< More Monumental Inscriptions
Toxteth Park Cemetery
Jump down to Manchester General Cemetery
The photograph below appears by kind permission of the Toxteth Park Cemetery website, an excellent resource for Toxteth Park (and now also Anfield) cemetery photos and transcriptions.
The monumental inscription above reads:
IN
Memory Of
MARY,
WIFE OF JOHN ATCHERLEY,
WHO DIED 2ND APRIL 1870, AGED 65 YEARS.
ALSO OF THE ABOVE
JOHN ATCHERLEY, M.D.
WHO DIED 24TH APRIL 1890, AGED 80 YEARS.
ALSO OF ELEANOR VICKERS,
DAUGHTER OF THE ABOVE
WHO DIED 26TH SEPTEMBER 1907,
AGED 72 YEARS.
ALSO OF WILLIAM MORRIS,
BROTHER OF THE ABOVE MARY ATCHERLEY,
WHO DIED 10TH JULY 1876,
AGED 69 YEARS.
Dr John Atcherley was baptised at Bridgnorth in Shropshire on 12 Jan 1810. By the 1830s he was a chemist and druggist in Liverpool, Lancashire, working in partnership with Richard Bird. As Bird and Atcherley they opened an establishment in the city in 1833, offering the public “VAPOUR and MEDICATED BATHS, HOT and COLD PLUNGE BATHS, with SHOWER BATHS, regulated to any temperature.” The 1834 Pigot’s directory covering Liverpool showed Bird and Atcherley as “Chymists & druggists” at Great George Place. Their partnership was dissolved at the end of 1836, but John and his family continued to live at Great George Place for some time, as they were recorded there on the censuses of 1841 and 1851.
John and his wife Mary (Morris, baptised 14 Mar 1803 at Bridgnorth and married there on 3 Jan 1833) spent the rest of their lives in Liverpool, where John continued to work as a physician and surgeon. He was described as a Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow when he was admitted an ad eundem member of (in other words, given a courtesy degree by) the Royal College of Surgeons in London on 10 Jan 1856, and he acted as Consulting Surgeon for the Liverpool South Dispensary for many years. The Atcherleys moved to 22 St James Road before the 1861 census, and after that to 32 Windsor Street in Toxteth Park.
John and Mary’s daughter Eleanor Vickers Atcherley lived her whole life in Liverpool and died there unmarried. John and Mary also had a son, named John Atcherley after his father, who was baptised at Liverpool St Peter’s on 9 Aug 1938. Sadly, John junior died aged just 7 months; he was buried on 4 Feb 1839 at Liverpool St Michael’s.
Manchester General Cemetery
My thanks to Barbara Lang for providing the photo below (which I have digitally enhanced) and for allowing me to reproduce material from her collection.
John Atcherley was (along with his brother Richard) born at Weston Lullingfields and baptised on 3 September 1813 at the parish church in Baschurch, Shropshire. He married Sarah Barkley on 29 December 1849 at Horton Lane Chapel in Bradford, Yorkshire.
John spent his life working as a linen draper and silk mercer in Manchester. You can read more about the company he worked for, and then jointly managed, in my two-part story Oliver and Atcherley: The men, the firm and its history.
Sarah Barkley, daughter of Robert Barkley and his wife Sarah (née Hollis), was baptised at Ellesmere in Shropshire on 11 July 1824. She worked as an apprentice dressmaker before marrying John Atcherley. After her husband’s death, Sarah Atcherley went to live in Leamington, Warwickshire, where she remained until her own passing in 1899.
The inscription on John and Sarah’s memorial (transcription supplied by Barbara Lang) reads:
In
Loving Memory
of
JOHN ATCHERLEY,
OF THIS CITY,
BORN SEPTR. 3RD 1813,
DIED AUG. 16TH 1880.
Also SARAH ATCHERLEY,
WIFE OF JOHN ATCHERLEY,
WHO ENTERED INTO REST MARCH 24TH, 1899,
IN HER 76TH YEAR.
Thanks to Find A Grave contributor Robert Dobbie, I can now add photos of the Atcherley memorial as it looks today.
Sadly, it has not fared well – as you can see from Robert’s photo (right) the cross has broken off the base and now lies on the ground in two parts.
The inscriptions however are in good shape, and there are more of them than we realised! You may just be able to make out the surname Patterson in this photo – Jessie Patterson was a granddaughter of John and Sarah Atcherley through their daughter Lucy, who married William Patterson. The Pattersons later migrated to Canada. Below is a close up view of Jessie’s MI, again by kind permission of Robert Dobbie.
The inscription reads:
JESSIE PATTERSON
THEIR GRAND-CHILD,
BORN APRIL 4TH 1876,
DIED APRIL 16TH 1876.
The short lives of two of John and Sarah Atcherley’s own children are also commemorated on this memorial. Once more I thank Robert Dobbie for this image:
The above inscriptions read:
ALSO CLARA,
DAUGHTER OF JOHN & SARAH ATCHERLEY,
BORN MARCH 31ST 1857,
DIED OCTR 20TH 1858.
AND BARKLEY, THEIR SON,
BORN SEPTR 16TH 1854, DIED JUNE 29TH 1869.
Clara died aged just 18 months, from “Convulsion from teething (3 days)” according the her entry in the register of deaths (see the copy on my Flickr photostream). Barkley lived to be 14 years old, attending Huddersfield College (where he appears to have done well at French and Scripture) and Hipperholme Grammar School (where, amongst other things, he played cricket) before his untimely death.
