The Harrod Family

My wife's mother was born Joyce HARROD.

It would be nice to think that the Harrods were linked with a world-famous department store in London.

Indeed my wife refers to Harrods as ‘the family shop’ and regularly orders goods from there.

However it is more likely that the family have a link with a much smaller establishment in Urmston, Manchester, which proudly proclaimed itself – punching well above its weight – as ‘The Harrods of the North’ on a large sign that adorned the shop front.

However, it was not the retail trades that were the backbone of the Harrods but the iron and steel industry.

Unlike other branches of the family, in particular the Hadleys and the Watsons, who moved to the North East as a result late nineteenth century industrialisation, the Harrods started in Lincolnshire and then travelled via various locations in Yorkshire and the North East before settling in the North West.

Janice Williams’ mother Joyce was born on 12 January 1927, to Frederick and Alice Harrod in Stockton on Tees.

Frederick Harrod had married Alice Watson on 9 October 1926 at the Register Office, Stockton on Tees.  He was 25 and his bride 20 years old.

Frederick was a labourer at an iron foundry and lived at 15 Egglestone Terrace. His father, Harry, was an Iron Foundry Manager.

Alice had no occupation recorded at the time of the marriage (again because she was pregnant) but lived at 12 Airton Street, Stockton on Tees.

Given the short time between marriage and Joyce’s birth, the marriage was arranged at short notice and took place in the Register Office rather than a church.

The wedding did not meet with family approval. It is interesting that the two witnesses to the marriage are Doris Watson, Alice’s younger sister, and a ‘Harry Harrod’ – whether this was Frederick’s father or his younger (possibly gay) brother, we cannot be sure.

That the Harrod family did not approve of the marriage is further borne out by the fact that whilst Frederick was able, eventually, to visit the rest of the Harrod family in Manchester, his wife Alice and daughter Joyce were not welcome. The family were also said to be more welcoming of Frederick and Alice’s second daughter, Jean, when she was born.

The young couple began married life in Farrer Street, living with Alice’s older brother Harold and his Catholic wife Agnes, who helped Alice and Frederick with the arrangements for the wedding and the birth.

Joyce Harrod was born in the Farrer Street property on 12 January 1927.

That the Watson family were also unhappy with the events unfolding before them is clear from the fact that Alice’s mother wanted the new-born child placed ‘at the foot of the bed’, the place where babies not expected, or desired, to survive were placed.

The new-born baby did survive.

Frederick and Alice continued to live in Stockton on Tees, where he became a Fitter and Turner with the local firm of Head Wrightson.

The family at one point lived in a property on the site of what was the first railway passenger booking office in the world, and subsequently moved to 24, Mellor Street.

Whilst the marriage may not have been a happy one, another child, Jean, was born on 21 August 1932.

When Joyce Harrod married Ray Williams in 1946 she moved to Fishburn and then to 91, Durham Road.

Frederick, Alice and Jean Harrod continued to live at 24, Mellor Street, which is where Alice died, aged 51, on 13 February 1958 (the day before I was born!).

Alice Harrod (nee Watson) did not live long enough to see her first grandchild, Janice Williams.

At some point in the early 1960s Frederick and Jean moved to 2, Newtown Avenue, where they lived until Jean married Ron Jennings in 1965.

That year Ray and Joyce Williams sold 91, Durham Road and moved, with their daughter Janice, to 23, Greenvale Grove, Fairfield. At the same time Jean and her husband Ron bought 37, Greenvale Grove, a few doors along from Ray and Joyce.

Frederick Harrod moved in with Ray and Joyce and lived with the Williams family until a dispute over a Wimbledon tennis score.

Ray and Frederick were watching Wimbledon on the television when there was a dispute over a tennis score. It became quite heated and led to Frederick moving out – lock, stock and barrel – and moving in with Jean and Ron.

Ron and Jean’s second child, Fiona, was born on 9 June 1970. Later that month Frederick died.

Frederick had been ill and mostly bed-ridden for some months, following a massive heart-attack when he was 40 years old. He subsequently had a massive stroke, was admitted to Stockton and Thornaby Hospital and died on 23 June 1970, one year short of his seventieth birthday.

Janice remembers going to school one day and coming home to a funeral tea at her Aunty Jean’s house.

This Harrod family reaction to a child born in wed-lock, albeit in a hastily arranged marriage, is ironic given what was to happen a few years later with one of Frederick’s sisters.
 

Frederick Harrod had been born on 15 May 1901 at 5, Dene Terrace, Ryhope, in County Durham.

That Frederick was born at home, rather than in a hospital, was not unusual for the time. This was the before the National Health Service and only the really wealthy, or the really poor, would give birth in a place other than the family home.

The parents were Harry and Bertha Harrod (formerly Turnbull), who had married in 1899.

Bertha came from Houghton le Spring, in County Durham, but Harry was not a native of the North East, as we shall see.

Frederick’s birth was registered by the mother just over a month later, on 29 June 1901.

Frederick’s father was a Foreman Pattern Maker. This was a position deemed to be of some prestige one assumes as the word ‘Foreman’ is added in brackets after the designation ‘Pattern Maker’ on the birth certificate, as if the informant, Harry’s wife, was very clear about her husband’s status.

Frederick Harrod was the second child of Harry and Bertha. He had an older brother, Albert, born a year earlier, and in due course would acquire another six siblings: Ethel May was born in 1904, Harry in 1908, Florence Bertha in 1910, John R – or Jack as he was always called – in 1914 (one of twins, one of whom did not survive birth), and Reginald on 1 April 1918.

From Ryhope the family possibly moved south to Teesside.

At the time of the 1911 census the family are shown as living at Holywood House on the Esplanade at Redcar. However there is a belief that this property was a holiday home, occupied only in the summer months, and as the census was taken on Sunday 2 April 1911 this may mean that they were in occupation for Easter (although the Eater weekend was actually 14-17 April), or that it was now their home.

It is possible that the family had lived at a few addresses in the intervening years as the census indicates that the Harrod family was a family used to regular moves: Albert had been born in Washington, Frederick in Ryhope, and Ethel May in Seaham Harbour. And the moves were not limited to the North East: Harry was born in Derby and Florence, who was just one year old at the time of the census, was born at Willesden Junction in Middlesex. Jack and Reginald were both born in Stockton on Tees.

These moves had seen Harry Harrod rise in status. By the time of the 1911 census he was an Inspector of Engineering Casting.

There was another person who thought for many years that she was Harry and Bertha’s daughter as well: Dorothy.

The truth, however, was that Dorothy was born to the unmarried Florence Harrod in 1934 in Barton upon Irwell.

Dorothy was the result of a relationship that Florence had with a William Ashton when neither was married. Although William was willing to do ‘the honourable thing’ and marry Florrie, she declined his proposal.

This was a matter of great shame to a family that prided itself on appearances and status within the community.

The family therefore brought up Dorothy to believe that Bertha was her mother, that Florrie was her sister and that Ethel May was her auntie.

However Florrie then agreed to marry William Ashton and the wedding took place in early 1940 in Barton upon Irwell.

When Florrie got married, the family could no longer maintain the pretence that Dorothy was the daughter of Harry and Bertha. When Dorothy was told the truth she was said to be ‘shattered’ by the news: a woman she considered to be a sister was in fact her real mother.

Soon after Bill Ashton was killed whilst with the army ????

When the Harrods moved across the Pennines to Manchester it was a case of everyone moving, with the exception of Frederick, who had brought shame on the family.

Albert Harrod, the oldest son, who had been born on 15 August 1899, had married Nellie Holmes in Stockton on Tees in late 1925 and they had a son, Douglas. However, when it was decided that the Harrods were moving to Manchester Nellie said she would prefer to stay in the North East.

Albert, then in his thirties, therefore abandoned his wife and son and crossed the Pennines with the rest of the family. He remained in Manchester and died in Trafford in 1977.

The eldest Harrod daughter, Ethel May, had married a Raymond Halfpenny in Stockton on Tees in late 1930. She and her husband moved to Manchester.

The rest of the family – the parents Harry and Bertha, together with Harry, Reginald, Jack, Florrie and Dorothy – lived, with servants, in a large house which they rented on Stretford Road.

It was said that Bertha ruled the family with a rod of iron.

This may explain why Harry and Reginald never married: they remained bachelors and their money helped fund a respectable life-style for Florence and Dorothy (who was privately educated and had a lavish wedding to an optician called Samuel Lewin, in late 1950 in North Liverpool, who was able to maintain her in the lifestyle that she had become accustomed to). Bill Sime Deborah and Jonsthan

However there was another reason why Harry may not have married. There were rumours that Harry was what we today call ‘gay’. At the time homosexuality was illegal and would certainly have not been celebrated amongst the iron and steel industries of Manchester. Harry has a ‘friend’ who appears in many holiday photos.

Reginald was a pattern-maker like his father but he was also a very accomplished musician. He played the clarinet and the saxophone, and during the hey-day of the big bands in the Thirties and Forties played with a number of bands. It is believed that he had to do this as Bertha took all the money he earned as a pattern-maker for the house-keeping. He regularly played at a hotel in Knutsford visited by General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. Eisenhower was generous with drinks for the band, so Reg would take bottles home to Stretford Road.

Reginald did meet a young lady, whilst on a holiday on the Isle of Man. She visited the family in Manchester but was given short shrift by Bertha.

Jack Harrod got married to Gladys Harrison in Leigh, Lancashire, in late 1936. They subsequently had a daughter, Jaqueline, who went deaf. On getting married, Jack left the family home on Stretford Road. Bertha barely spoke to him thereafter.

When the 73 years-old Bertha died in 1953 – her husband Harry had died previously – only Harry and Reg were still living with her. They moved in with Ethel May and her husband, Raymond Halfpenny at 90, Westmoreland Road, Urmston.

In due course Raymond, then Ethel, then Harry, then Reg died, the last named in 1990.

Whilst Frederick Harrod was born in Ryhope, County Durham, his father Harry Harrod had been born in Yorkshire and his grandfather, John Robert Harrod, in Boston, Lincolnshire.  

The census returns between 1861 and 1911 reveal the story of how the Harrod family had moved from Lincolnshire to the North East via Yorkshire.

John Robert’s father, William Harrod, was born in Freestone, Lincolnshire, in 1829. His wife, Sarah, who he married in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1849, was also from Lincolnshire, having been born in Gosberton in 1830.

Gosberton is a village in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire. It is situated 9 miles (14.5 km) south-west from Boston,

The parish church of Gosberton is dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, and is under the Diocese of Lincoln.

The Baptist Church in Gosberton was founded in 1666, a time when non-conformist Christians had no protection from the law and, like John Bunyan, could be imprisoned for their faith. Worship takes place in the original 17th-century meeting house.

The main village occupation is farming, although many commute to surrounding areas and the towns of Spalding and Boston.

Gosberton House School is for children with learning difficulties.

Within the parish are the Black Horse Inn and Five Bells Inn in Risegate, and the Duke of York, Bell Inn, Crown Inn and Five Bells in Gosberton.

Whilst William and Sarah’s first son, John Robert Harrod, was born in Boston, Lincolnshire in 1850, their next two children, Sarah A (named after her mother and born 1854) and William (named after his father and born in 1856) both made their entrance into the world in Yorkshire. The family were living in Bevis Street, Sheffield, by 1861.

Perhaps more significantly, by the time of the 1861 census whilst the Head of the Household, William, is recorded as working as an ‘Out Door Labourer’, his son, John Robert, is already taking his first steps into the iron and steel industry.

At just 11 years old John Robert is listed as working as a Steel Smelter (although the census enumerator, either in a hurry or because he did not understand the industry actually wrote ‘Steel Melter’).

Ten years later John Robert was still a Steel Smelter but by now he had moved again – to County Durham.

John Robert was married and his family was living 1, Cooks Yard, Victoria Place, Harraton, Washington.

John Robert Harrod married Charlotte Marsdson, who came from Bradford, on 30 December 1872 at St Phillip’s in Sheffield. The two fathers, both called William, witnessed the marriage.

Their first child, a daughter, was born in 1875 and named Sarah after her paternal grandmother. Harry Harrod arrived in 1877.

Both Sarah and Harry were born in Bradford (although the 1901 census says that Harry was born in Biggin, Yorkshire).

By the time more children arrived, the family were on the move again.

Albert was born in 1879 in Guisborough (where Alice Watson’s family hailed from!) and Charlotte, named after her mother, was born a few years later in 1887 in Washington, County Durham.

From Washington the family would continue their travels, via Ryhope (where Frederick Harros was born), Redcar, and Stockton on Tees, and finally across the Pennines, possibly via Huddersfield, to Manchester.

But they would never own a large department store in Knightsbridge!