Halsall Hall Farm 1883 - 1970s

This 1920s photograph of Halsall Hall shows how the door on the left had been bricked up when it was no longer multiple households

The Diaries of the Cropper Family

Halsall Hall in the latter half of the 19th century was occupied and farmed by John and Ellen Cropper. Indeed, the Cropper family remained at the Hall until the mid 1970s – some 90 years after John and Ellen first moved there. 

 

John Cropper (1843-1892) KJ2J-CQ4 was born in 1843 in Aughton to Joshua and Ellen Cropper, farmers. At the age of 19, John was a carter for John Woods, another farmer in Altcar Lane, Aughton. Four years later on 21st  February 1865,  he married Ellen Prescott at St. Michael’s Church, Aughton. His profession at this time was recorded as farmer on the marriage register. It was also noted that Ellen was a ‘minor’, being 19 years of age. By 1871, John was farming 49 acres of land and employing 5 men at Turnpike Road, Aughton. They also had 4 children by now: Elizabeth, Edward, Joshua and Richard only 4 months. However, by 1881, John was farming 127 acres and employing 10 men.

 

John, Ellen and family moved to Halsall Hall around 1883-1884. When the 1891 census was taken,  living at home were Edward, Richard, James, Ellen, Mary, John, Joseph and William

 

Sadly, John Cropper died on 2nd January 1892 and was buried on 5th January at St. Andrew’s Church, Maghull. Probate records show his effects totaled £854 9s 10d approximately £89, 289.30 in today’s money.  His wife Ellen took over the running of the farm until she passed away at Halsall Hall in 1923.

Ellen Prescott (1846-1923) KJ2J-CQZ was born in 1846 in Maghull, the daughter of blacksmith Richard Prescott and his wife Elizabeth Hesketh. By 1861 Richard was farming 20 acres of land in Aughton.  Once they were married in 1865, Ellen and John Cropper had 10 children – 3 girls and 7 boys. Their first child, Elizabeth was born in 1865  when Ellen was 19 and her last born, William in 1886 when she was 40 years old. 

Halsall Hall Farm circa 1900

Ellen Prescott (1846-1923) KJ2J-CQZ was born in 1846 in Maghull, the daughter of blacksmith Richard Prescott and his wife Elizabeth Hesketh. By 1861 Richard was farming 20 acres of land in Aughton.  Once they were married in 1865, Ellen and John Cropper had 10 children – 3 girls and 7 boys. Their first child, Elizabeth was born in 1865  when Ellen was 19 and her last born, William in 1886 when she was 40 years old. 

 

When the 1901 census was taken on 31st March, Ellen was head of the Halsall Hall household – her occupation was described as farmer and she was listed as being an employer. Four of her children were still at home – Mary – 22, John – 19, Joseph – 17 and William was 15 – all were working on the family farm. Ellen’s elderly mother was also living with them ‘on her own means’. Joshua Cropper, her second son,  seems to have emigrated to New York in 1894

 

In 1911, Ellen was still head of the household when the census was taken. Although, at this time the Hall had 15 occupants including 2 wagoners, a cowman, a servant and 7 Irish labourers. Two of her sons James and William were living there as was her 19-year-old grandson George and a 10-year-old grandson, John who attended Halsall School.

 

By 1921 Ellen was 74 years old, head of the household, and employing her son James, grandson John, and two servants on the farm. She died on 15th November 1923. The probate records dated 5th January 1924 record her effects as totalling £9724 15s 11d the equivalent of £483, 876.90 today. 

Ormskirk Advertiser 12th November 1925

Ellen Cropper must have been a strong, capable woman – after losing her husband when she was only 46 years old she was left to run the farm (fortunately she had the help of her grown up children but her younger children would have been 14, 12, 9, 7 and 5 years old when their father died).  She  never remarried and ran Halsall Hall farm for over 30 years!

 

A memorial from Ellen Cropper’s youngest son William, a farmer at Threlfall’s Farm in Lathom.

What became of the Cropper children?

Elizabeth b. 1865 GV8Z-SJ2 married William Hamlet Smith, a farmer from Cheshire. They emigrated to Canada in 1912.

Edward b. 1867 GVMD-Q4C emigrated to New York 1896/7. 

Joshua b. 1868  GV8Z-MF2 emigrated to New York  in 1894.

Richard b. 1870 MHCN-1XS became a Farm Bailiff and lived down Carr Moss Lane. He took over Halsall Hall after the death of his mother, Ellen (see later).

James b. 1873 MHCF-JQ1 married Mary Brown from Waterloo, Liverpool. They ran The Blowick public house for a time. Mary died only 6 years after their marriage. James returned to Halsall Hall to work on the farm and died in 1935.

Ellen b. 1876 GVMD-48Z married John Harrison and they farmed Mill House Farm, Halsall. She died in 1932.

Mary b. 1878 GVM8-1CV married John Evans, a dairyman. They lived at The Lodge, Park Lane, Netherton, Liverpool. She died in 1927.

Grave of John and Catherine Cropper and their daughter Mary

John b. 1881 GVMD-QG8 married Catherine Blundell, a farmer’s daughter from Barton. They lived in Halsall initially then Crosby, John working as a ‘Cow man’. They eventually moved back to West Lancashire and are both buried in Halsall graveyard. 

Joseph b. 1884 KJGJ-Z7S married Elizabeth Tinsley and worked as a labourer for her father in Pool Hey Lane, Scarisbrick. He then farmed Gettern Model Farm, near Ainsdale and passed away in 1951.

William b. 1886 KJ2J-CQ7 – the youngest child, married Elizabeth Rothwell and farmed at Threlfalls Farm in Lathom until he died in 1961.

Rear View Halsall Hall Farm

In the 1939 Register, Halsall Hall is being farmed by Elizabeth’s 3rd son, Richard Cropper and his wife Elizabeth Prescott (same family name as her mother-in-law!) and their son John Prescott Cropper.

 

Richard and Elizabeth were married in 1898 and had 6 children, 3 of whom died as youngsters – Richard 1907-1911, William 1909-1919, and Ellen 1903-1923 who passed away in the same year as her grandmother, Ellen Cropper. Richard Cropper was a freemason, having been initiated in the Lodge of Harmony (Ormskirk) on 18th December 1918. Richard and Elizabeth died in 1949 and 1942 respectively and are buried at Halsall Church.

 

Their only surviving son, John Prescott Cropper (born on the 6th June 1900) married Edith Sharp in May 1940. Edith was the daughter of Mary and William Sharp, a farmer and cattle dealer from Marsden in Yorkshire. They lived for a time in Chestnut Cottage, Summerwood Lane and had one son, also called John, born in 1943.

 

John Snr was an active member of the community, being involved in the Halsall Men’s Bible Class, the treasurer of St. Cuthbert’s Hall, Head Air Raid Warden and the chairman of the West Lancashire Rural District Council. In 1971, when Halsall won the ‘Best Kept Village Competition’, it featured on the front page of the Liverpool Echo and John Cropper was asked to air his views on the subject:

John Cropper resident of Halsall Hall
1971 Halsall, Lancashire's Best Kept Village

Six years later, on the 4th April 1977, John Prescott Cropper died at the age of 77. His wife, Edith passed away on 31st March 1984. 

John Cropper 1943-2001

John Cropper (1943-2001) LLC9-ZYP was the son of John and Edith Cropper, born in 1943. Unlike his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him, John did not become a farmer – instead he left Halsall Hall behind and went to university. He obtained a First Class Degree in Agricultural Economics and in 1965 said goodbye to England to pursue a Postgraduate Diploma programme at the University of West Indies in Trinidad.

In 1966 he joined the Department of Agricultural Economics also in Trinidad which is where he met his wife, Angela Persad.

They were married in 1970 and their only son, John Devanand Cropper LLC9-VFG was born on 20th August 1977 in the Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.  John then went on to work as Head of Planning and Information of the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute. He led the planning of policies and programmes to assist the small farmers in the Caribbean as well as writing and self-publishing a monthly newspaper, ‘The Caribbean Farm News’ intended to educate and inform the farmers in this part of the world. After this, the family moved to Guyana, South America where John was an Agricultural Advisor to the Commonwealth Advisory Group on Economic Recovery to the Government of Guyana and then by 1996, he was back working with rural communities in Trinidad.

 However, in 1998, his only son, John Devanand died tragically aged 20 of a rare heart condition – he had been a student at the London School of Economics. John and his wife, Angela set up ‘The Cropper Foundation’ in August 2000 ‘as a vehicle to continue their decades-long commitment to the sustainable development of the Caribbean region’. Their intent was also to underpin the legacy of their son, John Devanand Cropper who had possessed a passion for literature, writing and believed in supporting those who were less fortunate. John and Angela also founded the Dev Cropper Memorial Award for students at the London School of Economics. 

You can read more about The Cropper Foundation, here.

The Cropper Foundation

Just over a year later, tragedy struck yet again, when in December 2001, John Cropper was brutally murdered in his own home in the Cascade district of Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. The murderer was his great-nephew who also killed his great aunt, Lynette Lithgow and his great grandmother, Maggie Lee – sister and mother respectively of John’s wife Angela Cropper. 

 

Angela Cropper nee Persad (1946-2012)

Angela Cropper, nee Persad (1946-2012) LLC9-D38 was born in rural Trinidad. She was the first person in her family to attend secondary school. She went on to study economics at the University of the West Indies and also earned a degree in international law from Barbados. 

She had an illustrious career which included being an independent senator in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago and interim Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.  In addition, she was on the advisory board for the Council of the United Nations University and in 2007 she served as assistant secretary-general and deputy executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme. She passed away in November 2012 at her home in London. 

 

Google Search Results for Angela Cropper

Halsall Hall Diaries

The Cropper family had kept numerous farming diaries during their tenure at Halsall Hall. One such diary is kept at Lancashire Records Office, dated 1892. It is unclear who wrote the diary but I suspect it was Ellen, after the death of her husband John on 2nd January 1892.

 

The Halsall Farm Diaries provide an insight into the daily activities of a late 19th-century farm before mechanisation. 

January

6th – Two hired men got boat of ashes out of bridge.

7th – Snow lay 6 inches deep.

11th – Carting ashes on Clover Root with all horses and men.

16th – Two teams carting ashes to moss.

25th – Three teams ploughing.

26th – Sent load of corn to mill. 

28th – Brought flour from mill. 

29th – Got dog licence. 


February

3rd – Two horses and two men on hire ½ day.

8th – Thrashed yellow oats – 76 sacks.

9th – Sent 76 sacks oats to Burscough – £42 8s 8d.

16th – 3 teams carting to moss midden. 

19th – Frosty. Unfit for horses out. Siding up and trussing. 

20th – Market – £5 0s 0d.

25th – Two teams ploughing. One team grubbing. Two men got ashes out. 

26th – Sent 61 sacks Tartarian oats to Burscough Mill at 2/10 per bush. Oats – £34 11s 0d.

March 

1st – One team ploughing Mere Hey, one team ploughing Kiln Meadow and one team brushing grass. Paid White Horse – £1.

7th – Two teams working ground in Far Alicar. One in Long Hey. Four men filling ditch. Fat cow to Johnson £17 10s 0d. Church rate – £1 10s 0d.

8th – Made platt over ditch. Bought roan cow at sale – £8 0s 0d.

10th – Heavy snow fell – not fit to plough. Loaded market load.

11th – Carted wagon of coal 6 ton 10 cwt. Cheque from Bootle – £32 10s 0d.

12th – 3 ploughs working in Raikes Hey (Saturday).

14th – Heavy snow and sharp frost. 

15th – Heavy snow and rain – land too wet to work on. Loaded market load. Two men got ashes out.

21st – Sowed 8 drills of cauliflower.

23rd – Two men in front garden sowed a few peas. Made a plant butt ready in stack yard. Pipe for Mere Lane came. 

25th – Calf died.

28th – Printing gravestone £0 8s 10d.

31st – Half year’s Tithe – £21 15s 0d. 

April

1st – Two men got boat of night soil.

12th – Three one horse ploughing in Rakes Hey. One team in Mere Hey. 

13th – Snow.

14th – Sowed curly and cauliflower seed in Hannah’s Garden. 

16th – Cheque from Bootle – £12 10s 0d.

18th – Cutting sets. One horse-cart on highway ½ day. 

20th – Sowed mangolds in Mere Hey. 

22nd – Sowed pit with vetches.

May

10th – Ploughed for turnips. Sowed 4 drills of beet in Kiln Meadow. 

14th – Carted wagon of coal from station 

18th – Weeding cabbage in Far Alicar. 

21st – Half-year’s rent – £215 0s 0d 

24th – Two horses among the potatoes.

30th – Hired 2 Irish at 14/per week.

 

June

2nd – Coal – £4 4s 10d

6th – One horse and man at moss. 

7th – Two men in front garden. 

11th – Thinning and planting mangolds and cauliflower in Mere Hey. No horse work. (Saturday)

13th – Planting Rascals Brow with savoys. 

15th – Watering savoys. 

16th – Sent 4 loads of pressed straw to Forshaws, Bescar Lane. 

18th – Got new machine from show. (Saturday)

22nd – 2 men mowing copse. 

27th – Sent 2 fat Heifers to G. Johnson – £21 0s 0d.

29th – Heavy rain. Cleaning the buildings down. Drawing thatch in barn. Weeding cauliflower. 

July

6th – Two machines mowed Far Moss and started Ten Pound Meadow. Mowing ditches.

8th – Turning Ten Pound Meadow

9th – Carted hay from moss but rain came. Topped stack up among turnips. 

12th – Mowed half of Dam.

14th – Paid ‘Poor Rate’ £17 6s 3d. Mowing in Dam. 

15th – Finished mowing Dam. 

16th – Heavy rain. Drawing thatch. Cleaning gutters out in Dam. 

30th – Sowed bag manure and nitrate of soda. 

August 

1st – Cutting hedges. Carting rubbish out of stackyard. Getting potatoes. 

8th – Very heavy rain – inside work. 

10th – Getting Regents for Forshaw.

11th – Getting Regents and cabbage 

12th – Getting Regents. 

13th – Getting Regents. 

27th – Heavy rain. Setting corn up. 

29th – Very heavy rain all day. Cleaning gears and white-washing shippon. 

31st – Started cutting barley but came on very wet. 

September

3rd – Cutting oats in Big Alikar. Planting a few early cabbage. Very heavy showers.

5th – Sold Rainford remainder of Clover stack for £20 – about 5 tons 5 cwt.

6th – Opened Rakes Hey out and started in it with Harrison’s binder. Cutting in Ashcroft’s Hey. All stopped by rain. 

8th – Cutting rye and setting corn up. Self binder at work but broke so idle half day.

9th – Paid Harrison £6 0s 0d for cutting barley in Rakes Hey. 

17th – Harrisons brought cattle to pasture in Ten Pound Meadow. 

19th – 2 teams ploughing in Sea Fern Hey. 

21st – 2 teams skimming Big Hey.  1 team at Liverpool.

22nd – Sent to Bristol for wire netting £2 18s 0d. 

 

 

October 

1st – Heavy rain. Thatching. Planting earlies in Middle Alikar.

3rd – Emptied water tank on pasture. Got flour from mill. 

7th – Getting potatoes in Long Hey. Stopped by heavy showers. Sent load of straw to bus company. Fencing pasture and wire netting.

10th – Very wet on ground – Dam flooded. 

13th – Sent 2 loads of Stourbridge to station. 

15th – Very wet – not fit to go on land. Carting manure to midden. Rooking tops at moss. 

21st – Thrashed rye in barn – 46 sacks. Carried all straw in barn. Mrs. Clare had load of rye straw. Winnowing oats in Big Room. Carted coal from station. Calf to Johnson £2 10s 0d.

22nd – Sent 13 sacks of oats to Lydiate mill. 

25th – Sent 2 cows to Maghull sale. 

26th – Very frosty. Horse slaughterer came for grey mare. 

27th – Getting potatoes at moss. Getting 35 (14 score) sacks ready to put on at station for Bradshaw. 

29th – Bought 10 cwt of snowdrops from Liverpool via W. H. Smith – £1 10s 0d.

31st – 15 shillings received from Hodgkinson for grey mare. Sold oats to John Forrest at 

 November 

1st – Started 6 Irish men getting Stourbridge in Mere Hey @ 1 ¼ per score. Ordered barrel of petroleum off Peak.

8th – Finished getting potatoes. Two men ditching at moss. 

17th – Sent sow to Scarisbrick. 

19th – Count and shooters dined. 

22nd – 2 teams ploughing at moss. 2 men cleaning watercourse out. Putting netting up. Sent load of meadow hay to Maguire.

23rd – Started ploughing in Kiln Meadow. Ploughing at moss. Two men at watercourse at moss. Oats to J. Harrison – £2 14s 0d. Maincrops to R. Snape £0 16s 6d. 

25th – Cleaning rhubarb. 

26th – Got sack of rye from Jacksons. Sowed rye with machine (39 wheel). Harrowed in and finished.

 

December 

3rd – Heavy rain and hailstones. Making bands and sawing wood. Two teams ploughing  in afternoon. Gardening and opening drain. 

5th – Heavy snow. Trussed and loaded a load of meadow hay for Maguire on new painted wagon.

6th – Sold cow to R. Dutton £17 15s 0d. Paid loan off £20 0s 0d. 

8th – Manuring the rhubarb – shoddy. 

21st – Carted a thousand bricks from Scarisbrick for pig styes. Finished manuring rhubarb.

24th – 2 men ditching around Kiln Meadow. One team ploughing at moss. One horse and one man on highway ½ day. Carting ashes to garden hedge. Got 5 pigs from Harrison £5 0s 0d.

If you would like to see the original diary, it is kept at Lancashire Records Office, Preston. The reference is PR/5055/4/1. You will need an ‘Archives Card’ to view anything at the Records Office but this is simply acquired via the website www.archivescard.com . c