Jane Hodgson, the sixth of the ten children born in Manchester to John Hodgson, blacksmith & engineer, & Betsy Furnish, was doubtless named after her paternal grandmother, Jane Irving.
By the time Jane was five her family had moved to Furness St, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, where she was to live until her marriage. As a 21-year-old servant, Jane married John Edwin Collier, a leather seller three years her senior in the Scotch Presbyterian church of All Saints in Grosvenor Sq, Chorlton-on-Medlock. It was the spring of 1857.
John Edwin was also born in Manchester, the son of Joseph Collier, a hatter.
John Edwin & Jane set up house in Hulme, a neighbouring suburb where John Edwin had lived before their marriage. They had at least seven children over the next eighteen years: Emily, John Edwin, Frederick, Joseph (my great grandfather), Herbert, Alfred & Marion.
A year or two before Joseph’s birth in 1867, the family moved to Stretford. In the early 1870’s the were to move again to Salford where, at 150 Regent Rd, they lived and ran a leather shop for many years.
After Jane was widowed in 1878, her sons John Edwin and Frederick, along with the staff they employed, ran the leather business as JE & F Collier. It’s possible that Frederick would have done the book-keeping at this stage, as in his younger life he worked as a merchant clerk.
In 1880 sister Emily married Frederick Duxbury Buckley, a commercial clerk. Nothing can be found of them or their daughter Edith after 1882. Perhaps they emigrated?
John Edwin married Ann Cookson, the daughter of a cattle dealer who lived three houses away on Regent Rd.
Two years later in 1890, Joseph, by then a clerk like brother Frederick and brother-in-law Frederick Buckley had been before him, married Eliza Hull, daughter of floor cloth maker John Hull (see The Floor Cloth Maker) in St Bartholomew’s Church, Salford. The newly weds lived with Joseph’s brother John Edwin & wife Ann at 55 Robert Rd, Barton on Irwell, two miles to the east of Salford.
Whilst the business was to continue in the busy commercial area of Regent Rd until at least the 1920’s, sometime during the 1890’s Jane moved to “Holly Bank” 536 Eccles New Rd, in nearby Pendleton with her remaining family: sons Frederick and Alfred, both now schoolteachers, and daughter Marion.
With her children all grown, Jane would no doubt have thought her long years of mothering were at an end. But it was not to be. With two young children – Amy (my grandmother) aged two, and nine-month-old Hilda, Joseph’s wife Eliza died suddenly of appendicitis in 1894. Amy (known as Berta) and Hilda moved in with Jane – their beloved “Grandma Collier” who would be their caregiver until they were out of infancy.
Joseph had remarried sometime before 1901, to Mary Ellen Munro from Aberdeen. By this time he had become an insurance manager, and, after living apart for most of their childhood, Joseph was ready to have the girls back living with him in nearly Hope Villa, Wilton Rd. It’s not known whether Jane was consulted about the move, but the girls were thrilled to have a new mother, and when the time came for them to be collected, they just couldn’t understand why Grandma Collier was in tears. “Why are you crying, Grandma?” Berta asked. “You’ll understand when you are a big girl.” is all Jane replied as she waved them goodbye.
Links to Jane Hodgson's family:
John Hodgson - Jane's father
Berta Collier - Jane's granddaughter
Smith family tree