Pat's Story by Pat
Yorkshire and Lancashire
...whilst John and Elizabeth Pomery were living in Werrington during the 1770's, in Howden in East Yorkshire lived Maria Moor(e).
Maria Moore in the 1700's in Howden in East Yorkshire gave birth to 5 illegitimate sons.
John c 1778, Robert c 1782, Richard c 1786, Joseph c 1791, and William c 1796.
No mean feat in the time of parish relief , when parishes did their utmost to find the fathers' of illegitimate children and slap a bastardy order on them to ensure they provided for the mother and child.
To date no bastardy orders relating to Maria and her offspring have been found but she and her sons remained in the Howden area, suggesting that Maria herself was brought up there.
Maria's son Robert, born about 1782, Pat's 3 times great-grandfather, appears to have become relatively respectable. He married Mary Jane King in 1807 earning his living as an agricultural labourer. There Mary produced at least seven children with five of them surviving into adulthood. Their modest cottage at 5 Pinfold Street, Howden, was opposite the Spotted Cow Inn & just around the corner from Howden Minster
https://sites.google.com/site/pomeroytwigs2/home
Their eldest son Thomas Moore, born in 1809, managed to acquire an education which set him on the road to prosperity, raising his family status considerably. He became a schoolmaster in Bilborough a small village 20 miles from York. In March 1837 he married Mary Ann Headley, a farmer's daughter from York. Their first child was Henry Headly Moore born 1839. Their next two children Mary Ann and Robert Moore were born at nearby Bramham.
Family legend has it that Thomas met someone connected with the Tennant family, a brewing family of Sheffield.Thomas was offered a job as a book keeper for the company. He obviously saw this as an opportunity for advancement because by the time Pat's great grandfather, Edward Thomas Moore was born in 1846 the family had moved to Sheffield. Thomas 's career progressed with the Exchange Brewery. He was soon a managing director and partner in the brewery.
Sheffield and Thomas were good for each other. Sheffield offered Thomas opportunities to become involved in public life. He was unique in becoming the only mayor of Sheffield to serve four consecutive terms. His portrait has recently been returned to the Town Hall where it now oversees visitors to the mayor's parlour.
In 1869 Thomas's son Edward married Maria Garside. She was daughter of Joseph Garside , a merchant and businessman from Worksop.
Pat found an record of Joseph Garside's funeral in Worksop July 1893 during a visit to a newspaper archive. She suspects that Thomas and Joseph were involved in some sort of business arrangement and probably the marriage was encouraged by both families. Edward became a solicitor in Sheffield and they appear to have had a very comfortable standard of living.
They went on to have 4 sons. Ralph Headly Moore born 1871, Edward Grafton Moor born 1872 ( named after Maria's mother, Catherine Grafton), Cuthbert born 1875 and Harold born 1876.
Tragically only Ralph and Edward survived into adulthood. Cuthbert died in a drowning accident whilst studying at Oxford and Harold died the following year. Both of them are buried with their grandparents and father at All Saints Eccleshall Sheffield.
Meanwhile in Calcutta in India, James Richard Webber Pomeroy, son of Augustus Stephen Pomeroy married Eliza Colloden.
They returned to England for the birth of their first child in 1875. Little James Augustus Pomeroy sadly died aged only one year at Albert Dock House in Liverpool . Their next three children were born in India, the eldest, Pat's grandmother, Mabel Georgina Pomeroy, was born in 1877; with a brother, Walter following and then Harrison Hornblow Pomeroy born in 1880., named after a brother of James Richard, who died as a baby.
James was in Calcutta as an agent for the East India Docks Company.
James Richard Webber Pomeroy contracted typhoid and died at the London home of his brother Rev Walter William Pomeroy at the relatively young age of 35. His widow moved to Liscard in Cheshire with her children where, we believe, her father in law Augustus Pomeroy helped them find a place to live and provided for them financially.
In Sheffield there were high hopes for Pat's grandfather Edward Grafton Moore. It was hoped that he would become involved in the brewing business. However Edward had other ideas and moved to Liverpool where he became a ship owner. Whilst in Liverpool he met the vivacious Mabel Pomeroy and the couple married in 1899. They moved out of Liverpool going along the coast to Formby where they had 2 sons, Cuthbert Grafton Moore born 1901 and Headley Grafton Moore born 1905. Headley was named after both his great grandmothers - Mary Ann Headley (1811-1880) Thomas Moore's wife and Catherine Grafton (1815-1860) who was the mother of Catherine Garside (Edward Thomas Moore's wife). Headley was Pat's father.
Unfortunately Edward Moore appears to have been a poor businessman. Family legend has it that his father Edward Thomas Moore in Sheffield bailed him out many times but in the end declared that enough was enough. The decline in the family fortunes was exacerbated following the death of Edward Thomas Moore in 1914. as a few years later his widow Maria married a vicar, Alexander Melville, He was some 20 years her junior and a large proportion of the family fortune went to him on her death in 1921.
Pat's father became a preparatory school master, a respectable profession for an impoverished middle class son in the 1930s. He enlisted in the Royal Navy when the Second World War broke out. The Navy suited Headley Moore and he ended up in command of a mine sweeper. At the end of the war he was offered a further command but he decided to return to civilian life , a wise decision as the crew of the ship he had been offered subsequently mutinied.
One of his former headmasters offered him a teaching position and he returned to prep school teaching (In England Prep schools prepare children to go to Public schools which are fee paying private schools ) He went to Terra Nova near Holmes Chapel in Cheshire. On the staff at the time was a young assistant matron, Pamela Joyce Carlisle, a solicitor's daughter form Southport . They married a few years later in 1949 and made their home in nearby Goostrey. Pat was born Patricia Anne Moore in 1952 and her brother Michael Grafton Moore in 1955.
Her father,Headley Moore continued teaching at Terra Nova until he was well into his 70's. In the mid 1980's the family moved south to Ovingdean a village a few miles form Brighton where her mother still lives, her father died in 2000 two weeks before his 95 birthday. There was always an element of rivalry between Headley and Cuthbert and Headley managed to outlive his brother by several months.
Headley Moore's passion was painting ships and he left a legacy of a vast collection of paintings and drawings of Liverpool and its docks, including some of the areas where his grandfather Augustus Pomeroy lived and worked.
There was to be an exhibition of Headley Moore paintings at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool.
