Hello, I'm trying to solve a family mystery, and it might help me if anyone can tell me anything about Crowther House in Ecclesfield.

My great-grandmother, Mary Pleasance, was a house servant there at the time of the 1861 census. Her employers were the Wilson family. John Wilson, the head of the household, was a 'Farmer of 60 Acres' according to the census. The Wilson family may also have had connections with Essex, as in 1868 Mary married Daniel Brooks, a blacksmith in Snaresbrook, Essex, where she lived for the rest of her life.

I don't know Sheffield at all, but I'd like to know if the house still exists. The other house on the same page of the census is called The Elm. At the top of the page the hamlet is given as Hadfield House and Brook House, so maybe it was an area of posh houses!

The mystery I'm trying to solve concerns the second marriage of Mary and Daniel's son Benjamin Brooks. Benjamin's first wife became ill, and he hired a nurse to look after her. The nurse was Agnes Dawson, who was from Hartley Brook, Ecclesfield. When Benjamin's wife eventually died, a couple of years later Benjamin and Agnes (my grandparents) were married in Sheffield, and then returned to Essex to live.

Agnes Dawson was on the 1901 census living with her parents at Hartley Brook and working as a file cutter, but by 1909 she had somehow become a nurse, moved to Essex and married her employer, which is quite a career path!

I'm guessing that Benjamin's mother Mary Pleasance must have had some connection with the Dawson family, and was responsible for hiring Agnes as a nurse. Mary was born at Old Engine, Greasbrough, Rotherham, so she probably wouldn't have known them through her family. I'm guessing that she might have worshipped at Mt Pleasant Wesleyan Church in Sheffield, which is where (I think!) the Dawson family went.

So can anyone tell me whereabouts Crowther House was, and is it feasible that Mary might have attended the Mt Pleasant church? Or might there have been some other way she could have become friendly with the Dawsons of Hartley Brook? I just don't know the geography of the area at all, so any comments would be welcomed.

Thank you in advance!

Christine,

According to the Sheffield Independent of Saturday 20 February 1858, Crowther House Farm was in the same family (the Wilkinsons) from the 1600s up to 1857 when they had to auction it off because of debt they’d built up. It’s also called Crowder House. The Wilkinsons might actually have been there hundreds of years earlier than the paper said.

One of the Wilkinsons, talking to the paper in 1939, said that he remembered the house as a “medium size farmhouse” and said that they used to bring the poultry in at night so they could roost on benches built around the walls on the ground floor (Sheffield Daily Telegraph - Thursday 12 January 1939).

Anyway, the Wilkinsons ran out of money and sold up (or were scammed by a crafty lawyer and a dodgy vicar according to some sources), and John Wilson started living there at some point.

John Wilson shows up in the local press quite a bit, winning prizes for his agricultural produce (e.g. Sheffield Daily Telegraph - Thursday 05 October 1865, Sheffield Independent - Friday 30 September 1870) and in various articles about maintaining roads and stuff.

In the early 1920s the corporation was very busy building new houses. They had plans to build right up close to Crowther House, which the owner, a Miss Wake, was upset about because she had two “big houses”, Crowther House and Cliffe House, which would be hard to let out once they were surrounded by new estates. (Sheffield Daily Telegraph - Friday 26 March 1926)

By the late 1920s it seems to have been used for some public events - in 1929 the Attercliffe Working Men’s Club brass band went to “Crowther House grounds” in a procession and children played at various sports there (Sheffield Daily Telegraph - Monday 12 August 1929).

I’ve read on the Sheffield Forum that In 1926 it was subject to compulsory purchase by the Council. It was demolished in 1937. It's now the site of Hereward road and Crowland Road and the grounds perhaps became Longley Park. Some gateposts might still exist on Barnsley Road across from the end of Stubbin Lane (the corner of the park).

You can find pictures of the house on Picture Sheffield, it looks pretty nice to me. and a lot posher than a "medium size farmhouse". Depends on your perspective I suppose.

Cheers,

Andrew

Wow! Thank you, Andrew, that has certainly given me something to think about. I thought I had gone down a bit of a blind alley when other sites led me to Crowder House, which was later owned by Miss Jane Wake, but from what you are saying with the Wilson family reference, they are almost certainly one and the same. Thank you so much.

A shame it's been demolished, but I will go back to Picture Sheffield to see where great-grandmum Mary worked.

No idea of the geography of Sheffield, but could a house servant at Crowther/Crowder House have had links with a family from Hartley Brook?

As far as I can tell it's all in the parish of Ecclesfield, but I only have few tales from my late mother to give me pointers. Are they close by?

Thank you!

Christine,

It was the Wake family who bought the old house from the Wilkinsons in 1859, likely they leased it out to John Wilson, who is sometimes described as living at Crowder House and sometimes Crowther House in the press of the time.

Maybe because Sheffield people did have a tendency to pronounce "th" as "d" which is how we got the nickname of dee-dars (from saying "dee" and "dar" instead of thee and thou, according to people from neighbouring towns like my Auntie from Barnsley).

I can't claim to know anything about that area though I was born and bred in Sheffield, I was born near the town centre and later on lived out completely on the other side of town.

But Google tells me that the Hartley Brook Primary Academy is a leisurely 20 minute stroll from where Crowther House used to be. That would be nothing for an old-timey person and domestic staff certainly did walk around in their time off so could easily have gone to Hartley Brook for some reason from Crowther House.

Cheers,

Andrew.

https://picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?searchterms=Crowder+house&action=search&keywords=all%3BCONTAINS%3B%25Crowder%25%3BAND%3Ball%3BCONTAINS%3B%25house%25%3B
Photos on Picture Sheffield


House demolished and now Longley Prak

Hi Christine

Really interesting thread on the history of the house on Sheffield forum.

https://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/topic/225130-any-information-on-crowder-house/


Denise

Andrew, Lyn and Denise, thank you so much, that has been so useful. And I now have pictures of where my great-grandmother used to work, including some interior shots. What a gorgeous house, and what a shame it's not there any more!

And the info about Dee-dars is so useful. I suppose the census enumerator would have been a bit posh, hence using the 'proper' spelling, and not what people actually called the house.

I think great-granny Mary probably knew the Dawsons through the Methodist church, but how she ended up in Essex is still a mystery. Maybe John Wilson had connections there and she moved with the family?

Anyway, that's another little bit of the jigsaw puzzle. Thank you again.

Mount Pleasant Wesleyan Chapel is in Chapeltown (not Sheffield), about 2 ½ miles due north of Crowder House (not Crowther, the “th” is an error). It is also 5 miles due west of Greaseborough. So it could well be a place they had in common.

Thanks, Ted, that's useful. Mt Pleasant was where Agnes's mum and dad got married, so I assume that's where the family worshipped. Although I believe the family later attended Shiregreen Methodist church. (Maybe Shiregreen was built later?)

So from what you say, Mary could have known them as a child rather than when she was working at Crowder House. She's still at Old Engine, Greasbrough as a nine-year-child on the 1851 census. So possibly Mary was a childhood friend of Agnes's mum, Elizabeth Carr.

Thanks again

Hi,

If you want to check if the families used Mount Pleasant, the school and Sunday school records from 1824 onwards are at Sheffield archives.
Ref: NR1504-1521

Heths

Thanks, Heths. I know I'm probably being a bit thick, but I've googled Sheffield archives, and it's taken me to Sheffield City Archives and Local Studies Library. There's an email address for school records, but nothing for Sunday schools. Am I looking in the right place?

Sorry, I'm probably being a bit dozy here.........

If you take a look at maps at

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/#zoom=12&lat=53.43554&lon=-1.51046&layers=102&b=1&z=1&point=53.41844,-1.44630

you will get a good insight as to the location of many of the places mentioned between the 1850s and 1940s.

Barry C.

There is a guide on the archives website listing all the deposited non-conformist registers that they hold,

CHAPELTOWN Mount Pleasant. (near Sheffield)
Bap 1839-1943 Reference NR 2277/1-2
Bap 1943-1987 reference Acc 2004/4 no.2

Marr 1868-1908 Reference NR 1503

Marr 1909-1988 Reference NR 2292/1-9

Angela

I found the bit about the Sunday school records here:
http://www.calmview.eu/SheffieldArchives/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=NR1503&pos=43

Heths

Thank you so much for your help, everyone. I love this website! x