Throstle Nest

Throstle Nest was the Chadwick family home from 1801, and possibly earlier.

This contemporary view of Throstle Nest was taken in 1999.

Welcome

Chadwick Introduction

My interest in the Chadwick family of Ashton-under-Lyne began decades ago, when as a young child I listened to the fireside reminiscences of my grandmother and aunt. I heard tales of a house named Throstle Nest, a long-vanished diary, a voyage in a sailing ship, and cotton mills weaving their tantalizing threads throughout it all.

Adding substance to these family stories was an oil painting in my aunt’s home in Darwen, Lancashire. It depicted a horse standing beneath trees with a house in the background. The effect was sombre and so was the story that accompanied the painting. The horse, which belonged to a Chadwick ancestor, was involved in an accident and had to be destroyed as its injuries were extensive. Its owner, distraught over the loss of his favourite horse, commissioned the painting as a memorial. Sad though the story is, the painting drew me in and brought to life some of the disjointed memories of my older relatives. In my late teens I took my first foray into family history when I wrote to the rector of the parish church of St. Michael and All Angels in Ashton-under-Lyne and received an encouraging letter in reply. That is where my efforts rested, until many years later when I set about researching family history in earnest, determined to sort out fact from fiction in the stories.

My exploration follows the Chadwick family from its farming roots in rural Cheshire in the late 1600s through its transition into affluent, and influential, mill owners in Ashton-under-Lyne 150 years later. The story is set against a backdrop of sweeping change in Lancashire as the Industrial Revolution took hold and forever changed the landscape and the way of life, as cotton mills were built, railways and canals developed to revolutionize transportation, and people flocked to the towns in search of work. Despite the fluctuations and crises within the cotton spinning industry, the Chadwick business continued to flourish throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.

As I researched the family, I learned about people whose lives brought colour and resonance to the story. There is John Chadwick, who when he died in 1701 left household and farming goods to the value of £11 17s.[1] Over a century later, Nancy Chadwick was a cotton manufacturer at Park Hall mill in Ashton-under-Lyne.[2] On Tuesdays she travelled to Manchester with her mill-owning sons, although it is unlikely that she accompanied them in their business dealings at the male-dominated 

Exchange.[3] One of Nancy’s daughters, Sarah, born in 1803, dictated a will on 3^rd December 1855, shortly before she died, and three of her female relatives and friends witnessed it. The hand-written copy, containing much personal detail, survives.[4]

The most intriguing member of the family, however, is Thomas Chadwick, who in 1841, at the age of 30, sailed from Liverpool to New South Wales, leaving behind his wife and two children, the youngest less than a year old.His departure raises many questions. Why would Thomas leave his family, and an affluent lifestyle, to embark on an arduous journey of over 10,000 miles?  When he left, he was in partnership with his three brothers in the ownership of Higham Fold cotton mill in Ashton-under-Lyne, and as far as is known, had no other means of earning a living. How did he survive in New South Wales? Were there circumstances that prevented his return to England? Some of these questions, and others, are still unresolved and it is with Thomas that this story begins.

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[1][1] Will and inventory of John Chadwick obtained from Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Duke St., Chester, Cheshire, England CH1 1RL

[2] Baines Directory of Lancashire 1825

[3] Pigot & Co., Trade Directory of Manchester and Salford, 1834, 1836

[4] Copy of the will of Sarah Chadwick, obtained from Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Duke St., Chester, Cheshire, England CH1 1RL