Frederick Walker Gomersall and the Milner Field Connection

Frederick Walker Gomersall, pictured here with his family, was the cousin of Charles Frederick Walker. It is difficult to explain when many family members have the same name of Frederick -  Margaret being another name given to many female family members.

Frederick Walker Gomersall was the son of Sarah Ellen Walker, the eldest Walker child of Robert Walker, a farmer of High House, Goldsborough, near Knaresborough North Yorkshire. Frederick Walker, the father of Charles Frederick Walker, was Sarah Ellen's younger brother who lived with her and her son in her boarding house in Bradford for a time before marrying Elizabeth Mary Hornshaw.

Sarah Ellen was very close to her brother Frederick Walker, naming her only son after him.  She was widowed not long after her marriage to a man from a silversmith's family in Sheffield.The family ran a boarding house in Manningham, Bradford at one time.

In later years, Frederick Walker Gomersall's son purchased a farmhouse which once belonged to the estate of The Knoll, Baildon. He bought a pony for his daughters and inspired his family's love of horses. The Knoll was the former home of Charles Stead, the land originally being purchased by Titus Salt Senior before being sold to Charles Stead a director, of Salts Mill, Saltaire, who built The Knoll. The Knoll was later owned by James Roberts MD of Salts Mill and lived in by his son, Bertram. Both Charles Stead and Katherine Salt were involved in opening Crow Gill Park, Shipley in May, 1890 as mentioned in my book.

The farmhouse, now called West Garth on Bertram Road, Baildon, was at one time Bank House Farm and the dower house of The Knoll. It  was also originally associated with the Fairbank family.
This branch of the Walker Gomerall family who owned West Garth, married in to the Rolfe-Dickinson family who came to Saltaire from the north east and the Rolfe-Dickinson's lived on Titus Street and worked in Salt's mill. A member of their family also once lived in one of the Milner Field gate houses. Oddly enough - one branch of the Dickinson family also came from Goldsborough, the same as the Walker family.

Not long after all this we get to the spooky bit and my contact, made unexpectedly, by my Walker Gomersall cousins - see my website link below.


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