About Me

Nine year-old Maggie Simpson's first home in Manchester was in Bradford, an industrial suburb two miles east of the city centre. Bradford was known as Manchester's "engine room" on account of its power plants, chemical factories, ironworks and textile mills, all powered by the massive Colliery at its heart (pictured) the largest coal mine in the Manchester Coalfield. Bradford Colliery, 1928. Image courtesy of Manchester Libraries. In 1894, when the Simpsons are first recorded

Maggie Tunaley was born Margaret Eliza Ann Simpson on the 19th of February 1885. Her father was a farm labourer and the family lived in a tenant's cottage on an agricultural estate in North Yorkshire. The cottage was in a hamlet called Ruston. Sarah and William Simpson, circa 1900 Maggie's mother Sarah (née Gillance, b.1855) had grown up in Ruston and had worked as a domestic servant in the years before she married. Her father William Rodgers Simpson (b.1855) was born in a vi

A year after his mother died, Tom Tunaley joined a Trade Union. He was 25 years old and had been a carpenter and joiner for 11 years, having been apprenticed at the age of 14. These details were entered into the membership records of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners when Tom was admitted to the Manchester 2nd Branch on 9th March 1907. Tom may have been the first in his family to join a Trade Union. Of the many carpenters and joiners among the Manchester Tunal

Bill Smith was Tom Tunaley's cousin who also emigrated to Australia with his young family between 1911 and 1913. Bill and and his wife Harriet were lifelong friends of Tom and Maggie Tunaley, and the two families lived near each other and often shared homes during their first decade in Melbourne. The photograph below is of Bill and Harriet Smith (née Armstrong) and Dorothy, the eldest of their two daughters. The Smiths' three children were Dorothy (b. 1908), Beatrice (b. 1914

Tom Tunaley was not the first Tunaley to emigrate to Australia. According to Phil Tunaley's website, a distant cousin from Derby called Thomas emigrated in 1868. Tom's uncle, Matthew Henry Tunaley, emigrated in 1881, followed by his aunt Catherine Tunaley (Matthew's sister) in 1885. The tale of these three Tunaleys is not directly relevant to my grandfather Tom's emigration to Australia in 1911, although two of them are his close relatives. It's "rabbit hole" I went down b

When Maggie Tunaley arrived in Melbourne with baby Billie in December 1911, her husband Tom took her to a house he had rented in Powell Street Yarraville. The family lived there for three years. At the time, the house was surrounded by vacant land and had no number, although there were a few shops within walking distance on nearby Somerville Road (Footscray Council rate books). This picture shows Tom, Maggie and baby Billie in front of their block-fronted timber cottage, ass

Maggie's ship, "SS Gothic" Tom Tunaley emigrated to Australia in 1911, three months before his wife Margaret (hereafter called "Maggie" -...

Council Rate Books offer glimpses of the Tunaleys' life in Australia. The 1928 rate book for the Victoria Ward of Collingwood names the Head of the Household at 57 Nicholson Street as "Tunaley, Tom", with his Occupation listed as "Carpenter ". Eight Tunaleys lived in that modest two-bedroom house: Tom, his wife Maggie and their six younger children, Bill, Pauline, Tom Mary, Geoffrey and baby Margaret. The house was second from the corner with Langridge Street at the Victoria