EDGOOSE:
In search of Ancestry
HINCHCLIFF, Margaret Kathleen
1905 - 1988 (82 years) Has 15 ancestors but no descendants in this family tree.
1870 - 1962 (92 years)-
Name HINCHCLIFF, Margaret Kathleen Birth 23 Apr 1905 Alton Registration District, Hampshire 
Gender Female Death 1988 York, Yorkshire, England Person ID I1276 Edgoose Last Modified 3 Feb 2026
Father HINCHCLIFF, David, b. 21 Sep 1870, Sheffield, Yorkshire d. 26 Nov 1962, Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire, England (Age 92 years) Mother PAYNE, Frances Mary, b. 1872, Fulwood, Preston, Lancashire, England d. 3 Jan 1930, York Registration District, Yorkshire (Age 58 years) Marriage 10 Oct 1900 Preston, Lancashire, England Family ID F786 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family APPLEBY, Alfred William d. Yes, date unknown Marriage 1948 York Registration District, Yorkshire Family ID F787 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 27 Jan 2026
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Notes
MARGARET KATHLEEN HINCHCLIFF 1905-1988
The birth of Margaret Kathleen HINCHCLIFF was registered in 1905.
(GRO June Q 1905 [PAYNE] Alton 02C 130)
From the 1911 census of Long Clawson, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire:
David HINCHCLIFF, head, aged 40, Wesleyan Methodist Minister, born at Sheffield, Yorkshire;
Frances Mary HINCHCLIFF, wife, sged 37, married 10 years, 4 children of whom 4 living, born at Fulwood, Preston, Lancashire;
David Gordon HINCHCLIFF, son, aged 8, born at St. Ives, Cornwall;
*Margaret Kathleen HINCHCLIFF, daughter, aged 5, born at Alton, Hampshire;
Frances Joyce HINCHCLIFF, daughter, aged 3, born at Alton, Hampshire;
Alice Christine HINCHCLIFF, daughter, aged 1, born at Long Clauson, Leicestershire;
Laura BURKETT, visitor, aged 53, householder of private means, born at Langham, Lincolnshire;
Ethel Jane BAXTER, visitor, aged 33, dressmaker on own account at home, born at Highgate, London NW;
Lucy GOODBOURN, servant, aged 16, general servant (domestic), born at Nether Broughton, Leicester.
(RG14/19356)
From the 1939 Register of 24 Bourne House, Union Street, Pockington R.D., Yorkshire (East Riding):
David HINCHCLIFF, born 21 September 1870, male, Minister of Religion (Methodist), widowed;
*Margaret HINCHCLIFF (APPLEBY), born 23 April 1905, female, schoolteacher, single;
1 CLOSED REGORD
Dennis HAINSWORTH, born 29 November 1924, male, at school, single;
1 CLOSED RECORD
(RG101/3208H/010/10 JCOQ)
The marriage between Alfred William APPLEBY and Margaret Kathleen HINCHCLIFF was registered in 1948.
(GRO September Q 1948 York 2d 2279)
Headmistress, special school, Fulford, York.
NOTES & QUERIES:
According to a letter from Frances Joyce HINCHCLIFF, Margaret Kathleen's father David HINCHCLIFF always kept a photograph of his mother Alice HINCHCLIFF nee EDGOOSE on his desk.
Apparently Sophie S. HARDANGER married Edward A. ARMBRUSTER, so the letter which Wendy copied to me was signed Sophie S. ARMBRUSTER, 214 Gale Avenue, River Forest, Illinois. She wrote the following letter to Margaret Kathleen HINCHCLIFF when Margaret's mother, Frances HINCHCLIFF, was dying of cancer:
"Dear Margaret,
I just thought you might like the enclosed just as much as I do.
You have my sympathy, dear, in these hours of trial and I know how much of the burden will fall on you, the older sister. You certainly have a large responsibility - I know how much the right kind of older sister can do for the younger.d I love her more than I can ever say. Then, too, I know you will be your father's main stay.
It did me so much good to meet you all last summer. Knowing your father's early life as I do, it makes me rejoice to see his happy family, knowing what it means to him.
That God will be with you in your hour of trial is the prayer of Your friend,
Sophie S. ARMBRUSTER
[Sophie was a teacher at Tilton School, 4152 West End Avenue, Chicago Ill.]
A letter from "Aunt Sophie" from 214 Gale Av., River Forest, Illinois, USA, to Margaret Kathleen HINCHCLIFF, dated 19 March 1930:
"Dear Margaret:
Thank you so much for your dear letter. I was so glad to hear from you, because while I had always had a feeling of affection towards your father's children - it blossomed when I met you and learned how lovable you all were.
I'm glad if the papers I send you are of any use to you - it seems to me we in our profession can always get some help from them if we look for it. Didnt you like that "Prayer for Teachers" by Glenn FRANK? I keep a Copy of it on my desk to-read. He is head of one [illegible] state Universities - University of Wisconsin.
We teachers were affected by the money shortage - we waited six weeks for our January pay, but now we have been paid [to] date. The news papers made a lot more out of it than there really was. Can see no taxes have been paid in Cook Counttears - owing to the fact that a scientific re-assessment has been in process. This [illegible] assessment was opposed by the politicians causing all sorts of delays. Had they not hindered but helped all this delay in salaries would not have occurred. You see our papers are very different from yours, every bad thing they can find they put in with large type on the front page - making it as [bottom line of photocopy illegible] does not deserve.
Yes dear I am so thankful for that perfect day with you all, and to have known your dear mother even for a day. My heart goes out to you for I know how much her Home going has added to your responsibilities. Having had a wonderful older, Iw what you must mean to all those younger than you and especially to your father. A big sister is always such a help and inspiration and while you cannot fill your mother's place, you can walk in her footsteps and be a help to those who were not blessed with her loving care for as many years as you.
God bless and comfort you, dear.
With much love I am
Your loving
Aunt Sophie
David HINCHCLIFF's daughter Margaret Kathleen HINCHCLIFF wrote the following to her niece Wendy HELMS in a letter dated 23 November 1980:
"My father was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone in his day to day activities, but really he was a very "secret" person, and found communication at anything more than a superficial level, disturbing if not actually painful. So although we livved comfortably and happily together for many years, it was of the trivia of living of which we talked; never did father talk of family, growing up, childhood memories, or even, in fact, of his more mature years when he was a missionary. Perhaps this latter was my failing as much as his, in that I do not think I ever asked him directly about those years. Had I done so, he might have responded, but certainly would not have talked about his own early years.
He did in fact have a hard life, after being born the son of a woollen manufacturer who lived at Marble Hall, near Holmfirth, and whose mill was called "Hinchcliff Mill". I think it was after the Franco-Prussian war, about 1870 that there cammme a great slump in the woollen trade, after the busy money-producing years when woollen cloths were in great demand for soldiers uniforms, blankets, etc. I also think that alcohol was involved somewhere; at any rate, about the time when father was 4 years old, his father, having lost his first-born, Alice, with T.B., sold the business, the home and the mill for a song, and went out to America and settled in Chicago. Also about this time father's mother died, also of T.B., so that left father with his two brothers, one of whom was called John, and sister Mamie, to be brought up by their father. I must say here that father would never touch any sort of alcoholic drink, nor have any in the house, the reason being, I am pretty sure, that his own father tried to drown his many sorrows in drink!!!
Father started work in Printing and Book-binding at as early an age as was possible. He walked 5 miles to and from work, and in the evenings went to the Y.M.C.A. gymn where he would indulge in the most strenuous and healthful activities, so determined was he not to fall victim to the T.B. which had carried off his mother and sister. That must have been quite a day for a youngster.
Now I must refer to the copy of the letter written by Father's Auntie Harriet to her daughter, Doris, who incidentally still lives in Edinburgh.
When Auntie Harrie's first husband, John COCKER, died, Auntie Harrie, who was Father's mother's sister, went over to Chicago to persuade father to go back to Sheffield, and to be trained to run the wire mill which had been John COCKER's. Father, then aged about 20, and his sister, Mamie, came back to this country while the two other brothers stayed in the U.S. Father went to College in Sheffield and matriculated "cum laude". Meantime, Aunt Harriet met her second husband (to be) Marmaduke RIGGALL, a Wesleyan minister. You will have gathered from Aunt Harriet's letter that a personal faith and belief meant much to her. Combine this with the evangelical zeal of her newly wedded parson husband...Are you surprised that, the wire works by now having been sold, father caught a bad dose of religious fervour from his aunt and uncle, and in due course it was decided that he should seek to be ordained in the ministry, and he went to Richmond College.
In the 1890's - 1900's, while the British Empire was still expanding, I believe it was the usual thing for newly ordained ministers to spend their early service in overseas work. Whether it was for their good, or for the good of those they served I couldn't say, but I believe that it was a common practice among the many denominational churches.
Father had spent two terms of 15 months on the Gold Coast, and stood up to the rigours of conditions and climate very well. It was on his second leave home that he met and married Mother who returned to Africa with him. Unfortunately she suffered very badly from "fever", so after this next trip, they returned home and their first circuit was St. Ives in Cornwall, where they went in 1902."
Now to the mother side:
When father and his sister returned with Auntie HARRIET, father went to college and Mamie went to the Sheffield Royal Hospital to train as a nurse. Mother went about the same time and they were, I believe, fairly friendly. Mamie, having completed her training, was being married in July 1900. Mother was invited to her wedding, and, strangely, she was invited to the wedding of another of her friends on the same day. By chance, or how do we know?, Mother chose to attend Mamie's wedding in Alford, and there she met Father. They were immediately attracted to one another, were engaged in six weeks and married in the October, just three months after Mamie's wedding. Thence to the Gold Coast.
Mother was a lively, good-looking and very talented person, with a very warm personality. Wherever we went to live, Mother was immediately welcomed into the inner circle of chapel and was straight away up to her eyes in Bazaar work, sunday school work, concert work, etc. while father, of course, met the important folk of the circuit.
Mother having been trained as a nurse, was often in demand to go and nurse poorly folk. As a little girl I can remember standing speechless, I suppose with joy and pride, to see her in her blue dress with starchy white apron, ready to stay overnight with some poorly person. People used to come to her, too, and I can well picture now the butcher's boy with a badly cut thumb. Blood was dripping onto the tiled kitchen floor and Mother bade me get along with rolling the bandage, and stop watching the drip drip of the blood. A sudden thought strikes me that the bandages would most likely be torn from an old clean sheet, and that was why I would have to roll them!!!
Mother had a sweet singing voice and played the piano really quite well. Always on sunday evenings we sang hymns round the piano, and on many a winter evening we sang songs like "Past eight o'clock and it's bed time for Dolly", and "Come in yooou naughty bird, the rain is pouring down!", ending with "I'm sure I do not care, said the sparrow on the tree!" we progressed to the Scottish student's song book and simple Gilbert and Sullivans. It is many years ago, but the memory remains of a warm, happy singing circle of fellowship.
Mother was gay and happy, at least, if she was not happy, she hid it well from the family. Auntie Harrie died in 1917 from cancer. I recall very clearly that, the letter telling of her death arrived by the afternoon post, while we were all sitting round the table at tea. Mother read the letter while handing it to Father, she quietly removed a tear from the corner of her eye before telling, in a perfectly calm voice, us all about Auntie Harrie, of whom we were very fond.
I think, had it not been entirely frowned upon in those days, Mother would have "whistled while she worked". She was clever with her hands, making clothes, including "tailored" coats for all of us, and even modelling our hats. She loved gardens and gardening; her father (grand-pa to me) had two nurseries on the outskirts of Preston, and he specialized in roses and tomatoes. To stand in the doorway of one of his long glass houses, where he grew his roses, and just breathe in their perfume, was, even to my childish nose, sheer joy. I still find the perfume of a rose both heady and evocative.
Thinking back again, Mother was in the forefront of the ideas of her time. She dressed Al. Joyce and me in little gingham frocks with knickers to match, while all other little girls were still wearing frilled petticoats and frilled knicks under their much more elaborate dresses. She had our hair cut like little boys, in order to control the infestation of head lice - "sniggers" was our family name for them!
We had always wholemeal bread in the house which Mother made herself. She encouraged the plentiful eating of fruit, and for several years, she ran a vegetarian routine for the family. She was very interested in the suffragette movement, and useed to talk to me about why she wanted to vote and why she thought that all women should have the right to vote. as you probably know, women were not enfranchised in this country until 1928. Later, she became a very active member of the National Council of Women, and a coval one too, going to their conferences as a delegate. On the whole, I would say that she was a pretty vital person. Father had eyes for no one else, he truly loved her and was content to allow her to be the prime mover in all family concerns, including bringing up us children. I think I would say that they balanced each other beautifully, and so provided a very secure, wholesome family circle in which we grew up.
Here, I think is the answer to your question about moving so frequently during our childhood. We went as one warm, loving family, so that where we went, or lived didn't really matter very much. Perhaps it even helped me to learn that people matter more than places or things.
Mother, Frances Mary, died in January 1930. Her mother, Frances PAYNE, died in August 1894, and her mother, Fanny WREN, died in Feb. 1883. This is the direct link with Sir Christopher Wren, in fact mother's brother was called Christopher Wren PAYNE. I know absolutely nothing of Grandpa's line and family except that his name was Edward PAYNE and that he was born in "Confluence Cottage", which then stood at the junction of the rivers Severn and Avon. He was also an eminent Freemason in Preston and was a quiet, kindly gentleman, as befits a grower of roses!"
"Flashback to Father again. He was a good tennis player, he enjoyed swimming and football in his earliest years, and he always gave us every encouragement in the pursuit of the physical activities which we enjoyed. One final glimpse of Father who loved a good joke or after-dinner story. I can see him now, head thrown back, roaring with joy, and at the same time rubbing away the tears of laughter which were rolling down his cheeks. If you could look at a photograph of him now, you would see the lines of laughter etched round his eyes. As I write this, I am looking at a picture which John took of him, showing a noble head and fine Roman profile, and there clearly too, the sense of fun and good humour."
(revised 10.06.2020)