Family of Thomas MATHEWS and Ann CANHAM

Not known when he came over from Ireland.

Married to Anne Canham on 29th January 1874 [8b 739] at Our Lady of Good Help Church, Liverpool. At the time he was a gardener possibly for one of the large nearby houses, and Anne was living at Dudlow Lane, probably a housekeeper for the Sharples family.

In about 1876 or 1877 they moved to Ashton in Makerfield. Don't yet know why, but apparently employed by the first Lord Gerard, Robert Tolver Gerard, who died in 1887and who moved over from Ireland in the second half of the 19th c., first to his estate in Cambridgeshire, then to Ashton, Garswood Hall. The second Lord Gerard died in 1902 and the next Lord Gerard then moved to Hertfordshire in 1929. Garswood Hall was used as a hospital for officers during WW1 (Lady Mary Emmeline Laurs was the matron, she died in February 1918). Later Garswood Hall became a golf club, which it remains.

Thomas attended St Oswald's RC church, Liverpool Road where he rang the bells, maintained the gardens and dug the graves: on his gravestone it says he was the 'faithful custodian of St Oswald's for 42 years'.

Thomas is described as a Gardener.

Thomas senior is given as a gardener in the 1901 census,living at 60 Warrington Road.²

It seems from census data that both her parents, John and Ann, died young: between the ages of 25 and 35. The 1851 census gives Ann and her brother William living with their (Harvey) grandparents in Greenend, next door to their family home, in Fen Ditton, along with their various uncles and aunts. Her sister, Sarah, who is 13 by now, is working as a 'nurse' in Cambridge.

In 1861 she is found living with her Uncle, Richard Harvey, in London. No particular employment is given at that time. This would appear to coincide with the murder of her grandmother in Fen Ditton in 1861.

In 1871 she is working as Housekeeper at Burn Hall, County Durham.

The owner of the property is a local JP called Marmaduke Salvin, a member of a prominent Durham Catholic family from pre-reformation times. Marmaduke had a number of children including Francesca Josephine (born 1856 at 'St Oswald. Durham'). At some point after 1871 Francesca left Durham for Liverpool where she married George Oswald Sharples (he was born in 1848 in Wavertree, Liverpool into a well-to-do Timber Merchant family); marriage date 25.9.1877. George went to Stoneyhurst College and so it appears that they were both Catholic. They lived at 79 Beech Lane, which is adjacent to Dudlow Lane in Wavertree. By 1881 they had a son, Henry Oswald, aged 2 (at that time two of George's sisters from Ohio (BS) were staying with them).

George died in 1885 aged only 38 [8b]. In 1891 Francesca is to be found as a patient at an expensive private lunatic asylum in Ticehurst, Sussex (see image in the Wellcome Foundation archive). Oswald was living at that time with his paternal grandmother, Frances, in Streatham, Wandswoth, London, together with two unmarried aunts (and 4 servants). By 1901 Francesca is living with Oswald as a Boarder with a family in Folkestone.

It appears very likely that Ann Canham followed Francesca to Liverpool sometime about 1873 and worked for her until perhaps about 1881, when Ann and Thomas moved to Ashton in Makerfield.

Marriage to Thomas Mathews 29th January 1874 at Our Lady of Good Help RC Church, Liverpool [see Wedding Certificate copy, 13.6.2008]. Best man was James Murphy and bridesmaid/maid of honour was Margaret Plunkett. Thomas was given as a Gardener, of Montague Street, West Derby and she as a Spinster, of Dudlow Lane, Wavertree.

In 1891 census living at 4 A. Court, Warrington Road, Ashton.

In 1901 living at 60 Warrington Road (referred to as 'Annie').

Grave is in St Oswald's churchyard, Ashton in Makerfield, buried with her grand daughter Annie Byrne, husband Thomas and daughter Mary.²