A Glemsford Diaspora? - Argent, Ambrose, Boreham ...

Barbara Barrett recently left this message as a comment about Nicole Nathan's search for the Argent family:

I have just discovered your very interesting site.I am researching our family tree and find that my husbands maternal grandfather was born in Glemsford -Walter Argent 1883 - Father James Argent 1847 - 11 Children, Sarah, Althea, Laura, Emma, Elizabeth, Kate, John, Mary, Willie, Nellie and Walter. They moved to live in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Is there anyone who can give me more information about Ray's family. He knows very little about his family history.Looking forward to hearing if anyone can help me put some "flesh on the bones" of my knowledge.

The moment I started looking at Barbara's Argent family on the Census, several familiar bells started ringing, all related to what I am convinced was a general movement of Glemsford families away from the village in the last quarter of the 19th Century.

1) Keighley: that was where Araminta Brown, who features so prominently in Sandra Poole and Tracey Foulds's story of the Brown and Savage family, settled and married.

2) The 1891 Census shows that James Argent and his family - including Walter - must have moved to Keighley between 1884 and 1886. My earlier work on the Glemsford School Log Books shows how depressed industry was in the village at the time.

3) James moved to Keighley as a Mat Weaver, although by 1901 he worked in a Machine Tool factory. Glemsford seems to have exported Mat Weavers to all parts of the country. I have located Browns, Argents and others in Skerton, Lancaster, Games and Brewsters in east London and now this group of Argents in Keighley.

But that's not all. The 1891 Census for 5 Cherry St., Keighley, shows the Argent family.
7 Cherry Street was occupied in the same Census by James and Ann Boreham. James was a Green Grocer.
Guess where he and Ann were born.
Give up?

Glemsford.

But all three of their children were born in Keighley. Eliza, the oldest, was 8 in 1891.
The 1901 Census shows James Boreham as a Coal dealer.
So we have another family of Glemsford emigres.

But it doesn't stop there.
A further exploration of Cherry Street in 1891 reveals that, at no. 38, lived the family of James and Harriet Ambrose (57 & 52). Both were born in Glemsford. James is recorded as a "Bobbin Sorter", presumably in Keighley's woollen industry, but in 1881 he had been a Mat Weaver on Egremont Street in Glemsford.
The ages and places of birth of their children suggests that James and Harriet also moved north round about 1885/6.

The Glemsford connection doesn't finish there, either. Also in 1891, at 8 Timber Street, lived Charles Ambrose (54), a general labourer, his wife Eliza (55), and three daughters - Lottie (20), Kate (17) and Emma (15).
Only Emma was Yorkshire-born: the rest of the family were born in Glemsford.
The 1881 Census also shows this family in Timber Street, with older children: Ann M (then 20), Susannah (16), Emily (14) and Walter (12), as well as a youngest child Eliza (3) who doesn't appear in 1891, since her death is recorded in Keighley in the June quarter of 1881.

Significantly, in 1881, Charles and Eliza had a boarder: James Boreham, an unmarried labourer in the Iron Works, born in Glemsford.
The Marriage registers for Keighley in the last quarter of 1881 show a marriage between James Boreham and Maria Ambrose.
Since Charles and Eliza's daughter Ann appears in the Census on two occasions as "Ann M.", I am making the obvious assumption. The name Boreham, of course, appears elsewhere in these pages, also in terms of a move northwards.

In 1871, Charles ("Cocoa Mat weaver") and Eliza were still in Glemsford, on Egremont Street, with their first five children, including Ann M..

And immediately next door lived James and Harriet Ambrose, with three of their children.

At the same time, James Boreham (15 - "Cocoa Nut Fibre Warper") was living with his parents, Benjamin and Susan, and siblings: Louisa, Jacob, Esau, Arthur, Dorcus, Mahala and Isaac, nephew Charles and niece Bertha, out at Seldom Field (sic).

I haven't yet been able to track James Ambrose in 1861, but Charles was, at the time of that Census, living with his parents, Samuel and Maria, and two sisters, Sophia and Emily. Interestingly, Maria and Sophia are both recorded as "Worsted Weavers".

The 1851 Census confirms matters, as both James (an agricultural labourer) and Charles (a labourer in a factory) were living at home on Skates Hill, with Samuel and Maria, their sisters and cousin, Maria Cooper.

Also in 1861, James Boreham was with his large family at Seldom Waiver. Ten years before, his father Benjamin, Susan, the early stages of their family, and Benjamin's mother Sarah were living on Egremont Street.

But what of the Keighley Argents?
We know where James and his family were in 1891 and 1901 - and incidentally, in 1901, Jame and Eliza had a boarder - Felix Chatters, a Gas Works labourer - from Cavendish!

The 1881 Census for Glemsford shows James Argent, a Mat Maker, aged 34, living with Eliza (34) on New Cut. With them were their children, Sarah, Aletha, Laura, Emma, Elizabeth, Kate, and John.

The 1871 Census is a little confusing in that James is referred to as "John J.", but I am confident this is our James with wife Eliza, and daughters Anna (5), Sarah (3) and Alethea (1). Eliza, Anna and Sarah were all born in Cavendish, and the 1881 Cavendish Census shows a 15 year old Cavendish-born Anne Argent working as a servant in the household of a butcher by the name of ... Edgar Ambrose.

The 1861 Census is proving a little unproductive at times, but the 1851 Census for Glemsford reveals John James Argent, the 4 year old son of John, a Hand Loom Silk Weaver, and Sarah, living next to the Silk Throwing Mill.

And so it goes ...

Yet again, therefore, there is a story of movement away from Glemsford at a time when life probably became hard. But how did they know where to go? How were jobs advertised? How did they travel?

Of course, if anyone has anything to add, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I think the Story of the Glemsford Diaspora is there to be written.