McLOUGLIN.

(from Appendix Q in the main text)

The first McLouglin in Billinge was James, an Irish lad looking to better his prospects in England as so many of this countrymen did. He appears to have been a miner who found lodgings in Fair View with a fellow countryman, Patrick Fogherty. Patsy, as he was know, had a couple of nieces working in the cotton mills near Bolton. One of these girls, Mary Murphy, married James McLoughlin at St Mary's 18th November 1866. James had been around a while by that time as he stood as godparent to Joan Gahagan at St Mary's in 1860. James McLoughlin was the first child born to this couple. He arrived 29th March 1867, to be followed by John 18th April 1869, Thomas 5th April 1871, Ann 29th December 1874, Jane 25th June 1876, twins Joseph and Nicholas 26 February 1878, Ann 4th June 1879, Jane 25th March 1881, and Mary 12th August 1883. Two of these children died young, Jane at three weeks and Ann at two years. Succeeding children were named after them, as was the custom of that era of high infant mortality.

James McLoughin married Ann Cunliffe from the Labour-in-Vain 3rd September 1891. Ann was the eight of eleven children born to Francis Cunliffe, who married Mary Derbyshire 5th February 1856. The first child born to this couple was Sara, my great grandmother. Francis and Mary ran the Labour-in-Vain; in time James and Ann McLoughlin took over the management. Ann and James's fist child, born out of wedlock, was Francis 2nd November 1887, but he died in 1890, aged three. They had four more children, Mary 11th June 1892, Christine 11th April 1895, James 29th January 1897 and Beatrice Irene 16th August 1899. The last child lived for eight months; the mother died 26th December 1901, aged thirty. She had been godmother to Gertrude, Thomas Cuthbert and Aloysius Taylor, the children of her elder sister Sara, among others. Another of Sara's children, James Taylor, married James McLoughlin's sister, Jane. Helen, another Cunliffe sister, married William Eddleston 28th June 1894. Their two girls were Frances 24th October 1894 and Helen 20th July 1896.