Here at Acorn News we were very sad last
year to hear of the death of a man who became an icon of Accrington
and after the local authority boundary changes in the 1970s,
Hyndburn. Here his daughters Barbara and Judith look back on their
heritage with the help of the many photographs at their disposal.
Picture of Garth Dawson , ever hoping to join
his hero John Wayne (picture by Garth Dawson)
The ancestors of Garth Dawson ( The spirit of
the Dawsons)
My sister and I have
been looking at some of the photographs taken by our father Garth
Dawson as well as some taken by his father in the 1910s to 1940s.
As ever when someone is lost from this world,
so are their memories and knowledge.
Why did we not ask more questions, write
things down and listen to our elders and relatives.
Where did we come from what did our
“ancestors” do?
Why did they come to Accrington and what
hardships and pleasures did they know?
Amongst dad’s albums we found this newspaper
picture dated 1928:
The blond haired boy is Garth Dawson, our
dad.
He is pictured with his father, Richard
Dawson, standing behind him,.
Richard (born in 1898) was a shoemaker with a
shop on Union Road in Oswaldtwistle (next to the hat shop run by
Jane Dawson (nee Hartley) dad’s grandma).
Later Richard Dawson’s shoe shop moved to the
end of Cromwell street on Whalley Road near to what used to be the
main entrance (forbidden to all except teachers and the sixth form)
to the High School (now Moorhead).
The sixth form of 1968 at Accrington High
School after winning the “drama prize” I am sitting on the far right
in the middle row.
Aerial view of the High School, the (new)
Grammar School and St Christopher’s in the 1960s (picture Garth
Dawson from a light aircraft)
As a child, I remember the smell of shoe
leather and grandad busying himself in his blue work coat, nailing
and polishing shoes.
a
Helper in Richard Dawson’s shoe shop c 1920s
Richard had been a medical auxiliary in the
first war working with military surgeons in Africa.
His great ambition was for his children to
become doctors, but dad refused, leaving his sister (Janet Maureen
Dawson ) to enter Manchester medical school in the early 50s, to
qualify and move to Canada to work (where she remains age 86) (and
his daughter, myself to take up my grandfather’s ambitions)
Janet
Maureen Dawson in the amateur dramatics 1940-50s
Picture Garth Dawson
Richard who was only five foot tall walked
with a stick, a rapid limping gait due to a lifelong hip problem (of
unknown cause). He was a determined fast moving individual who
wouldn’t wince at trying to take his belt to his mischievous son,
(an accepted practice in the 20s and 30s!).
This harshness may not have been surprising
after he had disappeared into a hole in the back yard overlaying a
six foot tunnel which
had been dug by my father and his friend after they had been to see
“The Count Of Monte Cristo” at the Ossy Palladium!
Richard Dawson
My father convincingly imitated grandad’s
gait and claimed it was a war wound (or perhaps he was shot at OK
Corrall in one of his jaunts to the cowboys at Ossy Palladium?)
Also standing in the 1926 picture is Robert
Dawson, a shoe maker, my father’s grandfather who I believe was
responsible for helping dad set up his photographic shop .
Being involved in the family business of shoe
making was becoming less of an option as the market was soon to be
flooded by the big companies and mass produced shoes, leaving no
place for the small family craftsman.
Robert Dawson was married to a Jane Hartley
from Colne (8/10/1896)
(Wedding of Richard Dawson and Margaret Scott
c 1923 Jane Hartley stands at the left back and Robert Dawson at the
extreme right. Towers Dawson stands behind the bridesmaid.)
Robert Dawson and Jane Hartley had two
children, Richard and Elizabeth. (Elizabeth moved to Cleveleys where
she married a butcher named
Jim (or Jo) Grime. Of their children Jo(or Jim) moved to
Australia and Jean became a nurse, ending her days in Whalley.)
Robert retired to Blackpool, (another
accepted practice in the 1920s).
Towers Dawson was my father’s great
grandfather and sits in the centre of the 4 generations picture
Towers appears to have come from Pendleton,
the small village close to Clitheroe (born in 1843 or 45). His
mother Barbara ( my name sake) in the 1851 census was a widow for
the second time with three children of the name S(w)ales and two,
Towers and his brother William whose father was a David Dawson.
David had died before this census and the second child William died
soon afterwards.
There
are several Dawson graves in the Pendleton cemetery.
( I had always wondered why my father had a liking of “The
swan with two necks” and it came as a surprise to me that it was the
pub in Pendleton, probably very active at the time of Towers birth
having been opened in the mid 1700s. With the help of an old! School
friend Lesley Pearce(
nee Green also on the
sixth form High school picture above)
we have traced the Dawson’s in Pendleton back to the 1790s
but there are no graves going back so far, and at present the trail
has stopped. I have been told that they, like the Lords on my
mother’s side had come from North Yorkshire, Settle area in search
of work.
It seems that Towers in response to the
building of the mills, left his village and moved to the booming and
affluent town of Accrington to work in steel foundry.
He
married a Mary Wolstenholme , 4/8/1872 at St John’s Accrington.
Believed to be an image of Towers and Mary
and possibly one of their daughters
Towers and Mary had two sons Robert, (born
1874) and Robin(son) (born 1878) and two daughters, Margaret(1880)
and Alice(1883).
Robin (son) had a large family. The 1911
census shows him living with his wife Clara, his father Towers, his
sister Margaret and his 5 children (9 people) in Richmond St ,
Accrington.
Perhaps there are still people around who
remember Doris, the eldest daughter and her husband Amos Spencer who
later ran the sweet shop in Rishton Road Clayton (still there in the
1950s, when I was a child growing up in Clayton ,but now
demolished).Doris Spencer nee Dawson
Her sister Clara was married to a man that my
father referred to as “uncle Buff” and for a while ran an antique
business from Sparth House Clayton before it became a hotel. I have
no idea what happened to their brothers Edward (Teddy) and Robert
and their sister Amy.
So the Dawson trail leads back to the
country, the sides of Pendle and reflects the changing life through
the generations and the
needs to stay ahead of the big factories and companies in order to
remain“ independent craftsman and traders”.
The photography business eventually felt the
stings of recent changes, the internet , phone cameras, cloud stored
photos and unfortunately the young man who took over dad’s shop
failed to survive against the
modern onslaught .
My sister and I have joined the throngs of
people working for large organisations and I feel for the spirit of
those who wish to maintain an independence from them.
In a
way I feel I have let the cowboy spirit of the Dawson’s down.
Barbara Milne 2017
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