The Brook family

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B R O O K

In the preparation of these brief notes, the compiler has been assisted by Mr. George W. Glenn, of Winnipeg, a professional genealogist, and by Miss Eunice Wilson, of London, who kindly consulted her collections relating to people of Bradford, where the name Brook is extremely numerous.

William Brook(e), of Bradford and later of Kirkstall Forge, both in the West Riding of Yorkshire, born 1776-81 (aged 60-64 in 1841) in Yorkshire, alive in 1841. He married before 1813, Elizabeth ____, born 1781-86 (aged 55-59 in 1841) in Yorkshire, alive in 1841. William Brook is called a forgeman in his daughter Elizabeth’s 1841 marriage record, in which her residence is given as Kirkstall, and while the document is not explicit as to whether he was then alive, the 1841 census contains a clear match for this family at Kirkstall Forge, showing a William Brooke, forgeman, aged 60-64, Elizabeth Brooke aged 55-59, and Elizabeth Brooke aged 20-24.^[1] We have not found William or Elizabeth Brook in the 1851 census. She is not the Elizabeth Brook, born ca. 1784-85, whose death at the age of 83 years was registered in the April-June quarter of 1868 in the Kirkstall registration district.^[2]
We assume, on chronological grounds, that William and Elizabeth Brook(e) were the persons of these names who baptized the following issue in Bradford parish church:^[3]

Martha Brook, baptized 28 February 1813.

Hannah Brook, baptized 14 May 1815.

Mary Brook, baptized 18 August 1816.

Elizabeth Brook, born 1818 at Bowling, a township in Bradford,^[4] bapt. 18 October 1818 in Bradford parish church, still alive in 1851 but probably not in 1861. She married 27 September 1841 (on the 28^th anniversary of his parents’ wedding), at Kirkstall, a hamlet in the chapelry of Headingley and parish of Leeds,^[5] William Blythe, of Bradford, born at Brightside Bierlow, a township in Sheffield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, baptized 5 October 1817 in Sheffield Cathedral, living 1861,^[6] son of George and Ann (Buxton) Blythe, of Doncaster and Sheffield. At the time of their marriage William Blythe and Elizabeth Brook were both single and of Kirkstall; she was able to sign her name in the register but he made a mark instead. The witnesses were George Blythe (probably the groom’s father) and a Joseph Robinson. William Blythe is found with their children Mary Ann and John at the “farm cottages,” Horsforth Road, in the 1861 census of Kirkstall, in which he is called a “shingler [and] hammerman [in] iron”; his wife was not present in the household and was presumably deceased, although his marital condition is given as “married” rather than “widower.”^[7] For further details see BLYTHE.

Notes

1841 Census of England, Yorkshire, Hundred of Leeds Borough, Registration district: Leeds, Subdistrict: Kirkstall, enumeration district 18, p. 3; PRO HO107, piece 1344, folio 5 [Family History microfilm no. 464,287]. The entry reads:

Place: Kirkstall Forge

name             age  born in county? occupation
------------------------------------------------
William Brooke   60[-64]    y         forgeman
Elizabeth Brooke 55[-59]    y         ----
Elizabeth Brooke 20[-24]    y         ----
Joseph Naylor    11         y         ----

This woman, whose death was registered in the April-June quarter of 1868 in the Kirkstall registration district, vol. 9b, p. 173, proved, on examination of the actual record, to have been the “widow of Charles Brook, woollen cloth weaver.”

Bradford parish church baptismal register, bishops’ transcripts, 1790-1845, as indexed in the IGI.

The place is given in the 1851 census of North Bierley Tp., Bradford, Yorkshire, enumeration district no. 8 [part of Low Moor Village], p. 41 [Family History Library microfilm no. 087,515]. The entry reads:

name          age  birthplace          occupation
-------------------------------------------------
William Blythe 33  Brightside, Yorks.  forgeman
Elizabeth "    32  Bowling,       "
Mary Ann  "     8  Kirkstall,     " 
William   "     3  North Bierley, "

Civil vital records, Leeds Registration District.

Despite the coincidence of their dates of birth, he was not the William Blythe who died 17 December 1888, aged 71 years, at 16 Draper Street, Grimesthorpe, Brightside, near Sheffield (which death was registered there in the October-December quarter of that year, vol. 9c, p. 340).

1861 Census of England, Yorkshire, registration district: Hunslet, sub-district: Kirkstall, enumeration district 10, p. 32; RG9/3354, folio 53 [Family History LIbrary microfilm number 543,119].