Eric Leaver ponders the significance of a name which appears again and again?

ANY Anyons out there? And can you help Darwen reader Barbara Nightingale crack the peculiar puzzle she came across while tracing her family tree?

Why, like some of her Duxbury and Entwistle ancestors hereabouts, was there a clutch of fellows whose Christian name was Anyon and why, she also wonders, were so many of them involved in hewing coal or stone?

And, most curious of all, why, in 1871, when only the first eight houses of a row of terraced houses in Darwen had been built, were four of them occupied by just such Anyons - and why was its name . . . Anyon Street?

Struck by the strangeness of the name when she came across instances of it among her own roots, Mrs Nightingale - ne Duxbury - looked up the census returns between 1841 and 1891 to see it if occurred with other surnames and found several Anyons named Galloway, Smith, Walsh, Bury, Lightbown and Webster.

"The Smiths and the Walshes I find particularly interesting as they were born in Eccleshill, the Anyon Walshes being stone masons," she says .

She also asks whether the name of any significance in Eccleshill's history.

Certainly, it seems to have been so in the history of Anyon Street, Darwen, less than a mile away.

For, 128 years ago, living there at No1 with his wife Margaret, and nine-year-old son Anyon, was stone mason Thomas Walsh, aged 33, while his father, 53-year-old Anyon Walsh, also a stone mason, lived at No 9 with his wife Jane, son Anyon, a coal miner, aged 23, and five other children. At No 11, with his wife Ellen and their three daughters, lived another coal miner - 35-year-old Anyon Smith and No 3 was the home of stone mason Anyon Walsh, aged 25, his wife Elizabeth, and their three children who were were later joined by a brother named Anyon.

"Were any of these Anyons involved in building the houses in Anyon Street and how did the street comes to be so named?" Mrs Nightingale wonders.

Her searches for clues and still more Anyons have been confined to Darwen so far but even more turned up in the 1891 census returns - the most recent available for public inspection.

In that year, 53-year-old stone quarryman Anyon Smith, his wife Ellen and daughters Jane, Susannah and Sarah lived at 107 Sudell Road and apparently the same Anyon Walsh, though now retired, was still at 9 Anyon Street together with his wife Jane, daughters Betty and Esther and grandchildren Sarah and Richard and Anyon Walsh, still a stone mason, still occupied No 3 with his wife, daughter Betty and sons John and Anyon.

At 19 Marsh House Lane lived retired quarryman, 53-year-old William Bury with his wife, Rachel, and their seven children who, ranging from the eldest, their son Anyon, 23, to the youngest Emma, just 10, were all cotton weavers. Up the road, at No 64, were William N Webster, a 25-year-old cloth-looker, his wife Ann and son Anyon, aged three.

And 40 Holden Fold was the house of farmer Anyon Walsh, aged 43, his wife Sarah and 13-year-old son Thomas.

These are possibly rich seams for Mrs Nightingale to follow on her intriguing genealogical trail and for answers to the questions her quest has thrown up.

"Are there any descendants of the these families who also had the name Anyon?" she asks.

"I would be very interested to hear from them, especially if they can shed any light on the Eccleshill connection, or know if there is any connection with Anyon Street."

And having only covered Darwen so far, she would like to hear of other Anyons elsewhere.

Drop her a line at 58 Earnsdale Road, Darwen BB3 1HS.

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