Paternal Line Richards and Hill Ancestors

                                           

Most of this websites focuses on my Leatherland ancestors. But I am also very interested in my other other ancestral lines. Here is a summary of my research into my paternal lines : the Richards family and the Hill family. some of this research..

My father Douglas Richards (1926-1979) was born and brought up in Bulwell, a suburb of Nottingham. He moved to Staveley, Derbyshire in the late 1930s. He served in the Royal Air Force from 1944 to 1948? then joined the accounts department of Sheepbridge Engineering in Chesterfield. From 1961 to 1974 he was Labour Party Finance Officer. He married my Mum in 1961 but the marriage broke down seven years later. 

His mother and my paternal grandmother Edna May Hill (1902 -1966) has an interesting family history which was quite hard to trace. Edna died when I was three years old and I have no memory of her. 

The Richards of Bulwell    

Ridgard / Ridgards/ Ridguard

My Richards ancestors lived in Bulwell for over one hundred years. Although Richards is often considered to be a name of Welsh origins, I have found no links to Wales. Richards is a patronymic surname which means that it originates from a forename (Richard’s son becoming Richardson, often became shortened to Richards). However, before my ancestors moved to Bulwell, the surname was not Richards. The earliest ancestors traced had the surnames Ridgard / Ridgards/ Ridguard. These rare versions of the surname seem to be a Derbyshire variant.

It is common to see surname variations especially before the nineteenth century.  Spellings were not fixed because most people rarely needed to write their own name, and many people were illiterate or could only read or write a few words. If you say Ridgards out loud it sounds similar to Richards. The fact that it changed to Richards suggests that it was probably pronounced as “Ridge Yards” rather than “Rid Guards”. The link between the surnames is perfectly illustrated by a marriage register from Derby in 1817 where the groom’s surname was written as "William Ridguards or Richards". He was unable to sign but made a mark and the name written was Ridguards.

Both Richards and Ridgard(s) appear in the Wirksworth parish register in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, so it is not clear which was the original surname. One website suggests that Ridgard is a Saxon name which originated from the village of Rudyard in Staffordshire, although I am not convinced by this 

Isaac Ridgaurd

The Richards family has been traced back seven generations to Isaac Ridguard who lived in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, during the second half of the eighteenth century. When he married the parish register noted that he was a butcher. Isaac’s name also appears in an index of Apprenticeship Books kept by the Board of Stamps, a government office which received money in payment of the tax on apprentices' indentures (legal agreements). He appears in the index in 1784 as Isaac Ridgard, master butcher.

John Richards / Ridguards 

Isaac's son John was baptised in 1769 in Wirksworth. He married Phebe Hanson there in 1791. The marriage register gave his surname as Ridguard. John and Phebe had nine children all baptised in Wirksworth between 1793 and 1808. Six of them were baptised as Richards, two as Ridguards, and one as Ridgards. 

There is evidence that John Richards also became a butcher in Wirksworth. An index to the Derbyshire Quarter Sessions records includes a John Richards of Wirksworth, butcher being convicted of assault and obstruction of the highway in 1784. He was fined five shillings. 

In the late 1820s my direct Richards ancestors moved twenty miles east when John Richards married and settled in Bulwell. He became a textile worker and the family seems to have been employed in the local textile industry until the 1870s when William Richards became a railway labourer.

In the 1861 census John was a 60 year old bleacher living in Coventry Lane, Bulwell. The direct family line is via their son William born about 1829 who married Jane Straw on Christmas Day in 1853. He was a framework knitter. William and Jane had six children.  At the birth of his son, James, in 1860 he was a silk glove maker.

The family remained in Bulwell with William’s son, James Richards, working as a brickyard labourer at Sankey potteries and the Bulwell Brick Company. James  was born in Main Street, Bulwell and appears to have lived in Bulwell for most of his life. He married Mary Roome in 1889. In the 1891 he was thirty one and living at Coventry Road, Bulwell, working as a brickyard labourer.  By 1901 he had moved to Hempshill Lane, Bulwell with his wife Mary and their children Gertrude, Annie, Lily and James..

                     

                                    Albert Edward Richards (1903 - 1961)

My paternal grandpa, Albert Edward Richards, was born in 1903. He worked for the railway all his life, firstly as a porter, later becoming a goods yard inspector. He married Edna May Hill at the age of 21. He was living in Railway Cottages, Holmwood Heath at the time. Around 1939 he moved from Bulwell to Staveley, Derbyshire and lived in railway cottages in Wharf Lane, Staveley. A railway line ran behind their house. He worked in the local railway marshalling yard. He died tragically at the age of 58 in an accident on the railway near Staveley Central railway station.

Hill Ancestors 

Fanny Hill story !! 

                                  

                                           

        

          

  

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For detailed family trees please see my tribal pages site : www.tribalpages.com/tribes/david4u