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.

Sarah Anne Claypole was born in Cottingham in 1844, to John Claypole and Ann Bellamy Munton, the oldest of four daughters. This first gallery includes images of her siblings. John and Ann had three boys. John was the middle son, born 7 years after Sarah Ann. He became known as "Ratty Jack" later in life because of his occupation. Caroline, born in 1857, was her youngest sister.

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) and William (1885-1967). A fourth daughter, Florence, died in infancy. Sarah came from Cottingham but John originated from the nearby village of Middleton.

Spouses

The records suggest that Sarah Anne was the first to enter wedlock, with Thomas Charles Tansley, in the village in September 1899. The ceremony was witnessed by her brother, James and sister Henrietta. James Ernest married Esther May Burlton in Bromyard August 1905 and eventually settled in Leicester. Henrietta married Henry Wright in Cottingham in December 1907. 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.

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.

Families are regularly found in Blind Lane and Water Lane over the course of successive census returns. A fuller account can be found at We are the Barrack Yard Preservation Society.

Continued in column 2...

Generation 2. The Craxfords

James and Esther had one son, George William, born in Leicester in 1914.

Generation 2. The Beadsworths

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

Generation 2. The Tansleys

Thomas Charles Tansley and Sarah Anne Craxford had three sons and one daughter. John Ernest Tansley was born in the village in 1901. Daughter Margaret Louisa was born a year later. Youngest of the children, Cecil was born in 1920.

We hope to add to our family album in the years 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.

Page added: September 1st 2005
Last modified: September 12th 2012

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