Burton Joyce Branch

This page sets out information that we have found about the Burton Joyce branch of Fairholm in England - which extended to the United States of America in the early part of the 20th century.

So far, there are 190 people on this tree.

This branch is headed by John and Elizabeth Fairholm. We do not know who John's parents were. Elizabeth's maiden name might have been Worton, in which case they were married in 1793 at Woodborough. John and Elizabeth had five children, but we only have descendants for the middle child, William, who married Mary Slater in 1822. William and Mary had ten children.

John Thomas Fairholm, a grandson of William and Mary, emigrated to Utah, USA by 1894 and married Almira Eveline Williams. The most recent information we have is that their descendants were living in various parts of the USA, although our records are far from complete and we have been unable to verify all of our information so far. Other members of this branch remained in England, but we have no information about them after World War 2.

The spelling of the surname was highly variable for this first few generations. It included Fairholm, Fairholme, Fairham, Fearholm, Fearholme and Fareholme. It eventually settled down as Fairholm.

Burton Joyce

Burton Joyce is a village to the east of Nottingham.  Members of the family lived here from at least 1794 to at least 1842. The map shows Burton Joyce in 1835. At the time the population of the village and the nearby hamlet of Bulcote (which is partially obscured by the two folds in the map) was around 660.

The old postcard shows the Main Street of the village - with cows! 

Reproduced with permission of Reflections of a Bygone Age from their book Burton Joyce on old picture postcards

(ISBN 0 900138 25 5)

Part of the Sanderson Map of 1835 reproduced from a copy held by Nottinghamshire City Library

William Fairholme - death & orphans

At least four of the ten children of William Fairholme and Mary Slater died within two or three months of being born.  After Mary died in 1840, aged 36 William had a least three children to look after:  Emily (aged 12), John (aged 9) and William (aged 4).  In such situations, a widower would often re-marry, but William had not done so before he died following an accident in March 1842.  He had been moving corn for a Mr Stroon when he fell from the waggon as it passed into a barn.  A surgeon attended, but William died three days later.

There is no record of what happened to Emily at that point, but John and William junior had to seek help from the local poor union - the fore-runner of the welfare state.  At the time, there were two forms of assistance available to those unable to support themselves or their families - entry into the local workhouse and payments in money or in kind (known as out relief or outdoor relief).  The regime in the workhouses was designed to be harsh in order to deter the poor from seeking entry.  They were the last resort of desperate people.  The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 sought to abolish outdoor relief although, in reality, it continued in certain circumstances.

The following is included at the end of a document that is attached to a letter from William Ashton, the former clerk to the Guardians of the Poor Law, in July 1842.  It says in relation to John and William:

"The Board are desirous to know whether 3/ [3 shillings] per week outdoor relief will be sanctioned by the Commss to be paid out of the Union.  They have an Uncle and Aunt at Hoveringham who will take and keep them for that sum provided that it can be allowed."

The Board of Poor Law Guardians was the local body that oversaw the operation of the local poor law union,  The Commissioners oversaw the overall arrangements in England.

There is no record of the outcome of the request, but the aunt and uncle who are mentioned were possibly Cristopher and Mary Armstrong, who were living at Hoveringham according to the 1841 census.  Mary seems to be William senior's eldest sister, although the evidence is not conclusive.  By the time of the 1851 census William junior is a domestic servant and John is a plumber and glazier, living in the same household as Lucy Cook, who he married two years later.  Emily seems to be a house servant.  All three of them are living in Nottingham at separate locations.

This story contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Verdict - "accidentally killed by a fall from a waggon laden with corn."

Nottingham Mercury 18 March 1842

Norman Fairholm - in WW2

Norman was the son of William Claude Fairholm and Martha (nee McConnell), who lived in the Manchester area.

Norman Fairholm served in the navy during World War II as a telegrapher.  He was aboard motor gun boat 607 when he died on 25 October 1943 during an engagement between his patrol and a group of E-boats which was attempting to attack a convoy in the North Sea off East Anglia. The ship rammed one of the E-boats and was crippled in the process.  Four of Norman's ship mates also died that day.

The photograph shows the crew a month earlier, but we don't know which of them is Norman.

This photograph was shared by Tony Martin. His friend, Tony Chapman, was one of the telegraphers aboard the ship.

Mormons

The Church of England was the main religion of England following the creation of the church in the 1500s, but some members of the English branches joined or were born into other Christian religions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

John Thomas Fairholm married Almira Eveline Williams in 1893 in Salt Lake City.  Almira's family was part of the Mormon church; two of Almira's grandparents having joined the church in 1840 and the other two by 1842.  Recent descendants of John and Almira have been members of the church.

The church is more correctly named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830.  It was difficult for the church to create a base during its initial years, but eventually Salt Lake City was established in 1847 in, what became, the state of Utah.  The city remains the centre of the religion, which has now spread across the world.  Until 1996 the church was still led by members of Joseph Smith's family.

The church is a form of Christianity for which the bible, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrines & Covenants are the main religious texts.  The retrospective baptism of people who have already died in order to enable their salvation forms part of the religion's practice.  This has led to a great interest in genealogy within the church.  The familysearch.com website and the family search centres that have been set up across the world provide access to a wide range of genealogical records to people of all religions and none.

Information from findagrave.com, Britannica.com and familysearch.org.  

Burton Joyce coal mining family

Coal mining was a major industry in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire from the industrial revolution into the 20th century.  

Alfred Fairholm (1878), his surviving son and his three sons-in-law worked in the mining industry, as did one of his nephews - see the tree at bottom of this story.

Alfred’s work was noted in official records as “coal miner” and later as “colliery labourer above ground”.  His son, Albert, was a “banksman”.  A banksman had responsibility for the operation of the pit shaft on the surface, including the movement of men and the extracted coal.  Albert’s brothers-in-law were all coal hewers - working to remove the coal from the coal face.

In 1921 Alfred and Albert were working at the Teversal mine and lived nearby at Stanton Hill, which includes houses built by the Stanton Ironworks Co Ltd for its workers.   The company had sunk the mine and others in the area.  The company specialised in the extraction of coal and ironstone and in the production of pig iron and iron pipes. The mine was established in 1867 and closed in 1980.

Frederick Beardsley and his family were living in the Welbeck Colliery Village in 1939.  As a result, I assume that he worked at the Welbeck mine.  The village was built in the 1920s.  Later, it was renamed Meden Vale.   A report in the Colliery Guardian of  23 July 1939 notes the opening of pit head baths and a new village hall at Welbeck by the New Hucknall Colliery Co.  The baths cost £23,000 and accommodated 1,700 men. “Inside are 140 shower baths, lockers for each miner's clean and dirty clothes, a canteen, first-aid room, etc.”  The mine was operational from 1915 and continued in use until 2010.

Information from nottinghampost.com, gracegiude.com, healeyhero.co.uk, dmm.org.uk.

Click on the image to open a pdf of the early tree for this branch.

It will open in a separate window in your web browser.

The following abbreviations are used on the tree:

b : birth

c : christening or baptism

m : marriage

d : death

bu : burial.

Image by BiancaVan Dijk on pixabay.com