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Cunningham
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Thomas Cunningham Snr. was born in Galway, Ireland in 1856. This was only four years after the potato famine (1845 – 52) so times would have been very hard for his parents.
In 1881 he lived at 10 Watergate, Huddersfield as a boarder and was described as a Mason’s labourer. The house was occupied by Hannah Cooney (1831) her son Michael Cooney (1855) and John Grady (1855) a boarder and Thomas Cunningham, a boarder. They all originated from Ireland.
Watergate now only exists as an area close to the canal in Huddersfield, most of the property appears to have been demolished to make way for industrial and retail business.
On 29th July 1893 Thomas married Mary Manning at St Patricks Roman Catholic Church, Huddersfield. Mary was a Woollen Feeder. The marriage certificate states that before that time Mary lived at 49 New Street, Paddock, Huddersfield and Thomas at Longwood. They had four children.
Joseph (1890) Ellen (1894) Mary (1896) Thomas (1899)
I have little knowledge of Ellen and do not recollect my father (Thomas 1899) ever mentioning her but on searching the records I have found a record of Ellen Ann Cunningham being born in Huddersfield in 1894 and Helen Ann Cunningham dying in Huddersfield in 1901. Allowing for Yorkshire pronunciation and copying of records these could be one and the same person. My father would have been too young to remember her.
By the time Thomas was born the family lived at 37 High Street, Paddock, Huddersfield.
Joseph married Kathleen. They lived at Fartown in Huddersfield. They had one son, Desmond, who emigrated to Canada with his Spanish wife.
Mary married Albert Stockdale. They lived in Paddock all their married life but had no children.
In August 1932 Thomas married Amy Lillie Goodman at Wales Parish Church, Wales, Yorkshire.
Thomas and Mary senior moved in with Thomas and Amy. Thomas (Snr.) died in 1933 age 77, Mary died in 1936 age 69
Thomas worked as a Lather Boy in a Barbers Shop when he left school. He then worked at a wholesale grocer’s and later worked for Jacksons, a chain of Furniture Stores. He became a Manager at Jacksons and worked at Huddersfield, Worcester, Bradford and Halifax. On leaving Jacksons in the late 1940s, when the company was taken over by Great Universal Stores, he went into partnership and eventually became sole owner of a furniture shop in Gibbet Street, Halifax and remained there until his death in 1959. Whenever birthdays were discussed one of his favourite sayings was, “I was born in 1899 the year that Flying Fox won the Derby and Mornington Cannon rode his first Derby winner”. I have checked this and it is true. I never remember him ever betting on a horse.
Thomas was born with a heart complaint and was rejected from the forces of both world wars. He served with the ARP in Halifax during the second war. He was a keen bowls player and enjoyed a presidential year at Greenroyd Bowling Club, Halifax. He liked having a car and his last one was a 1949 Ford V8 Pilot. As he lived in a terrace house at 8 Dry Clough Lane, Halifax, there was no garage and he rented a garage a short walk from the house at Stafford Square. He was meticulous about drying of his car when it had been out in the rain. If it rained he frequently left the car in the garage and caught the bus to work.
Thomas was born into a catholic family but was married in the Church of England. He returned to the Catholic Church later in life and he and Amy were re-married in the Catholic Church. He is buried at the Cemetery at Blacker Road, Huddersfield. Thomas and Amy had two daughters.
