The Sproston Family John Sproston (Sproson), under manager at Diglake, was born 1839 in the Wybunbury district of Cheshire. He was the eldest son of John Sproston and Hannah Beech, who were married on the 8th of February 1838 at St Peter, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs. John Senior was around forty when he married, and Hannah was around 20 years his junior. The family were living in Blakenhall, Cheshire in 1841, where John was employed as an agricultural labourer. By 1851 he was a rail labourer, living in Den Bridge, Cheshire. During these ten years, Hannah had given birth to another four children; James (1841), George (1846), Sarah (1847) and Thomas (1850), all born in the Blakenhall area. A fifth son, William, was born in January 1852 and finally a second daughter, Mary, in 1854. 1851
Blakenhall Dun Bridge
Sproson,
John Head Married M 64 Coal Labourer Bateley Staffordshire Twelve-year-old Thomas Sproston was already a coal miner. The following decade brought many changes for the Sproston family. In 1863, John Junior married Eliza Ulson, a thirty-year-old dressmaker from Audlem in Cheshire. They lived for a time in Audlem before moving to Staffordshire. By 1871, they had had four children; Laura (1864), Annie Elizabeth (1866), Frederick (1869), and Wilmot Harry (1871), who died before he was one. Second son James Sproson married in 1866, a eighteen-year-old local girl called Emma Cook. They were to have four children together; Hannah (1868), Arthur (1871), and James (1873). Eldest daughter Sarah married local man Abel Johnson in 1865. Together they had three children – Emma (1867), Thomas (1869) and Caleb (1871). Fourth son Thomas did not marry Hannah Platt until 1871, and youngest daughter Mary was still unmarried at the time of the 1871 census. The children’s mother, Hannah, died sometime between 1861 and 1871, as John is listed as a widower. 1871
Wood Lane Next
door Wood
Lane John Senior is seen here living with his daughter Sarah and her husband Abel Johnson, while John’s son George is boarding in the house next door. A couple of streets away, Thomas and William Sproston are living with their older brother James and his wife Emma. In Newcastle under Lyne, eldest son John is an inn-keeper in 1871: Newcastle,
Bridge St, Gardeners head? Mary, who would have been 17 in 1871, is not living with any of her family – possibly she was in service elsewhere, but in 1872 she married Samuel Clough. They had four children together, Harry (1875), Alice E (1878), Ethel A (1880) and Mary Hannah (1882). On 29th January 1872, the first of several tragedies struck the family. James Sproston, second eldest son of John and Hannah, fell from the top of the shaft at Apedale Colliery, Audley, and was killed. His wife, Emma, and three children, were left without a wage-earner, although Emma did remarry in 1887. In 1877, John Senior died, aged aged 80. Then, in 1878, John and Hannah’s eldest daughter, Sarah, died aged just 31, leaving her husband, Abel Johnson, to raise their three children alone. By 1881, all four surviving son (John, George, Thomas and William) were married. George had married his former landlady, Ann Williamson, in 1881. She was almost 30 years older than him, and she died three years later in 1884. William, too, had married in 1871, to a girl he had known since childhood, Elizabeth Kinsey. By 1881 they had four children, Albert (1872), Ann (1876), William (1879), and Frank (1880). They would have another four together (Leonard 1882, Minnie 1884, Lizzie 1887 and John Kinsey 1890) prior to Elizabeth’s death in 1893. All four sons by 1881 were coal miners, possibly working together at Diglake Colliery. Many of their sons worked with them. Thomas had risen to become a Butty, in other words, a miner who owned his own tools and employed a team of colliers to work in the pit. He also owned a grocer’s shop, and probably paid his team in part with vouchers redeemable in his shop, as was the Butty custom. In 1882, the boys’ remaining sister, Mary, died, and the following year her husband Samuel Clough died too, leaving their four children orphans. It is not known what happened to the girls, but Thomas adopted the boy, Harry Clough, who was just eight when his father died. Now just four children of the family of seven remained. We don’t have details from 1891 for Thomas or William, as several pages of the Wood Lane census are missing, but we do know that by 1891 George was a widower living in Tomfields, Wood Lane, working as a colliery lamp cleaner. John was living in Church St, Chesterton with his family; he was working as a miner, probably at Diglake. By 1895, John had become an undermanager at Diglake Colliery, Thomas was a contractor there and William was a fireman. Thomas had joint charge of the East 7 foot seam with John Elsby, and William was working on the new 10 foot seam together with his son William Jr. Sometime after eleven on the morning of Monday 14th January, 1895, William was setting an explosive charge to extend the 10 foot seam. He had celebrated his 43rd birthday just a few days before, perhaps with his three brothers and their families. While he set the charge, the men had gone to eat their snapping (food), and William sent his son, William Jr, to see if they had started work again. The errand was to save his son’s life. The force of the explosive shot broke down the walls between Diglake and an older pit, thought to be much further away, and a massive wall of water swept through the 10 foot seam and into the rest of the colliery. William probably died instantly; his son was swept away by the torrent but was miraculously saved when another miner, Richard Howle, grabbed him by the hair. Thomas, who was in the East foot seam with his men, including his son Frank and Harry Clough, was probably trapped by the rising water. The 7 foot seam was slightly higher than the rest of the colliery, so Thomas and his boys may have survived for a while, before either the air supply was exhausted, or they were overcome by rising gas levels. It is not clear what John was doing at the time of the flood. William Dodd, colliery undermanager, stated in an interview that had the disaster happened a few minutes later, John would have been in the East 7 foot seam. In a later report in the local newspaper, John is described as having had a narrow escape. George is not mentioned in any of the accounts, so probably was not working undergound. Having lost two brothers and five nephews at Diglake, John’s misery was compounded by the death of his wife of 32 years some weeks later that same year. By 1901, both John and George had left the Audley area, and were working in the coal industry in Longton. John remarried in 1896, a woman called Sarah Shatwell, and they lived at 151 Anchor Rd, Longton. John was working as an overman (manager). By now, all their children had married. There is no trace of George after 1901. However, John reappears in an unlikely setting; on a ship bound for New York. It seems his daughter, Laura, married Arthur Leech and they emigrated to Pittsburgh. In 1903, John and his brother William’s son, Frank, both travel together on the ship Celtic from Liverpool to New York. Frank seems to have stayed in America, where he died in 1976. Frank’s sister, Lizzie, also traveled to New York in 1906 to visit him. The previous year, 1905, Laura appeared in the passenger list of the Oceanic, with her children Millie and Willie, and John’s son Frederick, who may also have emigrated. The image below is the transcript of the 1903 Celtic passenger list, showing John Sproston (aged 64) and his nephew Frank (22) bound for Pittsburgh to visit Mrs A Leech (John's daughter, Laura) at 1612 Hamilton Ave, Brushton, Pittsburgh).
Below is a 1906 shipping list for the SS Oceanic which shows Laura, her children Millie and Willie and brother Frederick on their way home to Hamilton Ave, Pittsburgh.
The 1910 Pennsylvanian
census extract for Laura, her husband Arthur and brother Frederick
is below. Arthur is a salesman and Frederick is an accountant
in a manufacturing company. In 1910, William's
son Frank is also still in Pennsylvania, with his wife Elizabeth
(aged
25) and daughter Jane (aged 3). Frank is a draftsman in a machine
shop. Whether John return to England or stayed in Pittsburgh is unknown. To date, there is no trace of his death. Despite the family members who lost their lives working in the coal industry, many of John and Hannah’s grandsons went on to become miners. William’s sons Leonard and Albert both became colliery under managers. William Jr himself, who had such an amazing escape from the disaster that killed his father, uncle and five cousins, was present in 1932, when three bodies were recovered from the 10 foot seam of old Diglake Colliery. Although none of the bodies were formally identified, it’s possible that one of them was his father. All three bodies were buried locally; the remaining 72 men and boys still lie in the abandoned pit at Diglake. |
