I wonder if any readers of your excellent paper can help me with a query.

I have learnt that four distant cousins of mine lived, and died, in Preston, and I don't know anything about them.

They were Thomas Locks, who was a cotton spinner and died at Friargate in 1857 aged 58.

His son George was an overlooker of cotton spinners married to Ann. They lived at 36 Aqueduct Street and later at 67 Fylde Road, Preston, and had two children, Mary Ann and Thomas.

Mary Ann got pneumonia at nine months and died, and Thomas died at two after getting croup.

It's a sad little picture. I'd like so much to know more about the family.

Can any of you readers suggest where the father and son, Thomas and George, would have worked, and anything about their lives and conditions?

And what was Friargate?

And what was Aqueduct Street like in the middle of the1800s?

I'm dying to learn anything that your readers can tell me.

Geoffrey Lock, 12, Clare Lodge, Sea Lane, Rustington, West Sussex, BN16 2RF