Thomas (known as Tom and elder brother to Harry and Joe) married Mary Shillito, born 1st October 1846, at Woolley on 10th November 1869. Their children except Rose who was born at Elmsall Lodge Farm in December 1870 were born at Thornton-le-Dale between 1871 and 1885 in the following order, with dates where known; Thomas Norrison 1871 (lived only 4 months), Arthur Norrison baptised 5th December 1872, Mary Lilian (Lily) 1875, Edith Daisy 1876, Herbert Coulson 24th October 1877, Violet Ethel 21st March 1879, Olive, who died at one month on 30th September 1880, May in 1883, Katherine Elizabeth (Elsie), presumably in 1884, and Tom (who died in infancy, perhaps at birth with his mother in 1885).
In the 1881 census Tom was described as farmer and valuer, all living at that time (that is minus the boy Thomas Norrison, and Olive, who had died, and May, Elsie and Tom yet to be born), were in the house at Farmanby Farm with a 22 year old governess, Margaret Burnside, from Inverness, a 19 year old domestic and 18 year old nurse-housemaid. He farmed 365 acres and employed 5 labourers and 4 boys. Farming had boomed in the district from 1840 to 1874, then declined. The very first parish council elections were held in 1894. In a poem printed in ‘Thornton-le-Dale’ by Reginald Jeffery, published in 1931, Tom was said to have been ‘trained at Maltongate, and well backed, dead heated with the builder and came in joint third place’. After his wife`s death in 1885, but not before Abigail`s death in 1888, Violet at least went to school in Scarborough living with her grandfather, which she hated for he was so very strict. In one of TNM`s letters to Harry, written late in life, he reports that he had just listened to a sermon which sought to justify the stern upbringing of children, and he was sure that he had been correct with his own offspring! Wesley`s mother practiced this policy.
Rose married first Alexander Middlemass, second Arthur Zealey.
As a very young man Arthur Norrison went to New Zealand, worked on sheep farms and drove (steam) traction engines drawing loads of wool to Christchurch docks. One does not know if he was unhappy at home or just wanted to see the world, anyway he came back after his father`s death in 1900 and became an engineer designing and manufacturing drying machines in the textile trade in a factory by Leeds Railway station. He married Edith Tyas on 21st January 1903 in Sheffield and in 1917 they lived at The Bracken, Horsforth, Leeds but in 1924 they moved to 38, The Drive, Roundhay, Leeds, and were still there in March 1936 when he was a beneficiary from TNM`s trust after Ettie`s death.
Arthur Norrison and Edith had 4 children, Gwendolen (Gwenda), Donald, Arthur Norrison (Bill), and Michael: Gwenda married George Gleed, a Birmingham manufacturers agent, who moved to Australia soon after WW1 to set up a branch in Sydney. He died in 1989, she is known to Betty Harris, Alec`s daughter: Donald emigrated to Africa in 1928, working first in the copper mines of Ghana and later in the chrome mines in Southern Rhodesia, where he married Peggy Jackson Clarke of Gweru, Rhodesian born. They had 2 sons Kimble (married to June Hughes) tragically died leaving 2 young sons one of whom died in 1985, the other Richard, born 1937, farms tobacco and maize at Mvurwi, north of Harare, married to Sue Ainger: Arthur Norrison (Bill) graduated in civil engineering at Leeds university and spent most of his working life as a plant engineer for ICI at Billingham. Latterly he managed the Severnside plant and then the Heysham operations. He married Jean McLellan on 1st May 1937 and had 2 boys and a girl, all of whom have families. Andrew married Patricia Saltmer, Donald married Dorothy Thompson and Katharine married David Hudson. Bill died on 1st January 1991:
Michael, who first married Betty Pullan in 1936 and second Gwendolen Knaggs in 1968, worked in publicity in London before WW2, and after 6 and a half years as a wartime solder joined Vauxhall Motors at Luton, living at Harpenden since 1936. They had 2 boys Nicholas, who married Josephine Gallagher and Stephen.
My brother met Donald in Rhodesia in the early 30s but they were unable to work out any relationship. Donald died in 1985. However when Olive gave me details of how to locate the family I wrote to John and he then met Donald`s son Richard in 1988.
Mary Lilian (Lily) married George Vassey and had, according to Bill Marr`s tree, 6 children, x followed by Mary, then Richard, Gilbert, Esther who married Reg White and Joan who married Basil Ashman.
I think Daisy kept house for Bert at the Mill in Thornton-le-Dale for a time before she married George Grant in 1908 or ’09, from the Shillito house in London. They had a daughter Vera who died at 15 months, after which they sailed for Canada in 1912, a month after the sinking of the Titanic and settled in Calgary, where George set up as a Chartered Accountant. Their daughter Betty was born there on 5th October 1913. In 1919 or 20 they all returned to England living in Maidenhead and Richmond, Betty followed her mother to the North London Collegiate School. In September 1927 the Grants settled in Vancouver. Daisy died in 1939 and George in 1942. Betty, a solicitor, travelled back on a visit to England with us from New York in the Queen Mary, with Geoffrey Marr as a Senior Officer, in 1953. Betty still lives in Vancouver.
Herbert (Bert) Coulson married, on 4th June 1902, Margaret (Madge) Hudson of Beulah House, Cottingham and it was he and his father who took over the mill at Thornton-le-Dale in 1897 from Boyes. (In 1897 Tom was living at Chestnut Farm and was described as farmer, valuer and miller. He committed suicide in 1900). By 1901 the mill had changed hands again and at a later date Bert was head of Midgley and Parkinson, makers of Marstons Products (such as tinned chicken and jam) in Pudsey. Their sons were both born at Cottingham, Ronald on 14th November 1903, at Beulah House, and Jack at Breighton House on 21st September 1906. Muriel went on a cycling tour of Yorkshire with Bert, Madge and their sons and with Muriel`s friend Frances Parkin in 1917. Bert died on 21st October 1948 3 days short of 71. Madge, cheerful and brave to the end, lived on to be 97. She regularly stayed with Muriel in Cambridge. Jack worked in his father`s factory, died quite young of laryngitis. He married Mary Clough and had 2 daughters Patricia married to Robert Smith and Hilary married to William Wilson.
Ronald was a rolling stone, working in the banana trade for about 10 years in Guatemala and Jamaica, where he was shot at, but he returned unscathed to serve as an airfield controller in the RAF in WW2. He died in 1980. Ronald married Mary Bushell, a connecting link through whom I found Derek Marr, and thus the Richard family line, with Peggy Miller`s help. Mary and Ronald lived at Hutton-le-Hole in North Yorkshire where they had a hand in setting up the very successful folk museum. She has provided two Marr seats in the village in memory of Ronald. Mary died in 1989. They had 2 daughters, Maureen who married Barry Strong and Eileen, married Terence Smith.
At some time, perhaps after the death of their grandfather Thomas Norrison Marr in 1894 Violet, May and Elsie were taken into the care of Michael and Lily Shillito in London, and went to the North London Collegiate School. From their house (20 Bramshill Gardens, Dartmouth Park, London NW5) May was married to Louis Bernhardt George Stephen Beale on 5th April 1902. His father lived at Madeira Park, Tonbridge Wells. Louis was either the Consular or the Diplomatic Corps, serving in Shanghai where he was made CBE as Commercial Counsellor at the Consulate General. This was followed by service in Canada and New Zealand and by the award of the KCMG for service as British Commissioner General for our entry at the New York`s World Fair in 1939, which he supervised. They retired in USA where they were very kind to us in the 50s. May and Louis had 2 sons, Stephen died of consumption between the Wars, the other Philip, caused them much heartache; he is said to have married at 17 in the USA and had a daughter Phyllis, but it became known that the marriage was bigamous, and according to Olive they ‘sorted that out’ but also cut him out of their Wills, and he was last heard of whaling off Alaska.
Violet went to Dresden to study the piano under a professor, teaching English at a girls’ boarding school for her keep. She had won prizes at school for her piano playing. One of her students took her home to Breslau for the Christmas holiday and there she met a student of mining engineering Hugo Hermann, the girl`s brother. He came from Silesia, which had been part of the Austrian empire until Maria Theresa lost it to Frederick the Great in the Seven Years War. They married 7 years later in 1907, when he secured his first post as manager of a mine. After a short time they moved to Berlin and then to Vienna when he became General Manager of coal mines in Austria. His grandfather was a chemist in Wartenburg who married an Italian, daughter of a goldsmith named Bordello, (so he became a goldsmith too), who had been fetched by Prince Ratibor from the Italian Ticano Province. When Napoleon conquered Germany, on his way to Russia, townships were required to pay the upkeep of troops quartered there and the Senators of Ratibor asked this rich goldsmith to put up the money. He never saw it back. Each of his grand daughters received a piece of jewellery and Olive, Vi`s daughter (born 1908), still has a cornelian cross from him.
Vi and Olive were in England at the outbreak of WW1 but returned to Austria. Hugo died of Spanish Influenza in the 1918 epidemic. After his death and the post war collapse of German currency, they were very poor, but survived. When she grew up Olive gave English lessons and gradually their conditions improved. Occasionally they returned to England maintaining contact with the Marr clan. It is from Olive that all this detail has come. She most generously asked us to stay with her in Vienna in 1987. She told us of her mother`s bravery in facing the Russians when they occupied Vienna at the end of WW2. Vi died in 1970 aged 91. Olive`s second husband Paul Thomas (an Austrian National in spite of the Welsh sounding name) died in 1973. Olive`s son Peter works for Japanese firm of ski makers. Peter and Sylvia have a son Philip, now a boy at school, who is a Roman Catholic like all Thomas`s so the wheel goes full circle.
dwg – Phillip Thomas (Vi’s Gt Grandson) contacted me via this website and I am now in contact with him and his father Peter. Much of the information was provided by Philipp’s grandmother (Olive) and has been validated by Peter and the link here is to the family tree produced by son Philipp https://www.myheritage.com/site-184295662/thomas
Elsie trained as a nurse, and as an SRN at Royal Northern Hospital, met a medical registrar William (Bill) Angus. They were married at St. Marylebone on 17th February 1912. He was a qualified doctor by 1909 and in Leeds as Assistant Medical Officer of Health in July 1913. By 1979 he was MOH Leeds when he volunteered for Army service as Lt. Col. In the RAMC. He worked on sanitation and malaria control in Egypt. He died on 23rd August 1919 suddenly while on holiday near Aberdeen, allegedly from a germ picked up in Tutankamen Tomb! However, as the Tomb was not opened until 3 years after his death, this cause is somewhat unlikely. Elsie died in 1974. Their children are Margaret Shillito (Peggy) (born 1912, died 1st November 1990) who married Canon Jack Richardson in 1945, and Katherine Mary (Bunty), born 1915, married to Paul Poad, in 1942.
Donald, Bill and Michael all have sons so the Marr surname survives in this line.
