Jeremy HUNT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD DARWEN FAMILIES - 1886

THE DUXBURYS

The DUXBURYS are a very old Darwen family and they are very numerous in the town. Old Christopher DUXBURY of Hoddlesden is the first I know of. He married Jane daughter of Thomas HOLDEN and grand-daughter of "Owd Timothy o' th' Looms." He had a numerous family and I knew them all. Tom was the eldest - "Skriking Tom" - great-grandfather of Thomas DUXBURY gas manager. The nickname descended from father to son for "Skriking Tom's" son Christopher was called "Skriking Kess." "Kess" had a son William, and William had several sons one of whom is Thomas DUXBURY, gas manager, and another John DUXBURY, who was goalkeeper for the Darwen Football Club in it's best days. "Skriking Tom" got his nickname by his noisy and peculiar way of amusing himself as he walked along the country lanes when in a state of exhilaration seventy years ago. He had sons Christopher and William. There are several branches of "Skriking Tom's" family in Darwen but all the DUXBURYS are not of this stock. Moses DUXBURY. town councillor, for instance, belongs to a different family altogether.

Another of Old Christopher the First's sons was Timothy, who married Betty KIRKHAM. He was killed one terrible winter's night near the Anchor Inn, in Blackburn Road. His cart began to slip along the hard, frosty road and as he was trying to stop it, he slipped too, and, getting under the wheel, was killed.

Another son of Old Christopher was John, and the youngest was called Christopher, after his father. He fell down stairs and broke his neck, in Blackburn, where he had gone to live. A son of his yet lives towards Furthergate.

NOTES ADDED BY SHAW AFTER THE DEATH OF JEREMY HUNT

Christopher DUXBURY of Hoddlesden, had a daughter Betty, who was the first wife of John HINDLE (son of James and grandson of Old Christopher the First).

"Peggy o' Owd Kester's" (DUXBURY) married Marsden HINDLE (uncle to John who married Betty DUXBURY. Thomas DUXBURY of Hoddlesden (Tummas o' Owd Kester's) married Ann daughter of old Henry BRIGGS of Cranberry Fold and had a large family.

Thomas DUXBURY of Stand near Hoddlesden who flourished seventy years ago, married Rachael LEACH (Rachael o' Owd Richard's). They had several sons whose history Jeremy intended giving in connection with the DUXBURYS if he had lived to complete his work. Their daughter Ellen became the wife of Nathaniel JEPSON, son of John, but only lived four months after her marriage.

John DUXBURY of the Knowle, Darwen Chapels, was a famous character at the end of last century. He was a cotton manufacturer after the manner of those days being a "putter-out" of pieces to hand loom weavers. It was not however for his business connections that he was most noted, but for his sporting proclivities, and he became so famous as to receive the nickname of "Th' Duke o' Darrun." He lived into the nineteenth century and Jeremy (HUNT) remembered him very well. Horse racing and cock-fighting were his great hobbies, and though he was not a real duke he numbered such members of the old nobility as the then Earl of Derby among his associates. On the spot where Duckworth Street Congregational Church now stands he originated the Darwen Horse Races and supported them by his personal patronage and his influence among sporting men. A pair of silver spoons won in these local races are still preserved in the family as a relic. Cock fighting was a very popular sport in Darwen at the beginning of the present century and the poultry fanciers of the town trained fighting cocks which became famous all over the county. Jeremy remembered a main being fought at Chapels at which the Earl of Derby (grandfather of the present Earl) and other sporting characters from Preston were present. John DUXBURY of the Knowle Farm (Th' Duke o' Darrun), had a daughter Betty, who married George HINDLE (son of Thomas) farmer of Sunnyhurst, and afterwards innkeeper at the Black Horse.

Timothy HOLDEN, fifth son of "Owd Timothy o' th' Looms" married a Miss DUXBURY as his first wife, and had by her two sons and a daughter.

Alice DUXBURY was courted more than fifty years by John PICKUP, but John died single at the age of seventy, and she never enjoyed the pleasures of matrimony.

There was a George DUXBURY, organist at the Higher Chapel, nearly a hundred years ago. He married Betty HINDLE, only daughter of old John the First.

Lucy, daughter of Oliver DUXBURY, became the wife of William FISH, of Stand Farm, near Hoddlesden, a famous singer. One of her sons James FISH is living yet (1887), aged 70 years. John DUXBURY of Hoddlesden, married Mary daughter of James FISH, a woman born before Jeremy HUNT's time.

Richard DUXBURY married a daughter of Nathaniel JEPSON, the son of John.

John DUXBURY married Mary, daughter of Ebenezer HARWOOD ("Old Eben")

Alice DUXBURY of Hoddlesden was the second wife of Thurston BRIGGS of Hoddlesden who dropped down dead.

John DUXBURY of Hoddlesden married Mary FISH, sister of "Little Tot" as his first wife. She died leaving him a son and a daughter. The daughter is dead but the son is living at Ashton-under-Lyne, an old man over seventy.