TWO GENERATIONS: DESCENDENTS OF JOHN CRAXFORD AND
SARAH CLAYPOLE; COTTINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

From the collections of Alan Craxford, Brenda Eldridge and Irene Beadsworth

INTRODUCTION

Cottingham, Northamptonshire is a small community and there are several families whose branches and limbs have intertwined. Some have moved away from the village whilst others have stayed very close to their point of origin. We are delighted to have been able to reconstruct this pictorial album of our grandparents and aunts and uncles thus far by combining material from our respective family archives. In addition we have discovered some of the marriage certificates commemorating these unions. We hope to be able to add more faces to this page as time goes by.

GENERATION 1. SONS AND DAUGHTERS.

Brenda and I of course have been rather more interested in the children of John Craxford and Sarah Claypole. These were James Ernest (1872-1949) - our grandfather, Henrietta (1874-1933), Louisa (1877-1919), Sarah Anne (b Abt 1879), William (1885-1967) and Elizabeth. Sarah came from Cottingham but John originated from the nearby village of Middleton.

The marriage certificate of John Craxford and Sarah Ann Claypole

James Ernest Craxford	William Craxford	Henrietta Craxford	Louisa Craxford

SPOUSES

The records suggest that Sarah Anne was the first to enter wedlock, with Thomas Charles Tansley, in the village in September 1899. James Ernest married Esther May Burlton in Bromyard August 1905 and eventually settled in Leicester. Henrietta married Henry Wright in Cottingham in December 1901. Her sister Louisa's marriage to Arthur Beadsworth took place in Cottingham in December 1902. William married Edith Tilley in Cottingham before he too moved to Leicester to take up his constabulary duties.

The marriage certificate of Sarah Anne Craxford and Thomas Tansley
The witnesses were her brother (James Ernest) and sister (Henrietta)


The marriage certificate of James Ernest Craxford and Esther Burlton


The marriage certificate of Louisa Craxford and Arthur Beadsworth

Arthur Beadsworth has presented us with a number of challenges in determining the ancestry of that side of the family. It did not take long to discover his father, Anthony Beadsworth (b Abt 1834) but returns in the various census records proved very patchy and it soon became clear that this was another family bedevilled by variable surname spellings. The further back you went the more likely the family was known as Beesworth. It appears as well that Arthur spent time with his mother, Mary, at the home of the Makepeace family in Leicester after his father had died in the 1880s.

This could account for the quite strong and repeated association with Leicester through the generations and the visits reported by relatives. There are also associations between several families over the years. There were at least two Beadsworth and two Craxford families in Cottingham in the 1800s. Tansley is another repeat surname. Family trees based on John Craxford and William Beesworth can be found at the following links.

Descendents of William Beesworth (Abt 1750) of Cottingham

Descendents of John Craxford (Abt 1834) of Middleton

Families are regularly found in Blind Lane and Water Lane over the course of successive census returns. Our explorations continue.

Esther May Burlton	Arthur Beadsworth

GENERATION 2: THE BEADSWORTHS

These are the children of this branch of the Beadsworth family.

Dennis Beadsworth	Eva Beadsworth	Cecil Arthur Beadsworth	Maurice Beadsworth	Constance Clara (Connie) Beadsworth

Frederick Lawrence Beadsworth	Margaret Beadsworth	Bernard Beadsworth	Hilda Beadsworth

We hope to add to our family album in the weeks ahead.

POSTSCRIPT

John Craxford died on July 15th 1898 at the age of 64 years. We recently found this 'In Loving Memory' card in an old box of documents.

'In Loving Memory'	of John Craxford

Added: September 1st 2005
Last modified: December 11th 2005