Our Littlefair Ancestors

My brothers and I were given the surname Simpson because dad was known as Albert Simpson. But he was born Albert Brown Littlefair; his marriage certificate records him as “Albert Simpson otherwise Littlefair”, but he did not officially become Simpson until 1967 when we were all in our twenties. 

An unmarried Margaret Littlefair, aged 19, had given birth to dad in the November of 1915. She registered the birth some three month later giving her address as 44, Anchor Yard, New Elvet, Durham and her occupation as a Domestic Servant. 44 was a large communal dwelling where the King’s Gate Bridge now is; the 1901 census shows it as housing some 47 people in 10 families.

When Dad was just four month old and on the 26yh of February 1916 Margaret married John George Gill. Dad’s half sister Elsie, in later years, told me she believed George Gill was dad’s father but we don’t know if that was so.

An R. Brown had resided at 44 Anchor Yard in 1914, the year World War 1 started and he might have been there in 1915. Some two and a half million men volunteered between the August of 1914 and the December of 1915 in response to the Kitchener “Your country needs you” poster campaigns before conscription started in 1916. Was R. Brown one of those volunteers, perhaps not even knowing Margaret was pregnant with dad

If the above speculation is correct Margaret’s misfortune continued because not long after her marriage to John George, conscription started and John George was in the Durham Light Infantry and off to war. On 10/12/1917 Margaret had a baby she named Margaret Gill and dad had a sister. Unfortunately she died after seven days and was buried in St Oswald’s grave yard. Her father, John George was buried there just a few months later in a war grave when he succumbed to war injuries at Scotton, near Richmond, N. Yorks, 8/4/1918.

Margaret Gill, now a widow became Margaret Simpson when she married Alfred Simpson (Scotty) in 1920. Dad, would be 5 at the time. The 1921 census shows Alfred and Margaret and Dad living at 16, Derwent  Street, Sunderland. Alfred is 23 years 8 months, born Glasgow ; an out of work general labourer previously employed by Rankin Builders of Stockton Road, Sunderland. Margaret is listed as born Durham age 25. Dad is listed as Albert Gill Simpson aged 5yrs 3 month and as Alfred’s stepson.

How long they were at Sunderland I know not but Dad’s half sister Doreen (Reenie) was born in Durham in 1925 followed by Elsie in 1929 and Joan in 1932. and we know the family were at 87 Elvet Bridge from 1935. I know Dad attended St Margaret’s School in Crossgate as he spoke of a teacher called Tommy Barr there who meted out much punishment.

Dad’s mother Margaret died 7th of January 1938 at 87 Elvet Bridge aged a mere 42. She is buried in the St. Oswald’s Stockton Road Graveyard. Dad, we know was living at 87 in 1937 but his marriage certificate of 6th of August 1938 records him as living on the market place side of Elvet Bridge at number 47. I presume that is where mother also resided at or after their marriage, though her address is given on the certificate as Nova Lima, Moor Edge.

Dad was 22 when married and described himself as a barman. Mother, is listed as Ruby Gladys Wells, a Gown Store Assistant aged 23. Living at Nova Lima at the time of the marriage would be her mother Jesse Wells, brother Sid Wells and sister Maude Wells.

Whilst my birth is recorded as being at Nova Lima 6/4/39 it was probably there as a matter of convenience because shortly thereafter a 1939 record shows that dad, mam and I were at 87 Elvet Bridge. In addition to Alfred and his three daughters, also at 87 was a Herbie Littlefair (Margaret’s brother), his wife Jennie Harrison and their then 14 year old son Fenwick Littlefair. Fenwick died in a pit accident near Hexham early 1940.

Dad was conscripted and started training for the Royal Artillery in April of 1940 so I think mam and I would then move to Nova Lima, particularly as mam was pregnant with Bill who was born there in June of that year as William Fenwick Littlefair Simpson, the Fenwick bit being a tribute to dad’s dead cousin. Maude was married in 1941 and Sid in 1942 so making for more room at Nova Lima

Though we have none of Scotty’s genes we do bear his name. Born in 1897 at Partick in Lanarkshire that became part of Glasgow he had joined his father working in a Clyde shipyard before being conscripted into the army as a driver in the Royal Field Artillery. Field Artilleries operated lighter more mobile guns, such as howitsers and mortars, and moved in close support of infantry. Scotty would drive the almost certainly horse drawn transport that kept the guns and their operators close to the infantry.

Later when we were boys, Scotty was a bookies runner operating in Durham Market Place and always on the look out for police because such activities were illegal. He worked for a bookie Teddy O’Neil who had premises in the lane joining mid Silver Street to Moat Side Lane, which runs around the castle. I would sometimes put bets on for dad there, using his non de plume (no real names given) Scott X1

Margaret’s Ancestry

Dad’s mother”s parents were a Ralph Littlefair and an American Mary Ann Turnbull, known as Polly. They resided at Daisy Hill, near Sacriston and later had a small holding at Nettlesworth. Mary Ann had been born near Pittsburg in Alleghenny County, Philadelphia to Emigrants William and Ann Turnbull. Ann had come back to Durham with her daughters, leaving William in America. Ralph, like his father Ralph, had worked as a miner but became a cartman and horse dealer. His oldest brother William had been a cartman but then bought a Wheatley Green Farm and later a second and larger East Edmondsley Farm.

Farmer William and his wife, also Margaret, had given birth to their fourth son Albert in 1895, the year before dad’s mother Margaret was born. My guess is Margaret and Albert, at near the same age spent a lot of their growing years together. It is almost certainly why Margaret named dad Albert and why I have that name

Dad’s mother Margaret was probably named after her Grandmother, one Margaret Proud, who had married her Grandfather also called Ralph in 1855 as in the family tree below. Margaret Proud died age 37 in childbirth. She is buried in a grave at Pelton along with those of her children who died young; John who died at 15 month, Elizabeth who died at 1yr 8 month, Margaret who died age 9 month, a John Thomas who died at 3 years and a second John Thomas who died after his mother Margaret at 14 weeks.

Ralph would be under pressure to find a wife to help support his family and in 1875 married an Elizabeth Chapman, who already had two children by a previous marriage. They went on to have a further three children.

Littlefair is a Durham Name

Littlefair as a surname originated in Durham and spread from there. Like all worldwide Littlefair ancestries we trace ours back to a marriage in 1641 of a Thomas Littlefaire to a Dorathie Sigsworth at Gateshead.

We know not why but some 12 years later Dorathie took her sons Ralph Littlefair aged 3 and Edward aged 1 to an area at Hamsterley/Cockfield in County Durham. Here she had relatives and here in 1655 she married a John Mayer. In 1658 she inherited a farm at nearby Woodland from her uncle and further inherited from her husband on his death in 1678.

Elsewhere in the north east the Littlefair name died out. For a time it was lost at Cockfield where the names of the two sons of Dorathie Littlefair were written down in Church Records as Littleforth’s. At some stage this mistake came to light and the Littlefair name was restored. The worldwide Littlefair tree grew from there.

We are descended from Dorathie’s son Ralph and his “wife” Margaret Elstob. They did not christen their early children Rachel and Ralph in the Church of England and when the travelling Bishop’s Court visited the area in 1675, Margaret was charged by the court with being a Papist and clandestinely married.  Two years later both Margaret and Ralph were charged by the same court with cohabiting in fornication or being clandestinely married.

After that their subsequent children were christened in the Church of England but Margaret remained a non conformist Quaker and was buried in 1716 at a Raby church where monthly meetings of a Society of Friends (Quakers) took place. 

Ralph died in 1696, aged 46, some 20 years before his mother. His will, below, is about leaving his land and a share of a Colliery he owned, but also about how his inheritance upon his mother’s death was to be distributed.

The sealed will was witnessed by an Antony Hodgshon jur and a John Ward jur. It bears the name Ralph Littlefaire with a large B in the middle which will have been his mark and noted by “mk” above it. The Cockfield Parish records show Ralph’s burial on the following day 14th of July 1696.

Ralph’s son Ralph also had a son Ralph from whom we are descended. His son John left Cockfield and settled at Bishopwearmouth (before the growth of Sunderland and now part of it). There he married an Elizabeth Foreman and they had a family. Their son John married at Washington Holy Trinity Church a Mary Teasdale. Their family lived at nearby Biddick, where a son Ralph was born, before moving to Ryton and then Edmondsley, where John died aged about 49.

Ralph (Margaret Littlefairs grandfather to be) was about 15 when his dad died. He was the one who married Margaret Proud at Chester le Street in 1955. The family tree shows how the children were christened at the Church of St Mary and St. Cuthbert in Chester le Street until 1866 when St Peter’s at Sacriston was consecrated.