North Preston (4) Whittingham Line (part 1)

In this third post on the North Preston Hubbersteys I will look at what I have labeled the Whittingham line. This line is quite interesting, but also quite complex for two reasons. First there are lots and lots of children. Second it appears that two male Hubbersteys married possibly 2 sisters, and when they had children, they named them the same names. Confused yet?


We start with three marriages:

1. At Goosnargh (St. Francis Catholic church, pictured at left) on Feb 22, 1819, Betty Hubberstey married Thomas Bamber.

2. At Goosnargh on June 9th, 1828, John Hubberstey married Alice Bamber

3. Date Unknown (though probably around 1828, and possibly at Gooosnargh) James Hubberstey marries Margaret Bamber. Although I have not seen the marriage record, we do have children christened in Goosnargh with parents James Hubberstey and Margaret. The Lancashire BMD records show the mother for these children to be "Bamber". That allows us to know the result, even if we don't know all the details. Update: James married Margaret in Goosnargh on Jan 17, 1831.

It certainly looks like there was a Bamber/Hubberstey get together! We don't know yet though if the Hubbersteys were brothers, or the Bambers were sisters, or if there was any relationship to Thomas and Betty. However, the fact that the first two marriages took place at the same church and the children were christened at the same church, can not but make one a wee bit suspicious.

Update: We have two possible Bamber connections.

1. Ralph Bamber (b.1762) and Mary Ribchester (b1766) had 13 children, starting in Chipping then moving to Goosnargh. Alice was born in 1793 and Margaret in 1797. The census records in 1841 do not show birthplaces, and by 1851 Alice had died. However Margaret's 1851 record shows her age at 54 and birthplace as Chipping. We also see the name "Ralph" used in both Alice's and Margaret's families later on. This definitely looks like the most possible scenario.

2. Edward and Joanna Bamber (nee Eccles) had an Alice Bamber christened Jun 8, 1795 in Fernyhalgh and a Margaret Bamber christened May 25th, 1799. Both Edward Bamber and Joanna Eccles had been born in the Fernyhalgh / Whittingham area, Edward in 1769 and Joanna in 1773. This looks like the less likely case unless Alice was from this family and Margaret from the other.

On the Hubberstey side we do have a couple of possible leads from Cottam, just down the road:

1. A William Hubberstey married an Agnes Rich on October 10 1795 shortly after having a son John on October 3, 1795.

2. Even more more interesting, we had a James Hubberstey marrying an Alice Billington and having a son James on May 18th, 1800 in Cottam. This is after having previously had a son John in 1793, christened in Fernyhalgh. This would provide a John and a James at about the right ages, and in the proper order, to match with the Bamber girls. If this actually happened then two brothers would have married two sisters and we would have one line linked a generation further back (instead of two lines as we do now).


Before starting into the specific details, here are some examples of "naming" children that are interesting. The first name is the child's name. This is followed by the mothers name and the year the child was born.

Mary: Margaret 1832, Alice 1831

William: Margaret 1837, Alice 1835

James: Margaret 1831, Alice 1829


Here are the children of James (Cotton Weaver, b.1795?) and Margaret Bamber (b.1795):

James b.1831
Mary b.1832
Ralph b.1833
John b. 1835
William b.1837
Alice b.1840
Joseph b.1842

By the 1841 census this family is living in the town ship of Whittingham. Of course to make it interesting they are living next door to the Bambers, a family with the eldest male being Thomas Bamber (age about 25). By the 1851 census they are all living in Preston, except that John is no longer there.

Here are the children of John and Alice Bamber:

James b.1829
Mary b.1831
Ralph b.1833
William b.1835
John b.1837

For some reason census transcripts do not pick up this family, although the actual census documents do (who knows what name they were transcribed under...well actually after even more searching, it turns out is was under Hubersby...just one more in a long list of variants...no wonder I could not find it). In the 1841 census we have Alice as a Cotton Weaver living with 5 children (the first 4 as above, plus an Alice b.1838, but no John). They are living very close to James and Margaret in Whittingham. Although the census records do not show an exact address, they are on the previous census page to James and Margaret...so basically just a few doors down.

The next post will start to look at the lives of the children listed above. Technically this should probably be two lines as we are not sure that James and John are related (or even Alice and Margaret for that matter). So if you want you can consider the first post as Whittingham (Margaret) and the post that follows after that as Whittingham (Alice).