From Texas to Badsworth

Back home in Austin, a Google search led me to the Badsworth Hunt web page and the current secretary Jenny Tomlinson Walsh. I contacted Jenny who said she would be delighted to search their records for further information on John Richards. She also pointed me in the direction of newspapers of the time in which results of the hunt would have been reported. I found that microfilms of the Leeds Intelligencer for 1835 were kept in the Leeds Central Library. I hoped to find a death notice for John Richards.

There are several genealogy host websites where one can post questions and requests. Fellow researchers are often willing to look up records that are located in the town where they live. I hoped to find someone living near Leeds who was willing to look at the Intelligencer Records.  I posted my request and very quickly received an email with the following information.

" On the 13^th last, at Thorpe Audlin near Pontefract. Mr John Richards, late huntsman in the Badworth hunt, universally respected and much regretted. Richards was a bold and accomplished horseman, always zealous and respectful in the field; and having an excellent voice, his finding and his death hallo will, with his generous hospitality to every rank, be ever remembered by all with melancholy pleasure. He commenced his servitude as huntsman about 20 years ago under the patronage of the Hon E Petre. Richards has left a wife and several children to bewail their irreparable loss and he may be said to have fallen a victim to the chase, by getting wet whilst hunting on the preceding Saturday, when a severe inflammation ensued, which baffled the first medical skill"

Jenny Tomlinson Walsh located the family tomb at St Mary's and sent me photographs along with the inscription carved on the lid of the tomb. From the inscription on the tomb I learnt that buried at Badsworth along with John were Julia his wife and two of their children Mary and Ann.

In 1841 Julia was living in Ackworth but I was unable to find any record of her after this. John Joseph, however, moved first to Casltleford and then to Salford near Manchester. It was here he met and married my Great Grandmother.

I do not know where John Richards was born. However in 1861 his cousin, who was living with him, gave as his birthplace, Staunton in Leicestershire. 

 Next Page>>