South Yorkshire Times August 15, 1959
“Grand Old Lady” Of Wombwell
Mrs Eliza Riley Will Soon Be Ninety-Five
Who is the oldest person in Wombwell? The fact that within one week recently two persons aged 91 died in neighbouring streets off Barnsley Road prompts the thought that there may be more nonagenarians in the town than is generally suspected.
Take, for example, the case of Mrs Eliza Riley of 92, Wath Road, New Wombwell. She will be 95 on November 28th.
Then there is sprightly and elegant Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson, of & Wood Walk, Wombwell, who was 92 on January 22nd. She is widow of Mr. William Robinson, a well-known Wombwell figure in his day and for many years licensee of the Guide Post Inn and the Prince of Wales, Wombwell.
Five Generations
Mrs. Riley is head of five generations, having three sons, three daughters, 22 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren, and many great-great-grandchildren. Altogether she has had nine children of her own.
Born at Bradfield, Essex, of a farming family, Mrs. Riley was already taken by her parents to West Yorkshire when she was six weeks old
She lived for a short spell in Barnsley coming to Broomhill, Wombwel as a young married woman, and afterwards to her present address at New Wombwell.
Mrs. Riley said that on going to that house she declared emphatically that she would not stay a fortnight. She has been there ever since -70 years.
Fears RE-Housing
And Mrs. Riley’s only worry tow is that she will not be able to end her days in the house in which she has brought up her family in. The property is scheduled for slum clearance, and she has been told she will be rehoused shortly—“possibly before Christmas.”
Mrs Riley is widow of Mr William Riley, who died in 1938 at the age of 76. Mr Reilly were for many years at Cottonwood Colliery, and Mrs Riley still treasures a handsome clock given to her husband by the Colliery Company in 1917. This is inscribed “in appreciation of 30 years faithful service.”
Mrs Riley recalls that her husband started work at Mallinson rope works Barnsley, when he was nine and was employed down the mines when he was 12 years old.
Although bedfast following a fall downstairs in which she fractured her thigh five and half years ago, Mrs Riley is still mentally alert and as an effervescing sense of humour. She recalls the many happy times she has enjoyed in a long life, and with a glint in her eye also tells of the “carrying on” she has seen in days gone by at New Wombwell. This district was at one time somewhat notorious for its rough-and-tumble fights following “turning out times” at the Guide Post Inn, and Mrs Riley says she has seen brawny miners stripped to the waist “scrapping” in the middle of the night. This usually occurred at weekends and on “colliers” Monday”. And, she says, even the womenfolk were not averse to join in, record that she once got in the way of the saucepan thrown by woman neighbour!
Schooling – Four Penn’orth
Although her parents paid four pence a week for education, Mrs Riley recalls that she rarely attended school, preferring to “play truant”. There were no school bobbies in those days, she say. At 14 she started work in the potteries in West Yorkshire. She was obliged to do all kinds of manual jobs. When she was only fifteen she had to get in 16 tons of coal between Wednesday dinner time and Thursday evening, all this having to be riddled and sorted.
Married at eighteen years of age, Mrs. Riley mentions that in those days the ceremony was performed on payment of half-a-crown, which included the cost of the marriage lines. They were married at St. Mary’s’Chutch, Barnsley, and afterwards her husband used to walk from Barnsley to Darfield Main Colliery every day. At that time he was earning 3/6d. a day. “I would have jumped for joy if I had the big money young people get to-day”, she said, “but I am thankful for what I have”. She now lives on a fifty shillings a week old age pension, and says she is happy “so long as I can keep out of debt.”
Gets Dearer
The rent of Mrs Riley’s tenement cottage is now 10/6d. a week, but when the family moved into it it was four shillings a week. The houses on the other side of the triangle, facing the Yorkshire Traction Company depot, were only 3/9d. a week, because they had smaller cellars! The property had no piped water, and lighting was by paraffin lamps.
Mrs Riley says they had to fetch water from pumps in the yard. When they went into the house it had been unoccupied for two years, and being told by the landlord to buy some wallpaper at his expense, she decorated the living room at a cost of 1s. 0 ½ d .—five rolls of paper at 2 ½ d a roll! Mrs. Riley says in those days “moonlight flits” were commonplace, and often they would wake up to find a neighbour had “disappeared” in the night.
Mrs Riley lives with her youngest son, Alfred (54), who is unmarried and works at Cortonwood colliery. Her oldest son, John William (73), who lives across the yard in Brampton Road’s retired from Cortonwood colliery after 54 years’ service.
New Wombwell must indeed have been a healthy spot, because Mrs Elizabeth Robinson also spent much of her time there. She was daughter of a head gamekeeper on an estate at Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury, but spent practically all their life in Wombwell. She still does all her own housework.