I am now more into the swing of making use of my FindMyPast subscription to the 1921 census I thought I would take another look at my family’s involvement in Riccall, Yorkshire. A place described in Lewis’s topographical directory of 1848 as follows:

My great great grandfather Thomas Sarginson was born in 1853 in Howden in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He married Ann Foster (1854-1941) in 1874 and by the time their first child was born they were living in Breighton, a small township in the parish of Bubwith, East Riding of Yorkshire. Thomas and Ann had seven children, three were born in Breighton, three in Kelfield where Ann was from and their last child, Olive, in Riccall. The following descendant report shows the family:

In the 1921 census Thomas and Ann were living in three rooms in Riccall, with Thomas described as a farm labourer working for Mr C W A Denham, farmer. Research shows that this was Charles William Almair Denham (1888-1974) who was the son of a Wesleyan Minister. He took over a farm from his grandfather William Dixon (1835-1912), who doesn’t seem to have left a will. In 1921 (and 1939) Charles Denham was living at Hawthorn House, marked on the following map (OS Yorkshire CVI.11 date 1939) in purple.

Also living in Riccall in 1921 , in four rooms, were two further generations of the Sarginson family, Thomas and Ann’s son George (1878-1960), his wife Elizabeth Neville (1877-1961) and four children:

• Raynor (1905-1983), an apprentice cooper working at Olympia Cake and Oil Mills, Barlby Rd, Selby, a linseed oil crushing and refining plant.
• George (1907-1975), my grandfather,  also a farm labourer working for Mr Brown. When I was a child, he worked at BOCM, Barlby Rd, Selby.
• Minnie (1916-1925).
• Roy (1919-1921).

George was a farm labourer working for farmer Mr Shillito Brown, Hawthorne Farm, Riccall, also marked in purple on the above map. Both George senior and his father Thomas worked as farm labourers on what look like adjoining farms in Riccall. This was new information to me. Certainly, the addition of employers’ details to the 1921 census provides previously unknown information for people like my grandfathers who were working on the land.

George, my great grandfather, and Elizabeth had nine children, not all of whom reached adulthood, s shown in the following descendant chart:

Their son George (1907-1975) was my grandfather and the dark blue ring on the above map indicates where he, and other members, of my family lived, when I was a child. I have already written about a childhood memory: Lottie’s afternoon tea. Do let me know if you have any stories about the Sarginson’s which you are willing to share with me.

Note: the map used in this blog has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the following creative commons licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ and sourced from the NLS maps site https://maps.nls.uk/.

Bibliography:

1921 Census. https://www.findmypast.co.uk/ : accessed December 2022.

1939 Register. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ : accessed December 2022.

Births, marriages and deaths. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ : accessed December 2022.

Census records. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ : accessed December 2022.

Lewis, Samuel ed. (1848) A Topological Directory of England. London: Lewis. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/england : accessed December 2022.

OS Maps. https://maps.nls.uk/ : accessed December 2022.

Probate records. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ : accessed December 2022.

Riccall. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ERY/Riccall : accessed December 2022.

Yorkshire baptisms, marriages and burials. https://www.findmypast.co.uk/ : accessed December 2022.