The Penders & Murphys: Research by Duncan Ashcroft

The Penders and the Murphys are shown in a book given away by The Rotunda Centre in Great Mersey Street next to Stanley Road, Kirkdale (Please see the photos at the end of this piece, but I need to explain here for them to make sense). That’s what I discovered last month when me and Susanne wandered into their brilliant heritage centre following our stay at the Throstles Nest on Scotland Road (we stay overnight in Liverpool annually now since our 20^th wedding anniversary in 2013. We’ve stayed in the Throstles  couple of time now because we share ancestry from there –Susanne’s family on mothers side ran a pub (now demolished)  right next to the Rotunda centre, the King George – and they have a picture of it in their Heritage café wall! Sue’s Liverpool-Irish great grandmother Mary Ann Kearns (Mary Ann’s parents like our Penders/Learys were from Wexford too) married a Swede Johanne (John) Bladlund who was a publican there shown on 1911 census – he banned his girls, including Sue’s gran Rose, from going into the pub because of the rough sailors – probably included our ship firemen Penders Tom, Patrick, Joseph, John or Robert who were a stone’s throw away!

       I’ve put quite a few photos from our fascinating ramble, which included me tracking down my great grandfather Tom Pender’s original baptism record at St John’s RC church on Fountain Road . I was helped in this by St Anthony’s who said that because Tom was born in Aspinall Street (number 37 - I got his birth record) at that time he would have come under St John’s. Other Pender brothers and sisters were baptised at St Anthony’s, Scotland Road as well as our Our Lady of Reconciliation, Eldon Street and St Alphonsus (now demolished) as they moved between streets from Vauxhall to Kirkdale. Tom’s sister Mary Agnes Pender, who married Michael Murphy was baptised in St Alphonsus on 11 November 1881, 5 days after being born, and married Co Armagh born Michael at that church too on 11 June 1903. Then the church stood at the end of Great Mersey Street where it met Kirkdale Road at the bottom of Everton Valley. Brother Robert, who married south Armagh born Kate Murphy (Michael’s younger sister) also got baptised (Sept 1879) and married (Jan 1912) in St Alphonsus.

     You’ll see from the book from the Rotunda Centre that Michael Murphy is at number 26 Aspinall St and Joseph Pender (Tom’s youngest brother) at number 44. Sadly the graphic is for 1929 and Mary Agnes Murphy (nee Pender) is no longer in the number 26 household because she died 5 years earlier, neither are her parents (and my Tom’s, Robert, Joseph etc) because Tom and Johanna (nee Leary) from Wexford passed away just later in 1926/7 after having lived in 65 Aspinall Street for over 20 years, and in Liverpool’s Vauxhall and Kirkdale district for over 60 after emigrating from Ireland.

        My gran, Maggie Ashcroft (nee Margaret Pender), was born 1907 in Athol Street which runs to the Junction of the top of Scotland Road and Stanley Road. On her mother’s side, the similar sounding surnamed Pedders, - 4^th generation barge people -  occupied a site in nearby Slade Street by the canal.  Maggie used to love going every weekend from her St Helens home to the Cazneau Street/Paddy’s Market with her daughter, my Auntie Sue (and I had to suffer wearing some of the strange purchases!) Funnily enough on my mothers side of farmers they also loved to visit Cazzy market, but with their cart horses laden with spuds, after  working the Bickerstaffe, Kirkby, Knowsley, Rainford, Eccleston and Huyton fields up to WW2. And they loved the drinking en-route back too, falling asleep sometimes in a warm pile of manure picked up for the return journey while the horse knew the way home!

       Please take a look at all the pic and census/birth records showing the strong connection of the Pender and Murphy families on those Kirkdale Streets now under the green grass of the Billy Collins playing fields. The Rotunda centre and its heritage café and friendly staff (Emma Jensen and Anne Marie) is well worth a visit and has a great community spirit and superb garden and allotment too. Some of us are planning to meet there when Marie (of the Cannons) and her daughter Catherine Morris come over from Ireland this month. Des and Su Herlihy and Irene and Robbie Cannon could make it too, and maybe Cormac and Kitty - so if you’re interested please let us know – it’ll be sometime in the week beginning 22^nd, Monday to Friday in the daytime. 

Thanks Duncan!