h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My Great-Great Grandfather, James Johnson was living at 74 Birchinlee in the 1911 Census. He was 80 years old which I assume means he was still working. I would have thought there was a good chance that he died there. Where would he have been buried?

Hello Jim

This answer comes from reference to Prof Robinson's book "Memories of Tin Town"

If James Johnson died at Birchinlee, he would almost certainly have been interred in the churchyard at Derwent. Nearly a hundred residents of Tin Town were buried there. Only a few were buried in marked graves, however. There were 18 communal graves.

In 1943, Derwent village was itself flooded in order to create Ladybower reservoir. 58 of the Birchinlee residents, their identities unknown, were reinterred in the parish churchyard at Bamford in a communal grave. The remainder still lie under the waters of Ladybower.

Note though that anyone recorded as a Birchinlee resident in 1911 would very probably have left within three years.

I found this while browsing:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dusk/derwent_overseers#burbirch
Frustrating that it stops in 1903 but note the death of an 18-month old Hut 74 resident, Frederick King. This suggests that Hut 74 was a family one, not a labourer's dormitory.

Thank you. Further research shows that my Great Great Grandfather was living with his daughter Lydia and her husband George James and their daughter Lydia who was born at Birchinlee in 1909.

I wonder where the Derwent Parish records ended up?

Hi Jim

It seems that the parish register is now at Bamford.

Try put <<"derwent woodlands" parish records>> into Google. Derwent Woodlands was, and still is, the parish. The church itself was St James'.

The first link you'll see shows that for £8 you can order a CD-ROM with the 1813-1904 records. I can't see a way to access anything any more recent than 1904 though.

The second link is actually part of the website of St Cyprian's Church at Frecheville, a district of south Sheffield. Frecheville used to be in Derbyshire too, and the account at the link will show you that St Cyprian's has special links to the lost church at Derwent. It's here that I read that the register is now at Bamford. I expect that if you contact St Cyprian's using the info you'll find on their page, they'll tell you more to help you in your search.

Another possibility - have you managed to trace Brian Robinson's "Walls Across the Valley"? This is a book I've never seen, but there's evidently one in Doncaster Library. This time Google:
<>
and it's the first link. It might well be in other library collections too. (Don't bother with Amazon or Abe unless you've a monkey to spare!)

My hunch is that this book will have all the known hut numbers/family occupancies with dates, and possibly much more you can use.

Good luck with your research!

Pin

My husband's grandparents were the school master and school mistress in Tin Town. We have photographs and a scrap book and several published books on their time there. They had two young daughters living with them and we took our grandchildren to visit the site a few years ago. Incognita.

Thanks for adding this. Your husband has proud roots.

Prof Robinson's picture-book (Memories of Tin Town) identifies three schoolmasters, though there could have been more.
I guess that your husband's grandparents might have been the first incumbents (appointed August 1902) because this is the only mention of a married couple as schoolmaster and schoolmistress. I won't name them unless you ask me to.
A different schoolmaster appears in a whole-school group photo taken in April 1907. All three female teachers in the photo are titled Miss, so I suspect that this isn't the man you mean. The school closed in October 1914, by which time a third schoolmaster is named. The reference is very brief, with no mention of a wife.