Emigration From Tyldesley

A Memory of Tyldesley.

Hi
I live in Auckland New Zealand, but my grandparents came here from Tyldesley in 1922 with their three young children. Both my grandfather Fred Needham, born in 1889, and my grandmother Charlotte Dutton, born in 1898, were born in Tyldesley. Fred married Charlotte Dutton and Fred’s brother Tom married Charlotte’s sister Lillie. Both couples plus Fred and Tom’s sister Martha Ann came out to NZ, at different times, but within a few years of each other. The Needham family lived in Henry Street for many years and the Dutton family at 19 Nelson Street. They left many family members behind and never returned even for a visit - large family and a shortage of money! Life in NZ was not easy either. The Needham family had worked in cotton mills in Tyldesley for a long time but my grandfather’s generation became miners in the early 1900s. Sister Martha Ann worked in a cotton mill. I have been told by my aunt that both of my grandfather’s parents died of mouth cancer from working in the cotton mills. My grandfather joined the navy in 1911, but his brothers stayed as miners. I do not know which mines or cotton mills they worked in and would be interested to know if there are any records available concerning this. Brother Tom came to NZ and settled in Huntly, a coal mining town, and continued life as a miner. My grandparents settled there too but when my grandmother’s sons became old enough to work in the Huntly mines the family moved to Auckland, as she said she didn’t travel across the world to have her children work in coal mines. And none of them did.

I have a photo of my great grandparents William Needham and Martha Grundy, taken in Tyldesley, I would think, outside their house. Plus another very old photo of young boys playing, again, probably in Tyldesley. That’s where the family lived.