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Chapter : From Henry to William Withers
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Henry Withers' birth specifics are still to be traced, but it seems that he was born in about 1817 outside of Gloucestershire. By 1841, at the age of 24 he was already a widower with 2 small children, living in St Mary Redcliff, Bristol, and working as a smith. Later the same year he would marry Ann Jones, whose father, William Jones, was a ship's carpenter. Henry and Ann's first child together was William, born in Bristol before the family headed off to Glasgow. In Glasgow, Henry worked as a chain maker and they initially stayed in Gorbals, where Ann's younger brother, Charles, stayed with them and their now 4 children. Henry and Ann then moved to Govan and had another child before the family fell apart.
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At their family home, a week before Christmas Henry fell down the stairs and fractured his skull. He was in a coma for 7 hours before dying. A year later, in 1865, his widow, Ann, died from TB. Both Henry and Ann are buried in the Eastern Division of the Southern Necropolis in Glasgow. There is no grave stone. Their youngest child would have been 7 at the time of both parent's deaths.
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The article in the Glasgow Daily Herald, 19 December 1864, on the death of Henry Withers.
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The Scottish flag. Henry and Ann Withers died in Glasgow, and William Withers married Ann Tipton there. All in the 1860's
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It may have been these circumstances that brought William's cousin Ann Tipton up to Glasgow from Bristol. Ann Tipton was the daughter of Margaret Tipton (nee Jones) who was the sister of Ann Withers (William's mother). A few months later William married his first cousin Ann Tipton in Glasgow. Within a year they had had their first child, Henry, in Glasgow, but by time their next child, Margaret, was born, the whole family had returned to Bristol to live in St Paul with Ann's parents: Edward and Margaret Tipton. William continued to work as a chain maker, and they continued to raise a large family. Hill Street in St Paul's in which this family lived no longer exists. An old map (1902 Bristol NE) shows Hill Street in St Paul's running between Dale and East street, but on current maps all that is left is East and Dale street.
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