This day will always be a sweet and tender memory for me.
When we decided to go to England, I knew I wanted to have my family history be a part of it. Mark has some English ancestry, but it is very distant, so he wasn’t as interested in that for England. But I have two family lines that come from England and they are from the same area, which is amazing. So, this day was all about family and connections and it was very special. I am so grateful for Mark, who was so supportive of this day for me.
Planning this day proved to be complicated. It was a Saturday in England, that means that ALL car rental places close by 1 PM and they do not have the option of just dropping the car off. So, this meant that we needed to somehow get from the Cotswolds, up to Preston, then the Manchester area, and somehow end up in York.
Preston England Temple
This is how we made it work.
We left lovely Chipping Campden at 6:00 AM. We drove through the quiet countryside one last time and loved it. And Mark was a professional English driver by now. It was just under three hours to get from Chipping Campden to Preston. When we were planning our trip, we knew we wanted to make time in the temple, and it was an obvious choice to do Preston. That is the area where my family was from and where they first heard the gospel.
The Preston England Temple is so beautiful and is part of a large complex in northern England. There is a stake center, MTC, family history center, distribution center, patron housing, and temple missionary accommodations. And, not surprisingly, the whole thing is beautiful.
A little history about the Church in England. Missionary work began in 1837 when Elder Heber C. Kimball and six others arrived in Liverpool and traveled to Preston. They went to Preston to pursue a contact with a family of Joseph Fielding. The first converts were baptized in Preston and on August 6, 1837, the Preston Ward was created, and it is the longest continuously functioning unit of the Church in the entire world.
The Preston Temple is the 52nd temple and was dedicated on June 10, 1998, by President Gordon B. Hinckley. It currently serves 16 stakes in Northern England, 5 stakes in Scotland, 1 stake in Ireland, and 1 stake in Northern Ireland. My Grandma Moldenhauer would have loved this temple – there were gold accents EVERYWHERE!
We made a reservation to do sealings – it just made sense to do them with the family connection. It was a sacred and powerful experience. I really took a deep dive into these two family lines as we prepared for this trip (more on their stories later) and it was so sweet to bind more of my family together, in a place that mattered so deeply to them.
We had a trio of sealers and they were so sweet. One was from Scotland, one from Ireland, and one from England. We loved how they pronounced our name. They kept asking how we would say it and we assured them that how they said it was much more beautiful. After we were done with our sealings, we were able to spend some time in the celestial room, and I will always be grateful for that time.
Benjamin Clegg
I will try and be brief, but I would like to share some of what I have learned about my family ties in England. We will start with my father’s side, the Clegg line. Benjamin Clegg was born on September 1, 1826, in Oldham, Lancashire, England. He was the second child and oldest son of Joseph Clegg and Mary Ogden. He had one older sister, three younger sisters, and then the youngest was a brother. His mother died when he was only eight years old and Benjamin was then bound out by his father to learn the shoe and clog trade.
When Benjamin was 21 years old, missionaries came to his hometown, and he was converted to the gospel. His family did all they could to persuade him otherwise, but he decided he wanted to join the Saints in America. His sisters traveled all the way to Liverpool pleading with him to stay and change his mind. But Benjamin left for America on September 24, 1848, and that was the last time he ever saw any member of his family.
His boat eventually made it to New Orleans and then he worked his way up to St. Louis. He stayed there for a year before he was hired to drive an ox team across the plains. He had some trouble with his ear on the plains and ended up losing most of his hearing. While he was traveling, another family from England was in his company. Very early on their trek west, the husband passed away from cholera. Benjamin showed compassion to this young family and even boarded with them when they arrived in Salt Lake in October of 1849, and he made shoes there. The father later came to Benjamin in a vision (twice actually) asking him to take care of his family. Benjamin later married the woman and became a father to the children. She was the perfect companion for Benjamin in several ways, one of which was that she knew how to farm, something Benjamin did not.
Benjamin and his family were called to settle in the Tooele area and were one of the very first settlers there. There are many tales of his life there. But Benjamin was known as a clean, straightforward man with wonderful intuition and foresight. It is written that he had a kind and lovable nature, together with the highest integrity and honesty. And was firm and faithful to the gospel. He died on January 15, 1907, at the age of 80 in Tooele, Utah.
Thomas Winward and his son, Peter
The other family line goes through my mother, through the Cloward line. Thomas Winward was born in 1805 in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England to William Winward and Margaret Green. He married Elizabeth Silcock (known as Betty) on March 2, 1829. Thomas and Betty had six children: William, Peter, Ann, Thomas, Margaret, and Elizabeth.
Not much is known about Thomas’ early life, but we know he was a cotton dresser. The cotton industry was huge in the Lancashire area. A cotton dresser was skilled work, and it was a person who “dressed” the yarn or fabric for weaving. They would apply starch or sizing to warp threads to strengthen them for the loom. They operated machines that applied the stiffening agent to warm threads.
Thomas lived in Preston at the time when the gospel was first preached in the area. He was baptized in 1841, but his wife Betty could not accept the teachings. When Thomas expressed a desire to join the Saints in America, Betty refused to go. But Thomas felt he must go on.
On February 5, 1842, Thomas took his two oldest sons, William (who was almost 12) and Peter (age 9) and left Liverpool on a ship to America with a group of Saints. The boys were very sick on the journey over, but they eventually made it to New Orleans and reached Nauvoo in April.
Thomas purchased a small lot in Nauvoo and began working on the temple. When he wasn’t working at the temple, he worked in their small home. Shortly after arriving, he developed what they called “black canker” or what we now know as diphtheria. William had also been sick for many weeks. One day, the two boys were playing close by their father, who was sitting on a chair sick with fever, when they discovered that he had passed away. He passed just six months after they arrived in Nauvoo. Thomas had never given up hope that his family would join them. An inventory of his estate showed that his belongings were humble and meager, but he did have a flute in a green case.
The Bishop, Jonathan Hale, took the boys in for a time and Thomas was buried in the Nauvoo Cemetery. Before Thomas had died, he had asked a friend, Charles Shumway, to promise that if anything happened to him, that he would make sure the boys were not sent back to England. This was a difficult promise to keep because the boys were so young and Betty (learning of the passing of her husband) had sent money for their return. It was ultimately decided to let the boys decide for themselves, and they chose to stay.
Life for Peter and William was a difficult one after the passing of their father. They were separated and sometimes treated cruelly by those whom they were entrusted with. Peter learned the blacksmith trade and made it to Utah. He settled in Payson and at a dance saw a girl he had dreamed about before – Lucinda Bingham. She was a young woman from Canada, and he always called her his “dream girl.” Her life had also been difficult, and her and one sister were all that survived of her family from their time in Nauvoo.
Peter later volunteered to go meet the handcart company stranded in Wyoming. In 1884, at the age of 52, he went back to England for the first time to serve a mission for the Church. His mother had passed away twenty years before, but he went to the family home and found his sister, Ann, and her family living there. Ann refused to let Peter into the home. But Peter learned that Ann’s husband was interested and met him at his work to talk. Later, he convinced Peter to come home with him. Ann saw them coming and, in her anger, she grasped his treasured Bible and threw it into the fire. As the book began to burn, the pages opened to a passage that her husband had been reading. When Peter and his brother-in-law removed it from the ashes, James 1:5 was visible. This was a testimony to both Ann and her husband and it opened the door for discussion.
Peter later died on May 3, 1909 at the age of 77. It is written that his life was spent in loyalty and service to his home and his Church and he had a staunch testimony of the gospel and always bore testimony that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.
The Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Because we had to get the car back by 1, it gave us less than 2 hours to do any family history spots. I knew that only gave me one spot per family. It was a blessing that both families were part of the Manchester area. My mother’s side lived on the northwest side and my father’s side lived on the northeast side of Manchester.
Our first stop was to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Bolton. This was the church where Thomas and Betty were married back in 1829. I was disappointed because the gates to the grounds were closed. But I was able to spend a few minutes there thinking and pondering. I wondered if Betty ever came here after Thomas left. I wondered what the quiet thoughts of her heart were.
Low Crompton Road
Our next stop was to Oldham, more specifically, Royton (is what this part of the area is called now). From census records, I was able to find what road the family lived on when Benjamin left. It is the sweetest little road. The town has grown and is quite busy, but we walked up this road and were able to find this much smaller road. It is a single lane road and is quiet up there. I loved the tall hedges on both sides. And I thought of the walks up and down that road, from various members of the family. When Benjamin thought about leaving. When the sisters had to return home without their brother and tell their father.
My heart has been really tender the last couple of months as I have thought about these two families. On the one hand, I so greatly admire Thomas and Benjamin for the choice that they made. Their faith is inspiring. They truly lived the scripture in Matthew 10:36-39: “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
These men gave up their entire world for the gospel.
But they also left behind families, and my heart is tender about that. For those left behind, the gospel tore their families apart. I feel for Betty and can’t imagine the sorrow and anxiety of her heart knowing her boys were a world away, especially after Thomas died. And Benjamin’s father lost his oldest son. Which would have been a huge blow financially as well as being a companion for him. Life is hard and messy. And it always has been.
My prayer leading up to this day, while in the temple, and at these places of history for me, was that I hope healing has happened. I hope understanding and forgiveness has come for all of them. And I am grateful for the little time I had to walk in their footsteps for a moment.
Train Ride
We dropped the car (on time!) and were left to find our way to the train station. Everywhere else we went on our trip was full of tourists, not so in Oldham. As we walked to the train station dragging our luggage, we stopped at a Greggs, which are all over England (think gas station food without the gas station), and ate at a small table inside. There was this sweet young man who was working there. We stood out quite a bit with our luggage. And he came over and asked if we were on “holiday”. I told him we were and he asked why we were in Oldham (valid question). I told him that my family came from the area and I wanted to visit some places where they lived. I think he thought I was crazy, but he was so sweet about it. Maybe we are long lost cousins 😉
Once we got to the train station, we learned that we had made a mistake. It turned out that the tickets we had bought were far from convenient. They involved us transferring to several different buses and trains and was going to be a nightmare. We decided to eat out tickets and buy direct tickets instead. It was a bummer, but it also happens. Live and learn.
York
By the time we got to York we were feeling pretty tired from our early start. But we dropped off our luggage in our hotel and walked into York for dinner. York was a madhouse. I don’t know if it was just because it was a Saturday night, but the streets were just filled with parties and people. We were so glad we had made a reservation for dinner!
Oddly, one of the top recommendations for restaurants in York was a Mexican restaurant named Batanga. It was a fun change from the food we had been eating but Mark and I felt like we were ancient, having to practically yell at one another to talk – it was so loud! It was a welcome relief to get back to our room and have a good night’s sleep!
