Wigan Album

Makes you feel sick doesn't it !!

Nothing grand about these graves. Headstones look to have been added later.

Typical. No doubt they are also in a prime position near the chapel too, oh they would have to be would'nt they just!

This would be the same Thomas Knowles who, in partnership with Thomas Pearson, sank the pits at Ince Moss?
They also funded the building of St Mary's church at Ince.

Rev David, just going off topic for a mo, is it true that all coffins are laid in their graves with the head facing to the West and most churches are built with the alter at the Eastern end?
Just something I've read about this week.

Pearson & Knowles were indeed the owners of Moss Pits, and several others around - including the Maypole.
As for the orientation of bodies in graveyards, they do tend to be east-west, and that is the traditional orientation of churches, where the site available allows. The altar is always at the east end (towards Jerusalem) - and in churches on a different axis, the end where the altar is would still be referred to as the east end. In modern cemeteries, for ease of maintenance and accessibility, bodies are usually laid in double rows, i.e. the concrete base for two sets of headstones, back-to-back, is pre-laid, with the first side being filled first, and then the second following. This means one set of bodies will be laid east-west, and the second set west-east.

Can I be buried in a stood up position...........so the money doesnt fall out of my pocket?

Do we have to "bucket" a family's tombstones, posted here obviously with disdain and for that purpose? They would have paid plenty to be buried in the churchyard. There is a very distinct line between the "have" and "the have nots" on WW, clearly visible in some postings, and seemingly not perpetuated by the former I might add..

When I often used to wonder about people who live their lives full of ostentation, my late Dad had a way of bringing me back to reality. He used to say, Well love, just remember,they put their knickers on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us!

Sheryl, with respect, you obviously don't understand. All those lives and names 'bucketed' by a man who had a memorial built, those human beings being of no thought, just a man arrogant in love with his own name and his own importance in life. That memorial was not for the bereaved nor the people, it was for his own vanity.

Fert, also with respect I would suggest, (if you can obtain a copy), you read the pen picture of Thomas Knowles in the St Mary’s Centenary Magazine of 1987.
This gives a brief history of the life and times of a man who started life in the Railway Tavern, Spring View, and was in 1841, at nine years of age, working underground at Ince. Other articles in the same magazine regarding Thomas Knowles and John Pearson would also I am sure be of interest.
Some of those killed in 1871 would have been his neighbours or people he had worked with most of his life. At the time of the explosion he was still living in Lower Ince, as did the rest of his family.
His brother John who lived at an address on Warrington Rd, Spring View was an underground worker at Moss Pit and would appear to be one of the bodies recovered in 1873, but never identified.
The emotive use of the term COMMON GRAVE by David Long is also misleading. Common Graves and Public Graves had totally different meanings at that time.

"Judge ye not lest ye be judged"..Mat 7:1

Without Prejudice,the appearance of this memorial perhaps suggests that the motivation for its erection might best be explained by Desmond Morris in his comparison between the behaviour of baboons and sports car design.
The Human Zoo. Chap. 3.

I am familiar with the meaning of the terms common grave and public grave. Indeed that term is still is use today, common/collected (together). I did not misunderstand the Rev's wording.
His history? - well even more so those individuals should have been recorded I would have thought.

There may be a distinction between 'Public' and 'Common' graves, and, indeed, the Ince burial records mark the graves of the miners killed in 1871 as 'Public Graves', but there were up to 9 internments, some of them on the same day, in each of the graves - so they were interned in common graves in that sense.
As to whether criticism of Thomas Knowles for not having had the names of the victims killed in making his fortune (he died at Darnhall Hall, Cheshire) are justified, I would have thought the fact that he may have known the victims as neighbours, and that one may have been his brother (at 50, the second eldest to be killed), adds to the mystery of why he failed to do so. The fact that his family name is inscribed on many memorials in the vicinity would seem to indicate that they placed some value on their names being visible in this way. Why were the men and boys killed not so honoured? Expense cannot have been the issue - the memorial Thomas Knowles placed in the cemetery must have cost a fair bit anyway - a simpler one bearing the names would have done the job better.

Thomas Knowles' brother John was b.05.07.1827. He died aged 33yrs.and was interred Ince Cemetery 19.09.1860 Plot.A106. Recorded as colliery manager. His wife and presumably a daughter buried in the same plot. Current ongoing research suggests that the most likely identity of the 50yr. old killed in the colliery explosion lived in Edge Green Golborne and was buried at St.Thomas Golborne 11.09.1871

Oh, it gets worse. Not now anything to do with the Knowles' family. See the pic I'm putting up on the site now.

Thanks Stan, I seem to have got my John Knowles in a twist. So many John Knowles, starting with John the father of Thomas (my ggg granfather) I must have had a senior moment.

I'm not much moved to comment, but I feel I that would like to say that it would be better to let "the dead past bury its dead", here.