HALEY

From about 1838 to 1854 the miller at Bathpool Mill was Thomas Haley. This page tells the story of the arrival of the Haley family in North Hill around 1800 and the last time we see any of them in the parish in 1889. It also tells the story of his son Henry Thomas Haley who was a mine agent and almost certainly embroiled in the Huelva Mine Massacre whilst working for the Rio Tinto company in Spain.

The earliest record of a member of the Haley family in the parish was the marriage of Mary Ash and Thomas Haley in St Torney's in May 1807. At the marriage both bride and groom are shown as being of North Hill parish. Thomas's origins are not known and Mary was aged 33 and a member of the Ash family that lived at Ruse's Mill in Lezant at the time. This was a small settlement on the River Inny where the parishes of Lezant, Lewannick and North Hill meet. The image shown below was taken from North Hill parish, looking across the bridge into Lezant, and over the parish boundary which is at the centre of the river at this point.

3 months and 8 days after the marriage, on 22nd October 1807, their only child was born. They named him Thomas, after his father, and it was this child that was destined to become the miller at Bathpool. Young Thomas was baptized in Lezant Church on 5th January 1808 and his father's occupation is recorded at that time as a coachman. A coachman was not a waggoner or a carman hauling goods but the driver of a horse and carriage for a monied family. Mary was not living at Lezant but in North Hill at the time of the marriage and was probably in service to the same North Hill family who also employed Thomas. The number of families in North Hill who could afford a horse and carriage, a coachman and more servants was small and it is likely that Thomas and Mary worked for either the Rodd family of Trebartha Hall or the Pethick family of Lanoy.

The birth of the baby meant that Mary's time as a servant came to an end, at least for a short while, and the family moved to live with or to be close to Mary's parents at Ruse's Mill. There are no records indicating that her father, Ncholas, was the miller at Ruse's Mill. All the records we have of him tell us that he was a carpenter. Mary's parents died in 1820 and 1821 and are buried in Lezant Churchyard. The family home was taken over by her brother, also named Nicholas, and his family.

No record has been found that records the death or burial of Thomas Haley snr, in fact there are only two records that mention him. The first was his marriage in May 1807 and the second was the baptism of his son Thomas Haley jnr in January 1808. As there are no more children to the marriage it is possible that Mary was without a husband from shortly after the birth of Thomas jnr. By 1841 she was living with her son Thomas but her husband is not recorded with her, nor has he been identified elsewhere. When Mary was recorded on the 1851 census she was shown as "formerly an ag[ricultural] lab[ourer]'s wife" and it seems that Thomas had lost his reasonably comfortable job as a coachman and had turned to back breaking work the fields for his livelihood. It is possible to speculate on so many scenarios to explain his absence but if you are reading this and have the evidence to show us Thomas snr's fate, please get in touch..

Thomas Haley jnr was brought up in the Inny valley amongst his mother's family, to whom he would have been very attached. He learnt the skills of a miller there which was to benefit him as an adult. He married Mary Aunger in Lezant in July 1834 and their first child, William, was born a almost a year later when Thomas was recorded as the miller at Trefrize Mill. This was just ¾ mile downstream from Ruse's Mill. Elizabeth, their second child was born there in early 1837 and a few months later Thomas moved his family to their new home in Bathpool Mill, as he took up his position there as the miller. Bathpool Mill was on the River Lynher but less than three miles from the Ash family in Ruse's Mill.

Bathpool Mill was a larger operation than Trefrize and in 1841 Thomas is shown there with his family and three employees. Two of the three were men who worked alongside Thomas in the mill. The third was a young girl, Mary Jasper, who helped around the home. At this time there were four young Haley children in the household. William and Elizabeth had a brother and sister - Henry was born in 1839 and Lydia in 1841. What seemed to be a settled existence was to be shattered shortly after Christmas 1842.

Of the nine people buried in North Hill churchyard between Christmas 1842 and mid-March 1843, three of them were the children of Thomas and Mary. This extract from the burial register shows their ages as 5, 4 and 2. The actual cause of death will appear on the death certificates but It would seem likely that an infection such as tuberculosis claimed them. The other six deaths were all of adults, four of whom were in old age.

In November 1843 the last child of the family was born and named Henry Thomas Haley. On the 1851 census Henry is shown living with his parents, brother William and paternal grandmother.

The 1851 census shown above is the last census on which we see Thomas, his son, William, and his mother Mary. Thomas' mother was 78 when she died and was buried in St Torney's in December of 1851. Thomas' death may have been more unexpected. He was just 46 when he died in late May 1854 and was buried near his mother, also in St Torney's. His gravestone is in the south west corner of the churchyard and commemorates his death, those of his three dead infant children and his eldest son, William. Thomas left a will which he signed on 27th May, just two days before his death. In the will he divided his estate into three parts. One third went to his wife Mary and the other two equal parts to his sons William and Henry, but they were not to inherit until they were 21 years old. William was approaching his 19th birthday and Henry was just 10½ when their father died.

When William was 20 years old his mother remarried to John Hill a widower and a farmer at nearby Kingbear. Within a year William would have been entitled to his inheritance and perhaps that was what enabled him to leave home for America where he died aged 23 in 1856, with no known family.

Henry remained, living with his mother and stepfather until 1865 when he married Jane Dingle Richards in Linkinhorne. Mary and her new husband John moved from Kingbear to Upton in Linkinhorne and then to Lewarne where John Hill died aged 83 in 1882, leaving Mary widowed once again. Mary lived until 1889 and died in Gunnislake aged 82 but was brought back for burial in St Torney's, close to her two husbands and three infant children.

Henry Thomas Haley (1843-1901)

Henry

Jane

Thomas

Fred(?)

Joseph

James Henry

1843 Nov - born in Bathpool Mill

1851 Mar - census: at Bathpool Mill with his parents and elder brother, William

1854 May - father, Thomas Haley died

1855 Aug - mother remarried to John Hill and family moves to Kingbear Farm

1856 Nov - brother William died in USA, aged 23

1861 Apr - census: aged 16 (sic) at Kingbear Farm with stepfather John Hill, mother, servants and boarders working in local copper mines

1865 Jun - married Jane Dingle Richards in Linkinhorne Church; Jane's father was a mine agent or captain; the Richards family lived at Henwood, close to the large Phoenix Caradon Mine on the moor around Minions

1865 Dec - birth of first child, William Henry Haley; the register in Linkinhorne Church records his baptism in February of 1866 and his father's occupation as a farmer; sadly young William died when just six months old and was buried at Linknhorne, his residence being given as Westerlands

1867 Aug - birth of second son, Thomas, at Westerlands; note - he lived into adulthood, there are descendants in Australia today

1868/1869 - Jane's family moved to Llanidloes in Montgomeryshire where her father took on another job as a mine captain; Henry and Jane moved to the Bere Alston area of Devon where mining was a major industry

1869 Aug - birth of third son Fred Russell Haley; the birth registration was in the Tavistock district; note - Fred moved to the Wolverhampton area, married there and had four children, descendants of whom are still in the Midlands

1871 Apr - census: at Lower Kelly, Calstock; Henry (26) was a copper miner; Jane (23); Thomas (3); Fred (1)

1872 Dec - birth of William Richards Haley, their fourth son; William's birth was registered in the Brixham area of Devon which was some distance from Calstock; the birth certificate may explain why this was the case; note - as an adult William moved to the area around Truro before temporarily moving to Manchester; he returned to the West Country and lived in Plymouth; his granddaughter, Joan, emigrated to Ontario

1881 Feb - in the Tavistock district a child named Philip Henry Haley was born; his mother's maiden name was Richards; he lived a short time and his death was registered in the same district in the same month; his birth certificate needs checking to establish whether he was a son of Henry and Jane

1881 Apr - census: Henry (35) was a metal mining agent and with him at Pepper Street in Bere Ferrers were jane (31), Thomas (13), Fred (10) and William (8)

1883 Feb - in the Tavistock district another child named Philip Henry Haley was born; his mother's maiden name was again recorded as Richards; his birth certificate needs checking to establish whether he was a son of Henry and Jane; note - no further record of his existence has been found in England and Wales; it is possible that if he was Henry's son that he went to Spain in the late 1880s with the family and never returned, perhaps dying there as a child

1885 Jan - birth of Joseph Bertram Haley in Whitchurch, another Devon mining village not far from Bere Alston; note - he later enlisted in the army before WW1 and during the conflict was a medic with the Royal Medical Corps; in peacetime he became a physiotherapist; Joseph had four children; his grandaughter, Sheila, is now living in British Columbia and is actively researching her family history

1886/1890 - Henry and the family moved to Spain where he worked as a mine agent with the Rio Tinto company at Huelva in Andalucia; it is probable that they were there at the time of the infamous massacre at Huelva and, as a Rio Tinto mine agent, Henry would have become embroiled in the whole affair; you can read more about this incident in these two articles - article one ... article two

1891/1892 - James Henry (known as Henry) Haley, the last child born to Henry and Jane was born in Huelva; note - he returned with his family to Cornwall and was recorded in the 1901 census but nothing is known of him after that; a person of the same name and born about the same time was resident in Daviess County, Kentucky, USA when he enlisted for the United States Army during WW1

1892/1900 - Henry and the family returned from Spain to Cornwall and set up home in St Day where Henry was working in the arsenic works

1901 Apr - census: Henry (56) is recorded as "M E of arsenic works"; Jane (50), Joseph (16) and James Henry (9) were with him

1901 Sep - Henry died in St Day and was buried there; the newspaper report of his death can be seen in the cutting below

1924 Nov - Jane died in Cambridgeshire, where Joseph was living at that time