Charles Twemlow Rickards …… another story from Tony Goulding

Following a response to one of my stories from 2020 concerning the Rickards family, whose vault is a prominent feature of Chorlton-cum-Hardy's old churchyard, I must state in a paraphrase of a famous quote of Mark Twain “My report of his death was vastly exaggerated”.

I am indebted to one of this gentleman’s grandchildren for the opportunity to correct this error. In doing so I must admonish myself for falling into the fatal trap of accepting an absence of evidence as evidence to the contrary!     

St. Matthew’s Church, Stretford in 1901

Charles Twemlow Rickards was born in the December quarter of 1849 in Stretford, Lancashire; where he was baptised in St Matthew’s church on 5th October 1849.

He was the fourth child of William Henry Rickards and his first wife Ellen (née Royle). 

The death of his two elder brothers Gerald Broome (died aged 8 years and 8 months on 22nd July 1853) and William Royle (died aged just 15 months on 14th September 1847), both of whom are buried in the family vault in the old St. Clement’s churchyard in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, resulted in him becoming his parents' oldest son.  His father William Henry had a total, I think now, of thirteen children, eight with his first wife Ellen and, after her death on 19th September 1860, five more with his second wife Sophie (née Munton).

Unfortunately, the family’s entry on the 1851 census appears to have been included on one of the pieces which suffered water damage and is not available. Charles Twemlow does not appear in the family household in either of the two following censuses, 1861 and 1871; resulting in my critical error. 

More records have become available online, one of which accounts for Charles’s absence from home at the 1861 census, he was a pupil at Sandbach Grammar School, Cheshire on a record dated 31st January 1861.

School_House_of_Sandbach Grammar_School_01/06/08 by ARBAY

Records of Charles Twemlow for the next three decades remain a little sketchy. He definitely sailed to Australia at some point in the early 1870s, likely arriving initially in Tasmania before being recorded as a passenger on the S.S Derwent out of the Tasmanian port of Launceston arriving at Melbourne, Victoria on 26th April 1873. 

There is also a possibility that he was the defendant in a court case at the North Melbourne Court of the Victoria Petty Sessions on 2nd May 1878 who was sued by his landlord Wilson for £1-19s. The court found in favour of the landlord and this Charles Rickards was ordered to pay this sum plus 5 shillings costs in weekly instalments of 4 shillings.

Charles Twemlow Rickards next appears in the official records with his marriage to Amelia White, the daughter of John White, in 1892. The remaining twenty years of his life are well documented as with Amelia, he had four daughters, Mabel Royle (born 1894), Marie Cicely (born 1896), Helena Lucy (born 1898), and Frances Sylvia (born 1901). Charles Twemlow’s death on 17th October 1913 was announced in the family notices column of The Manchester Courier of Friday 28th November 1913. He is interred in Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery, Bayside City, Victoria, Australia. The record states he was a resident of Mentone, a seaside resort of Melbourne, and his occupation is recorded as “Gentleman”.

Amelia, his wife, died on 29th June 1932 and is buried in the Brighton General Cemetery, Caufield South, Nr. Melbourne, Australia.

Pictures: - St. Matthew’s Church, Stretford 1901 by unknown artist (m.71058) courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass School_House_of_Sandbach Grammar_School_01/06/08  By ARBAY - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4309194