'Stories from the Stones'
Please visit the Contents Page for this section where you will find other 'Stories from the Stones.'
These same stories are also published on Penistone Archive Group's Facebook page, their Journal and in 'The Bridge' magazine issued by St John's church, Penistone. Many thanks to their tireless author, Mr Steve Lavender, for his worthy contributions to local history and this website. - JB.
Story 21 - John Dransfield (1808 - 1864), Elizabeth Dransfield (1813 - 1897), John Ness Dransfield (1839 - 1930)
From the St John’s Church Burial Ground Project
John and Elizabeth Dransfield are buried at St John’s burial ground; John Ness their son is buried a short distance away at the Stottercliffe cemetery, but it is John Ness who will be the main subject of Story 21.
Father John was born in Huddersfield in 1808 and followed law as his profession. In 1831 he arrived in Penistone where he was to set up his practice. In those days he was recorded in the 1841 census as an Attorney at Law. He passed away in 1880 and his obituary mentioned that ‘He came to Penistone a stranger, met with a kind reception as a practitioner, soon made many friends and succeeded in gradually requiring an extensive and respectable practice’.
John married Elizabeth (Rolling) from Oxspring at St John’s Church on 2nd November 1837 and they would live at Green House on the outskirts of Penistone at the time. John Ness was born at Green House on 26th October 1839; indeed his six siblings would be born there as would his three sons. The unusual name ‘Ness’ was actually the surname of his paternal grandmother Elizabeth Ness (born in Scotland in 1785). John Ness would attend the Grammar School (c.1847-1852) in Penistone which at that time was situated opposite the church where the solicitor’s offices of Dransfield, Hodgkinson and Lofthouse would eventually be sited.
Dransfield’s education continued from leaving PGS when he became a boarder at George Ryder’s school at Grenoside where he would rub shoulders with the sons of Sheffield’s elite. From there he went to the Royal Institution School, Liverpool, and then moved to Windermere College in the Lake District where he completed his education at the age of 16 in 1855. Dransfield now joined his father’s practice where he was articled to the business.
Throughout his time at the various places of education he would be introduced to a wide variety of sports including cricket, cross country (paper-chase), hunting with hounds, and foot-ball. It was during his time in Sheffield he became a member of Sheffield Football Club, formed in 1857, whose games at this time were played at East Bank Sheffield. At this time Dransfield began to keep a series of diaries including detailed notes of his football matches, paper-chase events and letters which ask him to play in matches for Sheffield and the newly formed Hallam Football Club at Sandygate.
John Ness put a great deal of time and effort into Penistone life. He worked on the Hunt and became very much involved with the early years of the Penistone Agricultural and Horticultural Society becoming its Secretary for many years. In 1872 John Ness married Susan Dearman at St Lukes’s church in Manchester. (This was a double wedding with Susan’s sister, Sarah) John and Susan would eventually purchase West Cliff House now just off the Tesco roundabout and both would spend the rest of their days there. The Solicitor’s business in Penistone, now Dransfield and Son, continued to thrive but in 1880 father John would pass away and be buried at St John’s church.
Famously, John Ness published his ‘History of Penistone’ in 1906. He mentions the fact that much of the information regarding the Penistone Harriers (the Hunt) and the old Agricultural Society would have been entirely lost had he not recorded it. It is in this book where he recalls an item from the diaries of Captain Adam Eyre who recalls that on 4th April 1648, he and Captain Rich went to Bordhill (near the Dog and Partridge) to see a match played at foot-ball. An early reference to Penistone’s place in the story of football.
Whilst there are a lot of fascinating facts within the 550 pages, it must be said that it is also a bit rambling in its content. Various chapters of great local history such as The Grammar School, St John’s Church and Penistone Harriers are interspersed with such random articles such as ‘The Number Seven’, ‘Deer Parks’ and ‘Garden Allotments’ as just as a few examples.
John and Susan had three children and, whilst following his Ancestry, I realised that my family tree links into the Dearman family and that John Ness and I are related, and he is the husband of my 2nd great grand aunt!!! Susan passed away in 1923 and John Ness in 1930 at the grand old age of 90. The contribution of the Dransfield family to Penistone life cannot be overstated and we will remember them.
Steve Lavender
Chair, Friends of St John’s Church 2023
Acknowledgements
William Wordsworth - "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."