52 - The Moss Family
The head of the household was James Potter Moss, who was a 38 year old mill mechanic in 1871. He was born in Warrington to his father, also called James Potter Moss, who worked as a file cutter.
He married Alice Haughton in 1855 in Manchester and they moved to Romiley where they had their first child Elizabeth Ann in 1858. The family lived at 5 Oakwood Cottages, which were houses built especially for the workers at Oakwood Cotton Mill. The houses no longer exist but were made from red brick.
They briefly moved to Openshaw where they had 2 more children, John and Martha, then returned to Romiley where they lived on Romiley Road.
Their daughter Margaret was born in 1870 but sadly died 4 years later. Samuel and Mary Alice completed the family.
James Moss was a member of the Mechanics' Club, which held an annual dinner at the Friendship Inn. James Moss spoke at at least one of these gatherings.
In October 1879 James Moss was summoned to explain why one of his children was not regularly attending school.
The same year, his daughter Elizabeth Ann took part in a Band of Hope Tea Meeting and Entertainment where she performed "Tit for tat or lie on your own bed" with some other members of the abstinence group.
Elizabeth later joined the St Chad's Amateur Dramatic Society and performed to around 350 people in 1882.
The family were hit by a tragedy in 1888 when daughter Martha, then 20 years of age, passed away. She had been a popular employee of Oakwood Cotton Mill and memorial wreaths under glass globes were placed on her grave by workmates and Sunday School classmates.
A double tragedy occurred in May 1891 when Elizabeth Ann (aged 33) and her father James (aged 58) passed away within a week of each other.
John married Emma Fallows in 1892 . She wore a light brown coloured dress with hat and veil to match. The couple were wed at St Chad's and had the party at Alice Moss' house on Romiley Road.
Widowed Alice then took her younger children with her to Pendlebury where they took on a lodger, a widowed man. By 1901 Samuel was working as a bricklayer whilst his sister Mary worked at a Printing Works.
John continued to live in Romiley, at 51 Guywood Lane, and worked at Schofield Bleachworks (which used to be the site of Samuel Robinson's hatworks). He was a member of Romiley Conservative Club and died in 1935. He had 6 children who all survived into adulthood.
Samuel married and became a property repairer, dying in 1946 aged 71. His sister Mary married Edward Arthur Jones, a joiner at a bleach works. The couple had 6 children. She died in 1949.