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The Butlers
My great grandfather was Charles Henry Butler. His parents were William Butler and Eliza Matthews. Eliza died of tuberculosis in 1865 soon after the birth of Charles' younger brother William.
Charles married Everil Stacey, daughter of John and Mary Stacey, in 1887 in Ravenfield. I have been able to trace three children, Lillie, Ernest and Edith. Edith, my grandmother, was born in 1900 in Wakefield. Unfortunately the children were orphaned when their mother died when Edith was 25 days old and their father five months later, both of bronchitis leading to heart failure. On the 1901 census the children were living with grandparents in Ravenfield. Lillie was living with her maternal grandparents and Ernest and Edith with their paternal grandparents. I think the responsibility of looking after baby Edith probably fell upon her aunt Fanny who was 33 years old, unmarried and living at home with her parents. Fanny was the informant on Edith's father Charles' death certificate.
Charles' father, William Butler remarried in 1867. His second wife was Annie Elizabeth Matthewman.
William and Annie had six children, three boys and three girls.
I do not have any photos of Charles Henry or his parents, but this is a photo of his three half sisters.
From left to right they are Fanny born 3rd October 1868, Eliza born in 1878 and Emma born in 1880. I do not have a date for the photo but looking at the size of the girls I think it could possibly have been taken for Fanny's 21st birthday in 1889, when Eliza would have been 11 and Emma 9 years old.
In 1903 Emma married Joe Brocklesby. Emma died in 1914 at the age of 34 and a year later Joe married her eldest sister Fanny.
This is a later photo of Fanny and again the date is unknown. When my mother, Kathleen Lilian Tirrell, was three years old her mother Edith died and she went to live with her aunt Fanny and uncle Joe until her father remarried two years later.
