once to Elizabeth YATES on 3 Dec 1820, then after she died he remarried to another lady also named Elizabeth (no last name yet). Edmund married to a Margaret HAWORTH on 30 Sept. 1827. See pictures on my website: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~surnamru/connie/millhousemill.html and
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~surnamru/connie/kay.html

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Vicky Jones from West Yorkshire wrote: -

I collect and pass on information regarding the GRINDROD family. Yes - we are all related and have our roots firmly in WHITWORTH. I would especially like to hear from any-one who has in their possession original old documentation. Do you have a GRINDROD family tree, an interesting GRINDROD tale to tell or do you need help with your GRINDROD ancestry?

Contact Vicky at

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