XBO Ollery Hall Farm – John Dickinson – Halsall Family Histories

Ollery Hall Farm - John Dickinson

John Dickinson 🌳, like so many of his day, was born into a farming family. He came into the world in 1868, the son of Catherine and John Dickinson of Altcar, Lancashire. John was baptised at Altcar church on 14th June 1868; the baptism records confirm that his father, John Snr. was a farmer.

By the time the 1881 census was taken, John was working as a farm servant for John Prescott in Altcar – he was 13 years old at that time. Farm servants were hired on fixed contracts of 6, 9 or 12 months and were often young, single and mobile people. Their work centred around the farm buildings e.g. stable lads or dairy maids. They often ‘lived in’ with the farmer and his family because they would need to be up and ready to work at sunrise when it was light.

No doubt John and his brother William were expecting to work on their father’s farm in Altcar. However, this was not to be because John Snr. died in 1886 at the age of 53 when his son John Jnr. would have been 18 years old and deemed too young to take on the farm.

The brothers were then required to find work elsewhere and in the 1901 census we can see they were both employed as farm labourers for Thomas Rainford just down the road at Barton House Farm, Barton, Downholland. In 1911 he was listed as a farm servant and in the census for 1921 his occupation was recorded as a teamsman.

Just across the fields meanwhile at Ollery Hall Farm, Thomas Howard had decided to retire and ‘sell up’. This meant that a tenancy was available for a new farmer to take his place. John Dickinson put himself forward and took over the running of Ollery Hall c. 1922.

Around the same time, at the age of 51, John married for the first time. His bride was Celia Catherine Cunnington 🌳, (nee Rimmer) who lived on Carr Moss Lane with her three children. She had been widowed eleven years earlier when her husband, William Cunnington 🌳 had died.

So John, Celia and her grown up children Ellen 🌳, aged 29, William Richard 🌳who was 26 and Walter Thomas 🌳, 21 years old, moved into Ollery Hall Farm in January 1922.

John ran the farm with the assistance of Ellen, William and Walter; Celia looking after them all and taking care of domestic duties. However, on 1st September 1938 Celia passed away aged 69 years. She was buried at St. Cuthbert’s church, Halsall with William, her first husband. We next see John and his step-children in the 1939 Register for England and Wales which was taken on 29th September, just after the outbreak of WW2.

Having lived through the war, John passed away in October 1946. He was buried in a separate grave to his wife at St. Cuthbert’s church, Halsall. A small tribute was placed in the Ormskirk Advertiser newspaper which gives an insight into the great man that he was.

Having no children of his own, John’s step-children and step-grandchildren continued to work and live at Ollery Hall Farm for the next 72 years…