Stories from the Graveyard - The Brindle Family

10 Feb 2026

When we walk through the graveyard at Park Lane, it is easy to see names as fixed points in stone. But behind each name lies a working life, a family network, and a neighbourhood shaped by industry, faith, and continuity. The Brindle family offer a particularly rich example of how closely life, labour, and worship were once woven together here.

Our story begins with Nathaniel Brindle, born around 1755 in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire. He is the earliest Brindle known to be buried in the Park Lane graveyard, marking the family’s long-standing connection to this place.
Nathanial married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Lythgoe at St Oswald’s Church, Winwick, on 13 April 1779. Mary died in 1799, and in 1803, Nathaniel remarried, this time to Ellen Highton, at St Thomas’s Church, Upholland.

Nathaniel was buried at Park Lane on 10 September 1814. His burial record was signed by Rev. Thomas Smith, the eighth minister at Park Lane, and the service was conducted by Rev. William Tullideph Proctor, Minister of Atherton Street Unitarian Church in Prescot (which incidentally is where our current pulpit came from when the Unitarian Chapel in Prescot closed)

Photo 1 Burial Record from Park Lane Archives

Photo 2. Record of the Provincial Assembly of Lancashire and Cheshire. From Unitarian.org.uk

Photo 3 Family Grave of Nathaniel, 2nd Wife Ellen and their Son John

Though we do not know Nathanial’s occupation, his descendants tell us much about the world he inhabited. From Nathaniel, we follow the line through his son James Brindle, born on 23 February 1786. James married Ann “Nancy” Rimmer on 29 March 1807, and together they raised a large family of eight children:

•    Nathaniel (1807–1865)
•    Mary Baker née Brindle (1809–1878)
•    James (1811–1889)
•    Thomas (1814–1889)
•    John (1816–1876)
•    Ellen Prescott née Brindle (1824–1888)
•    Henry (1827–1913)
•    Lucy Lowe née Brindle (1831–1890)

By the time of the 1841 census, James and his family were living on Park Lane, and their working lives were firmly embedded in the hinge, latch, and door furniture trade. James and his sons are recorded as hinge makers and thumb latch makers, with the youngest boys already working alongside their father. This was skilled, physical labour, requiring strength, precision, and long hours at the forge or bench. Hinges, brackets, and door furniture were essential items in an expanding industrial and domestic landscape, and families like the Brindles supplied them in large numbers.

Photo 3 Wrought Iron Thumb Latches ca.1800

Ten years later, in the 1851 census, the family were still at the same Park Lane address. The men remained in the same trade, though the descriptions had shifted slightly: James and his eldest son Nathanial were now described as door handle makers, while Henry continued as a hinge maker. These small changes reflect the gradual specialisation within the trade rather than a break from it.

By 1861, James was 77 years old and still living on Park Lane, surrounded by family. His son, John Brindle, lived next door with his wife, Sarah Ann Brindle (née Talbot), and their eight children. Also next door to them lived Alice Blinston, widow of Peter Blinston, who was a lineal descendant of Rev. Thomas Blinston, the first minister of Park Lane Chapel. The proximity of these families reminds us that Park Lane was not just a place of worship or burial, but a close-knit community.

From James’s children, we now turn to Henry Brindle, born on 25 October 1827 and baptised at Park Lane Chapel on 20 January 1828. His baptism records his father James as a smith, a reminder that hinge making and door furniture production were rooted in blacksmithing skills. Henry married Ann Adamson in 1855, and they had five children:

•    Alice Ascroft née Brindle (1855–1932)
•    Mary Cunliffe née Brindle (1856–1914)
•    Ellen Brindle (born 1861)
•    Henry (1863–1945)
•    Harriet Burns née Brindle (1870–1925)

By 1881, Henry’s working life marked a clear shift. Living at 113 Wigan Road, he was now employed as a storekeeper at a colliery. His son Henry junior, aged 17, was already working as a coal mine labourer, almost certainly at the same pit. The Brindle family, like many others, had moved from metalworking into the expanding coal industry as industrial Lancashire changed around them.

In the 1911 census, Henry senior, aged 83, was living with his daughter Harriet and her husband Edward Burns, along with their eight children. Once again, we see the familiar pattern of large families, shared households, and mutual support across generations.

The final Brindle we follow is Henry Brindle junior, born on 7 October 1863. He married Mary Tickle at Holy Trinity Church, Bryn, on 31 August 1886. Like his father, Henry worked as a miner for Garswood Coal and Iron Company. The family lived at 499 Wigan Road, Bryn, an area that earlier generations would have known simply as Park Lane.

Henry and Mary had eleven children. Among them was William Brindle, born in 1890, who followed his father into mining. William remained at home until 1922, when he moved to Haslingden after marrying Phyllis Wood. William died in 1941, leaving two sons, Henry and William.

By the time of the 1939 Register, William junior was living at Critchley Farm, Haslingden, working as a farm labourer with his future father-in-law William Mercer. He married Rhoda Evelyn Mercer in Darwen in 1945, and they had two children, Alan and Stella.

And here the story takes a gentle detour into the present.

While researching this family, a DNA match revealed a connection between one of Nathaniel Brindle’s descendants and my own extended family. It is not the detail of that link that matters most, but what it illustrates: that the people whose names we read on gravestones are not sealed in the past. Their lives ripple forward, intersecting with others in ways we may never fully see.

The Brindles remind us that communities are built slowly, through work, family, faith, and shared ground. And that even centuries later, we are often far more connected to one another than we imagine.

As the saying goes, it really is a small and curious world.

Rev. Robert Dennis Foreman, Minister of Park Lane Chapel and Cousin of some of Nathaniel Brindle’s 5th Great Grandchildren