Dean.

The Industrial Revolution, from England to America.

John Dean and Herbert Dean, circa 1880.

Family Names.

The Dean name is associated with Lancashire as in The Parish of Deane, located to the northwest but close to the towns of Cadishead and Barton-upon-Irwell where the Dean family resided prior to immigrating to the United States. The Parish of Deane, originally the northern half of the parish of Eccles, takes its name from the dean or narrow wooded valley, on the edge of which the church stands.
The Sharples name is also closely tied with this geographic area. Mary Sharples, who married Joseph Dean, was from a local family whose name had historic significance. It had various spellings: Charples, Sharples and Scharples. The large township of Sharples, stretching from Bolton in a northwesterly direction for over 6 miles, has an area of nearly 4,000 acres, and is divided into an upper and lower portion. The township contained some cotton mills, a large dye works, a print works, and a paper works.

Parishes of Eccles and Flixton.gif — Places.

The town names of Cadishead, Barton, Irwell, Eccles, Patricroft, Flixton and others surface as we trace the history of the Dean family in this area of England. Today the area is part of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. The town of Cadishead is the most southwesterly settlement in the borough. Cadishead is situated between Irlam and Hollins Green/Rixton. The Irlam and Cadishead area, the most westerly part of the new Salford, was comparatively remote and an underdeveloped area of moss land until the early 19th century.
Back in 1212, the first record showed that the whole of Cadishead (then called 'Cadwalensate') was rented from King John by one Gilbert Notton for the sum of four shillings a year, a sum equivalent to about £650 today. At the same period of the 13th century, neighboring 'Irrewilham' was in the possession of the de Irlam family. Two centuries later the de Irlams lived at Irlam Hall but by 1688 this seat had become the property of Thomas Latham who played a major part in bringing William of Orange to the throne of England.

It was not until 1805 that work began on reclamation of the swampy land in this area and immense problems were encountered during the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Even today, parts of this area, despite heavy industrialization, are still surprisingly remote. Much of the moss land is, however, extensively cultivated and supplies produce to the markets of Manchester and Liverpool.

The Dean family begin its migration from Barton-upon-Irwell, England to the United States in 1881. Today Barton-upon-Irwell, located about five miles west of Manchester, is part of Greater Manchester.

Writing in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, John Marius Wilson described Barton-upon-Irwell during the period of 1870-72 as follows:

The village stands on the river Irwell, adjacent to the Manchester and Liverpool railway, in the vicinity of Patricroft station, 5 miles west of Manchester. It has a post office, of the name of Barton, under Manchester; and it finds employment for many of its inhabitants in a silk-mill and three spinning-mills at Patricroft. An aqueduct here, across the Irwell, with three arches, in the line of the Bridgewater canal, was the earliest structure of its kind in England. The chapelry includes the village, and was constituted in 1843. Population in 1851 was 3,204. There are a fine Roman Catholic chapel of 1868, two Methodist chapels, and two public schools. The township includes two hamlets, and is in the parish of Eccles. The subdistrict bears the name of Barton. The district comprehends also the subdistrict of Worsley, containing the townships of Worsley and Clifton in the parish of Eccles; and the subdistrict of Stretford, containing the township of Stretford in the parish of Manchester, and the townships of Flixton and Urmstone in the parish of Flixton. Population in 1861 was 39,038.

Eccles_Parish_Church_of_St_Mary_The_Virgin_-_geograph.org.uk_-_406644.jpg — Eccles Parish Church.

The Parish of St. Mary the Virgin, Eccles, where Joseph Dean and Alice Royle wed, has stood on the same site for at least 800 years and is therefore the oldest church in the City of Salford. The name Eccles is derived from the Primitive Welsh word itself borrowed from the Latin “Ecclesia” and meaning 'a church'. Primitive Welsh is the form of the Celtic language which the Anglo-Saxons met when they first settled in the area and this would suggest that there was a church in this area even before the Saxons arrived.

Textile Mills.

Like many children of his age in this region of England in 1881, Herbert Dean was no longer a student at 14 but a laborer. According to the British Census of 1881, his occupation was listed as Fustian Cutter. He likely was employed in one of the many textile mills which dotted the area. In the late 19th century, after the Industrial Revolution, Manchester had become a leading producer of cloth. Prior to then, Manchester had been an obscure backwater. The Industrial Revolution changed that, putting Manchester on the map. Manchester's population had exploded from 40,000 in 1788 to more than 300,000 in 1850. It received city status in 1853. Extremes of wealth and poverty lay close together. This social and economic revolution drew international attention, attracting praise and disgust in equal measure. It inspired Friedrich Engels, who arrived to work at his father's Salford cotton mill, to write The Condition of the Working Class in England.

Urban growth fostered both civic pride and radicalism. Manchester people played a central role in struggles for the right to vote, free trade and improved living conditions. It was the scene of the Peterloo Massacre (1819), the first Trades Union Congress (1868) and the formation of the Woman's Social and Political Union (1903).

An extract from Friedrich Engels’s book The Condition of the Working-Class in England

provides a graphic picture of this area of Manchester in 1844:

Here the streets, even the better ones, are narrow and winding, as Todd Street, Long Millgate, Withy Grove, and Shude Hill, the houses dirty, old, and tumble-down, and the construction of the side streets utterly horrible. Going from the Old Church to Long Millgate, the stroller has at once a row of old-fashioned houses at the right, of which not one has kept its original level; these are remnants of the old pre-manufacturing Manchester, whose former inhabitants have removed with their descendants into better built districts, and have left the houses, which were not good enough for them, to a population strongly mixed with Irish blood. Here one is in an almost undisguised working-men's quarter, for even the shops and beer houses hardly take the trouble to exhibit a trifling degree of cleanliness. But all this is nothing in comparison with the courts and lanes which lie behind, to which access can be gained only through covered passages, in which no two human beings can pass at the same time. Of the irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan, of the tangle in which they are crowded literally one upon the other, it is impossible to convey an idea. And it is not the buildings surviving from the old times of Manchester which are to blame for this; the confusion has only recently reached its height when every scrap of space left by the old way of building has been filled up and patched over until not a foot of land is left to be further occupied.

Working conditions in the mills of Manchester were harsh. The working day was 13 to 14 hours long. Mechanization had shifted cotton spinning from a craft to an industrial process, but it came at a cost. The noise from machinery was deafening. Many workers became skilled lip readers in order to communicate over the noise. With no ear protection, many workers became deaf. The air in the cotton mills had to be kept hot and humid (65 to 80 degrees) to prevent the thread from breaking. Workers suffered from many illnesses.

The air in the mill was thick with cotton dust, which could lead to byssinosis - a lung disease. Eye inflammation, deafness, tuberculosis, cancer of the mouth and of the groin (mule-spinners cancer) could also be attributed to the working conditions in the mills. Long hours, difficult working conditions and moving machinery proved a dangerous combination. Accidents were common and could range from the loss of a finger to fatality.

Back in England at the age of 14, Herbert Dean was employed as a fustian cutter in the mills, as was his older sister Sarah. The term fustian refers to a type of woven cloth which had extra wefts sewn in as it is made. The fustian cutter’s job was to take a long sharp knife-like instrument and walk the length of the cloth, cutting the extra wefts so that they formed a pile. Velveteen and corduroy were both made this way.

The roles of cloth from which the fustian was cut was usually 18 inches wide and pulled tight over rollers and could stretch up to 150 yards long. The workers would then walk the length of the cloth with their sharp, pointed cutting tool and cut open the wefts as they went. This would be similar to opening a letter with a knife. This sounds simple, however, the best quality fustian, like velveteen would need 40 cuts per inch. This means that a worker would have to walk 72 miles in order to cut a pair of cloths, each one 145 yards long. If they made a mistake during the cut, they would be penalized.

Cotton and the Industrial Revolution.

The decision of the Dean family to emigrate from England to the United States was likely influenced by both what was happening in England at the time and the opportunities available to them in the new textile mills of New England in the United States. Members of the Dean family were skilled factory laborers who could apply their trade in cities such as Holyoke, Massachusetts where there was high demand for laborers in the newly opened mills. The political uncertainty in Egypt, which was the primary source of cotton in British factories, was at its peak in 1881, the year Joseph Dean left England for America.

During the Industrial Revolution, cotton had become a major import into Great Britain. Nearly 77% of cotton imports between 1815 and 1859 came from America. During the antebellum period, Great Britain began to see hostilities occurring between the American states. As the threat of hostilities increased, Britain looked elsewhere to fulfill its raw cotton needs. India, Brazil, Turkey, and Egypt emerged as alternative sources for cotton. As early as 1822, England began to import cotton from Egypt, which would eventually become a very important cotton trading partner for Great Britain.

The American Civil War benefited Egypt enormously. Cotton ginning factories began to be built in order to handle the increase in cotton production. British

manufacturers, by selling goods made from Egyptian cotton, advertised the great quality of the cotton. The instability in the cotton trade came about due to the fast-growing debt of the Egyptian government and the growing belief that they would not be able to repay the debt. There came a point when investors began to worry about the security of their investments. Most of the borrowed debt accumulated through London and Paris counting houses, creating panic among many European creditors. Britain and France saw it fit to take action in Egypt in hopes of protecting their investments. Following pressure by Great Britain and France, the Egyptian government accepted a joint Anglo-French supervision of Egyptian finances. Many Egyptians did not like the foreign intervention, creating a forum for a nationalist movement which began in 1881.

“Egypt for Egyptians” was a slogan used by Colonel Arabi Pasha to gain support for the nationalist movement. The flames of nationalism were growing stronger everyday, leading nationalists to massacre fifty Europeans on 11 June 1882 in Cairo. Great Britain and France had to make a decision about committing troops to Egypt. Due to opposition in Paris, France could not offer any military support. Great Britain decided to send troops and occupied Egypt in 1882.

Castle Garden Emigrant Landing, New York

Dean Family History.

Updated 4 May 2020

The Dean family arrived in the United States in 1881 and 1882. First to immigrate was Joseph Dean, age 47, aboard the ship Wyoming, which traveled from Liverpool to New York City’s Castle Garden, arriving on 1 June 1881. Castle Garden was America’s first official immigration center from 1855 to 1890, when it was replaced by Ellis Island. Today Castle Garden is known as Castle Clinton National Monument. One year later, on 30 May 1882 Joseph’s wife Alice Royle, age 43, and their children, including Herbert Dean, age 14, reached Castle Garden, again, voyaging on the ship Wyoming. Accompanying Herbert and Alice were Herbert’s brothers and sisters Thomas, Beatrice, Betsy, Clarice, Eli, Hannah, John, and Sarah. All of the Dean children were born in England with the exception of Grace, who would be born in 1884 in Holyoke, Massachusetts, when Joseph was 48 and Alice 45.

Two of Herbert’s sisters cannot be accounted for on either of these voyages, Annie and the eldest Mary who would have been about age 21 at the time. Both Annie and Mary eventually arrived in Holyoke. Mary had been married in England in 1881 to Thomas Fairhurst, who was four years her junior. An Annie Dean, age 11, did arrive on the Wyoming on 7 August 1882. The name and age do match Annie’s, however, there is no record of a Mary Dean or Mary Fairhurst of the appropriate age in any of the records. It is likely that Mary was with the family but her name was erroneously missing from the manifest because Mary’s name later appears in the U.S. Census records in Holyoke.

Whether or not Joseph had stayed in New York between 1881 and 1882 or had moved to Holyoke, is not known. The Dean family traveled in steerage on the ship Wyoming, which made 37 voyages between Liverpool and New York between 1871 and 1892, also stopping in Queenstown to pick up additional passengers. The Wyoming, part of the Guion Line, was built at Jarrow-on-Tyne by Palmer’s Shipbuilding & Iron Co. Ltd. and launched July 30, 1870. It was eventually scrapped in 1893.

Prior to their arrival in the United States, the Dean family resided in Barton-Upon-Irwell, England, which at the time was part of Lancashire. Today the district lines have been shifted and this area is considered part of Greater Manchester. According to the 1881 British census, prior to their departure for America, the Dean family was living on Liverpool Road Central Place in Barton-Upon-Irwell in Lancashire. Later family documents indicate the family was from Cadishead, which is in the same general area. Joseph Dean, age 45, was the Postmaster in Barton-Upon-Irwell. His wife Alice (Royle) Dean, age 42, is listed as the Postmaster’s wife in the 1881 census records. They had a total of nine children ranging in age from 21, Mary, to 1, Eli. All of the children were born in Cadishead with the exception of Sarah and Mary, who were born in Irlam. According to the census records, both Alice Royle and Joseph Dean were born in Irlam. At the time of the census, their daughter Mary was employed as a telegraphist, possibly in the post office. Both Sarah, age 19, and Herbert, age 14, were employed in the textile mills as fustian cutters. Thomas Dean, age 17 in 1881, was no longer living with the family. He had also gained employment with the postal service and was living and working in nearby Warrington, Lancashire. But the next year he would join the family on their trip to America.

Joseph Dean was born in Irlam in November 1835. According to his death certificate, his parents were Joseph Dean and Mary Sharples. Joseph married Alice Royle 14 August 1859 in Eccles Parish St. Mary’s. He was 23 at the time and she 20. On their marriage certificate, his occupation is listed as fustian cutter and his status as bachelor, residing on Moss Lane in Cadishead. His father’s occupation is listed as weaver. Alice, age 19, was considered both a minor, meaning under age 21, and a spinster. She resided in Irlam. The witnesses to their marriage include John Dean who was likely Joseph’s brother who was eight years his senior. Mary Royle was another witness but her relation to Alice is not known. According to her death certificate, Alice’s father was Thomas Royle and her mother’s last name was Sherlock. Alice was born in 1839. But the information on Alice’s parentage is a bit of a mystery. It is more likely that she was one of several children of an Anne Royle, a single woman who lived in the Irlam area because Anne’s daughter Alice’s recorded birth aligns most closely with Alice Royle’s age.

Joseph Dean’s father, also named Joseph, was born in 1794 in Staffordshire, England which is south of the Irlam area. His wife’s name was Mary Shaples. In addition to Joseph, they had three older children: Sarah, John, and Thomas. Joseph Dean’s parents were Peter Dean and Ellen Edge.

Herbert was born 21 November 1866 in Cadishead. At the time of his birth, his father Joseph was still a fustian cutter. His birth was registered on 20 December 1866.

PICT0233 2.jpg — Home.

Having arrived in Holyoke, Massachusetts sometime between 1881 and 1882, Joseph Dean, at the age of 47, became a boarder at 476 Main Street and secured employment at the Farr Alpaca Company, a textile company in Holyoke. His family then joined him and they settled into a house at 24 Willow Street in Holyoke by 1895.

Two years after arriving in Holyoke, Joseph and Alice experienced both joy and tragedy. Their ninth child, Grace Ellen Dean was born on 9 March 1884 less than one month before the death of her sister Betsy Dean on 18 March 1884. Six years later on 1 October 1889, Mary (Dean) Fairhurst would die from Typhoid Fever, two days after giving birth to her seventh child. Thomas Fairhurst would remarry later that year and be widowed once again less than three years later. He would marry a third time.

Herbert Dean, who was 15 when he arrived in Holyoke secured employment as a Boss Dyer at the Holyoke Warp Company by 1890. By 1897 he had joined the Cloth Pressing Department at the Farr Alpaca Company. By this time, the paper industry was taking over much of the factory work in Holyoke, supplanting the textile business. In 1910 we find that Herbert had switched industries, working for the Chemical Paper Company in Holyoke and then by 1911 he was employed by H Belting Company. One of the few photographs available of Herbert Dean shows him with other employees of the cloth pressing department from Mill No. 2 at the Farr Alpaca Company in 1897. This photograph appeared in the Holyoke Daily Transcript newspaper

Herbert Dean, age 31, in 1897, third row, far right.

The first records of the Dean family in Holyoke, Massachusetts can be found in the Holyoke City Directory in 1882:

• 1882 Dean, Joseph, emp Farr Alpaca Co., boards 476 Main

• 1883 Dean, Joseph, emp Holyoke Warp Co, house 59 Adams

• 1885 Dean, Joseph, emp Holyoke Warp Co, house Chapin, B.V.

• 1890 Dean, Herbert, boss dyer Holyoke Warp Co., boards 13 Mechanic, Elmwood

• 1890 Dean, Joseph, house 13 Mechanic, Elmwood

• 1895 Dean, Herbert, laborer, bds, 24 Willow

• 1895 Dean, Joseph, dyer, h 24 Willow

• 1900 Dean, Herbert, emp Farr Alpaca Co., bds 24 Willow

• 1900 Dean, Joseph, emp Farr Alpaca Co., h 24 Willow

• 1910 Dean, Herbert D., emp Chemical Paper Co h 98 Race

• 1911 Dean, Herbert D., emp H Belting Co. h 98 Race

• 1920 Dean, Herbert D., emp Am Thread Co. h 98 Race

• 1928 Dean, Lillian wid Herbert h 624 Main

Other records of the Dean family in Holyoke include the July 1900 Twelfth Census of the United States, showing the Dean family residing at 24 Willow Street, including Joseph, Alice, Herbert, Clarissa, Annie, Eli, Grace E, and their grandaughter Mable Fairhurst who was Mary Dean’s daughter. In 1904 a book was published called The History of the First Baptist Church of Holyoke, Mass. In Chapter XIII, it lists the names of those members who were received into the church from 1 April 1879 to 18 October 1903. Included in the list are two of Herbert’s sisters: Clarice Deane and Beatrice D. Crowley.

At the age of 38, Herbert married Lillian (Madeleine) Spenlinhauer, age 34, at the First Baptist Church in Holyoke on 3 December 1904. At the time, they were residing at 98 Race Street in Holyoke. Prior to his marriage, Herbert had lived with his parents in the Elmwood district of Holyoke, primarily on Willow Street. City maps from that time show the Dean family (including the Crowleys) residing on Willow and View Streets in Elmwood. After his marriage, Herbert lived at 98 Race Street in what was then called south Holyoke. Their son John Elmer Dean was born 25 May 1909 in Holyoke.

Joseph Dean died in Holyoke at the age of 70 on 26 July 1907. Alice Royle died 6 February 1908 at the age of 68 in Holyoke. They are buried together in Forestdale Cemetery in Holyoke. Herbert died at age 59 on 19 July 1926; leaving his widow Lillian and their 17 year old son John Elmer Dean. Herbert is also buried at Forestdale Cemetery.

John Elmer Dean was known as Elmer while he was growing up in Holyoke. His mother had named him after her brother John Spenlinhauer but after having a disagreement with John, she started to call her son Elmer, a name he went by until adulthood. John Elmer Dean lived his entire life in Holyoke, becoming a self-educated chemist. He worked for Holyoke Blank Book Company, running the chemical laboratory where various adhesives were developed for the notebook business. On 18 June 1928, at the age of 19, he married Cecile Carmelita Mary Margaret Collins, age 18, at the Precious Blood Church in Holyoke. The next day their only child, Douglas Dean was born.

I would love to receive your feedback on the above content. I know there is so much more to the stories of these people and if you have information or photographs, it would be wonderful to hear from you. My contact information is listed below. Thank you.