Family backgroundDad’s paternal great-grandfather,
William Patrick, was baptised in St Peter’s church, Maer, a few miles west of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, in 1811. He was the fourth of eight children. In August 1832 he married Sarah Clark at All Saints church in nearby Standon. Their first two children, Philip and
James, were born in that area in 1829 and 1833, but then the family moved to Talke-o-the Hill near Kidsgrove where the next three children were born, and then finally to Newchapel, near Mow Cop. In 1851 he married Mary Mellor in St Thomas’s church, Mow Cop: presumably Sarah, his first wife and the mother of all his children had died. William was a coal-miner, but by 1871 he was listed as a farmer of 5 acres and a coal carrier in the same parish. He died between 1871 and 1881 and so did Mary.
James (Dad’s grandfather) was the second son of William and Mary Patrick and had 4 brothers and a sister. He became a coal-miner like his father. In April 1855 at the age of 22, James married Elizabeth Bayley in Newcastle-under-Lyme but she died soon afterwards and in December 1858 he married Maria Hancock at St Margaret’s Church, Wolstanton. Maria bore him seven children between 1860 and 1874, and
Benjamin was the fifth, born in Mow Cop on 15 May 1871. Ben may have known his grandfather William who lived on Mow Cop but who died when he was a baby. James and his family were living in Wain Lea near Mow Cop in 1861, in Harriseahead in 1871 and on Congleton Road, Mow Cop in 1881 and 1891.
Maria died in 1899, and James married for the third time in March 1902. His new wife was Annie Hancock, a relation of Maria’s, who already had a 2-year-old illegitimate son named Bert, known as Bert Hancock. James was already living with Annie and Bert at the time of the census in 1901, along with two girls: Frances (11, a grand-daughter) and Gladys (1 month old, niece). James and Annie lived in Snowdrop Cottage, just off the Congleton Road on the top of Mow Cop, and had four daughters. James died in 1912, and Annie then married Jacob Ikin and went on to have two more daughters, Joan and Alma who still lives in Snowdrop Cottage, now widowed with a son who has inherited the property. James appears in every one of the Victorian censuses for Staffordshire (1841 to 1901).
Benjamin’s older brother James (born 1865; Dad’s uncle) became the manager of the waterworks on Mow Cop. He married Caroline Harding in 1887, and is said to have been the first person on Mow Cop to have a telephone and a flush toilet.
Dad’s maternal grandparents were Daniel and Ann (nee Birch) Porter. Daniel was born in Chell in 1831 and his parents were Thomas and Mary Porter. He is described as a “glos placer” (a pottery occupation) in 1881. Ann was born in Pittshill in 1835. The two married in Wolstanton in March 1867 and had six children. Minnie was the third, born in Pittshill in 1871, and became a pottery painter.
UpbringingDad’s parents were married on 8 February 1891 in St James’ Church, Newchapel. Benjamin Patrick, a bachelor aged 19 from Mow Cop was at that time a stoker in a mine. Minnie Porter, a spinster also aged 19, worked in a pottery warehouse and came from nearby Pittshill. We do not know how they met. The couple first went to live with Minnie’s parents in Pittshill where Minnie’s sister Annie (17) and brothers William (13) and James (11) also lived.
The first child, Elizabeth, was born on 25 September 1892 and then followed James, Arthur, Benjamin, Frederick, and Emily Menes. Between 1894 and 1897 the family moved from High Street, Pittshill to Mow Cop. So when Dad was born in 1906, 15 years into the marriage, he was the seventh child. But by then Arthur, Benjamin and Emily (and probably James too) had already died in infancy leaving Dad with just a sister Lizzie and a brother Fred. George was born nearly 2 years later, and then Marion (who died at 3), Evelyn, twins Joseph (who died at birth) and another Benjamin (who was killed by a bull when only 3) and finally Frances May, the 13th child, was born in 1915, when her eldest sister was 23 and already married.
We know very little about Minnie, but there is a sad-looking photograph of her (without Ben) at the wedding of Dad’s cousin Frances in 1915. Twenty-three years of childbearing while living for 26 years with an alcoholic husband proved too much for Minnie. She drowned herself in a colliery pool in Church Lane, Mow Cop on May 26th 1917, taking her 14-month baby daughter to her death with her. Fred, aged 14, found the suicide note and reported her missing: he appears to have been the “man of the house” at that time as Ben had enlisted in the army during the First World War. Dad went with his younger brother George and sister Evelyn to stay with his married older sister Lizzie and her husband Frank Price on Mow Cop, and at around that time they also went to stay with their cousin Dorothy Bentley (and her husband Frank) in Bramhall, Hazelgrove, Nr Stockport.
Dad related that his childhood was dominated by poverty and ill-treatment caused from his father’s drunkenness. In later life, Ben Patrick was known as an alcoholic, and was described as “waddling drunk”. Nevertheless, Ben was at one stage the choirmaster at St Thomas’s church, Mow Cop and Dad earned a little money as the organ-blower there. He married a second time in 1918, a year after Minnie’s death, and although his new wife, Sarah Lovatt, left him at least once, she came back and lived with him in his old age.
Education
Dad had been admitted to the local board school (now Castle School, Mow Cop) on 1 April 1914 (aged 8), and transferred to Woodcock Wells School (on the Cheshire side of the hill) in 1917. He was admitted to Macclesfield Grammar School in 1919 at age 13 with an Odd Rode Trustees scholarship tenable for four years, but had to leave after only one year because of “home break-up due to drunkenness of father” in order to help provide for his impoverished family. Two years later, his headmaster (F D Evans) wrote a testimonial saying that Dad had “showed promise of good ability, worked well, and was well conducted.” He presumably travelled to Macclesfield by train daily from Scholar Green & Mow Cop Station on the Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester Line, a distance of 11 miles taking about 20 minutes. He was the only one of the family to receive any secondary education, and this factor may have tended to separate him from the rest of the family.
During his teens and 20s Dad attended WEA evening-classes in book-keeping, shorthand, psychology and literature.
Employment
The record of his time at Macclesfield Grammar School notes that after leaving he went into “farming”. We have no evidence that he actually did so. He worked in the Foundry at the Biddulph Valley Coal and Iron Works for a year soon after he left school, and was “always a sharp, reliable and industrious boy”. The testimonial signed by J Ashton recommended him to anyone, and declared that “anyone who secures his services will secure a valuable boy”. At one stage, probably in the early 1920s, Dad worked for an undertaker in Hanley, riding in a horse-drawn carriage.
Dad then worked as a general factotum for Ridley & Williamson, Chemical Manufacturers, in Scholar Green for 18 months up to December 1924, and a testimonial then declared him to be “at all times a willing, conscientious and efficient worker”. Soon after he moved to work for a much larger company, Redfern, Rhead & Co at the Albert & Edward Mills in Congleton, manufacturers of knitted goods. He stayed there for seven and a half years, first as a costing clerk and then as departmental manager in the shipping department. Their director’s testimonial noted that he had “carried out his duties to our entire satisfaction. We have every reason to believe him to be thoroughly trustworthy, diligent and painstaking.” Alma Ikin worked in a factory in Congleton at that time: she says they would have travelled by bus from Mow Cop via Biddulph or via Scholar Green.
In 1933 (aged 26) Dad was looking for a change. He applied for a post as a Probation Officer and obtained testimonials from the Superintendent Minister in the Congleton 2 Circuit and from a Probation Officer in Congleton. It appears he was unsuccessful. He moved instead to a larger firm, R H Lowe & Co, also in Congleton. There he was responsible for all shipping orders, supervised manufacturing processes and arranged deliveries and transport. He worked there for 3 years and was then offered a post as Cost Clerk with W & H Pownall, another clothing manufacturer in Manchester. Dad worked there for a short time in 1936-37, and lived in Whalley Range, Manchester. However, the Tunstall plan and Dad’s preaching record shows him taking services around Mow Cop throughout 1937, so he may have returned home at weekends.
In 1937 he got an administrative job as Area Officer with the Associated Road Operators in Broad Street in the centre of Hanley. He moved to Birmingham with the Commercial Motor Users Association in 1940 and then transferred to work as an assistant organiser for the Midlands Region of the Road Haulage Association and later as Organiser for the Traders Road Transport Association which was later renamed Freight Transport Association. His offices were at 60 Newhall Street, in Birmingham City Centre, thereafter at 99 Baker Street, Sparkhill, and finally at 1128a Stratford Road, Hall Green. He became an Associate of the Institute of Transport in 1944. He retired from that job with an MBE “for services to transport” in 1971. He was Secretary of the W. Midlands Maintenance Advisory Committee for Goods Vehicles for 16 years.
ResidencesAt some stage he went to live temporarily with his sister Elizabeth’s family in Bollington at a time when his niece Phyllis (born 1919) was a child.
He probably lived in Manchester for a few months in 1936-37. His address in 1937 on the Tunstall Methodist plan was The Bank, Mow Cop, and on his marriage certificate his address is Mow Cop.
After his marriage in 1939 he went to live at The Beeches for 3 months before moving to 3 Delves Place, Westlands, Newcastle-under-Lyme where I was born in March 1940. There was a new Methodist Church at the Westlands in the 1930s, now called St Peter’s. Dad preached there on 4 Feb 1940.
On moving to Birmingham in July 1940, the family lived first in a rented house at 51 Webb Lane, Hall Green, which they subsequently bought. They moved to 56 Tixall Road, Hall Green, Birmingham in 1952 which they purchased with the help of a legacy to mum from her uncle Fred (born 1880) who had made money as a dentist in New England after emigrating as a young man from UK. After retirement they moved in 1977 to 37 Painswick Road, Hall Green, and it was from that address that Dad went into hospital during his final illness.
[Drafted by his eldest son for the family]
