Family trees are set out below for three families related to the surname Tattersfield.
Chart 30. Barrett and Yeadon.
Louisa Jane Barrett was my mother’s mother. She was the youngest of five children born to Joseph Barrett and Sarah Yeadon in 1876. Louisa Jane married my grandfather Joseph Crabtree, a shoddy manufacturer in Batley. A brief account of them and their two daughters is given in ” Tattersfields Who Emigrated- Alfred (1903-79) and Annie Tattersfield of Rhodesia.” Our move to Africa in 1947 was very much linked to the earlier family history, as set out briefly below.
The Barrett family came from the village of Yeadon, just north west of Leeds, whilst the Yeadon family came from Guiseley, only 2 miles away.
In 1896 John Henry Smith, a blacksmith engineer from Coventry, went to the gold mines in South Africa. He returned to England in 1903 “to look for a wife”. He found my grandmother’s eldest sister Florence Ann Barrett, and they married in Dewsbury in August 1903. They went straight to South Africa, and thence to Southern Rhodesia. Their two children Edward Kendall-Smith, who married my mother’s younger sister Phyllis Crabtree, and Doris, who married Pat Marriott, lived their lives in southern Africa, and left many descendants. After the chaos in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in the 1990’s, and seizure of white-owned farms, many of their descendants, some of whom had owned farms, left the country. Some now live in Australia, and others in South Africa, Zambia and USA.
Another sister of my grandmother, Mary Clara married William Lumby Keighley. Their eldest son Frank became a very eminent banker, rising to be General Manager of National Provincial Bank, which later, in 1970, merged with Westminster Bank to form Natwest Bank, one of today’s main high street banks.
A sister of Sarah Yeadon, Annie Eliza, married Joshua Parkinson, a stone mason. Their two sons, Frank and Albert started a business selling small electrical components from a shed in the back garden. They built it up into F & A Parkinson Limited, which took over REB Crompton and Co in 1927 to form Crompton Parkinson Limited, a leading UK engineering firm, of which Frank was Chairman. The firm was taken over by Hawker Siddeley in 1968.
Frank Parkinson had learned his engineering at Leeds University. He later funded the construction of the main university building, with its commanding white stone tower. It opened in 1951 as the Parkinson Building, so called to this day. Frank was given an Honorary LLD in 1939. He founded an engineering scholarship, and left two trusts.
There is a bust of Frank in the Parkinson Building, and a photo portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery.
CHART 31. SUNDERLAND.
The rather complicated history of Sarah Ann Holmes follows, as far as it can be determined. Though coming from the Midlands, she married Arthur Sunderland in 1826 in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. She had a son on 23rd April 1844 , whom she called Thomas Tatersfield (sic) Sunderland. The father would strongly appear to be Thomas Tattersfield, who is shown on Chart 5-York-, and who was transported to Tasmania just 4 weeks later.
An account of Thomas is given in “Some Tattersfields Who Emigrated- Thomas Tattersfield (1815-?), Convict Transported to Tasmania”. Specifically a Post Script deals with his relationship with Sarah Sunderland.
CHART 32. Pickering and Hirst.
My paternal grandfather was Charles Pickering Tattersfield. His mother was Betsy Pickering, whose father at her birth in Heckmondwike in 1848, was a nail maker. In the 1871 Census he was described as a Manufacturing Chemist.
Betsy Pickering’s oldest sister Sarah married William Thompson Hirst. This family had a woollen manufacturing business, and my grandfather Charles Pickering Tattersfield began work for them, as an office boy aged 13, in 1888. The business of his grandfather George, had gone bankrupt.
Charles rose to be Managing Director of GH Hirst. On 29th July 1936 an economiser at the firm’s Alexandra Mill in Batley exploded. Four people were killed, and my grandfather was injured in the head, with a cracked skull, by flying debris. It is said that his health never fully recovered, and he died in July 1940.