The Hadwen Family of Lancashire

Shortly after their marriage, Daniel and Mary Crellin adopted Elizabeth McCooey whom they came to know as Lily, the name she gave herself before she was 13. Elizabeth was the fifth of six children born to Agnes McCooey, a housekeeper and single mother. The two eldest were sons of Owen McCooey who disappeared from her life sometime between 1892 and 1895. The other four, including Elizabeth, were fathered by James Threlfall, a married itinerant music teacher 25 years older than Agnes. Agnes married James in September 1903, six months after the death of James’s second wife, Martha Greenwood, and she managed to keep all her children except Elizabeth. As well as Elizabeth, Daniel and Mary adopted John William Halliday, the son of separated parents. This small adopted family was a contrast with other Crellins. Daniel himself was one of seven children. His brother Thomas had eight children, brother John seven, brother William five, and sister Catherine five. Only sister Elizabeth had a small number of children - one - but she died of tuberculosis at 35.

WEDDING - At Dalton Primitive Methodist Church on Wednesday afternoon. Miss Lily Crellin daughter of Coun. D J Crellin of Fair View, Dalton was married to Mr William Picthall, eldest son of Mr and Mrs Robert Picthall, Chapel Street, Dalton. The bride was becomigly attired in a cream gabardine costume with hat to match and carried a sheaf of trumpet lilies. She was attended by Miss Jessie Storey of Waterloo, Liverpool and Miss Ethel Picthall, sister of the bridegroom. The bridesmaids wore fawn costumes and each carried a bouquet of pink carnations. Mr George Rigg of Barrow, brother-in-law of the bridegroom, was best man and the bride was given away by her father. The ceremony was performed by the Rev O Percy Maynard. A large number of guests attended the wedding breakfast held in Mr Crellin's tearooms and later the newly married couple left for London. Both bride and bridegroom are very popular and they were the recipients of presents from a large circle of friends.

Lily Crellin (1899-1992)

Lily married William Picthall in 1922 and took great pleasure in the company of Dalton’s leading families – Towers, Tyson, and Fisher, the one her son Gordon Picthall wanted to marry into. There is a picture of Lily in middle age striding down a church path in furs to a wedding on a hot summer’s day. William followed wearing a three-piece suit and trilby. A grandson recalls scrubbing the cellar steps and front steps at 15 Fair View once a week. Perhaps it was the company of these people and these standards which made her ashamed of her birth. It was widely known among her contemporaries that Lily had been adopted and brought up by Daniel Crellin (1867-1929), but the circumstances of her adoption were a secret that was guarded closely and successfully. When Lily tackled Daniel Thomas, a nephew and close friend of Daniel Crellin, about her parentage after a letter appeared in the North West Evening Mail, he wouldn’t say anything beyond that her father was a musician. Something about Lily’s parentage did reach Daniel Crellin: he told her her true birthday, 17 May 1899. Lily said nothing directly about her parentage until Gordon Picthall had to get a passport for a trip to Switzerland c. 1973. Daniel Crellin declared Lilly Crellin to be his adopted daughter in his will which Lily concealed from her children. However one of the daughters saw the will when she sprang open the unlocked safe in the cupboard under the stairs. She was than a child and had been placed there because an air raid was expected. Lily made that daughter promise never to tell her sister Marion, because Marion would probe. This promise was kept – Marion’s son turned out to be the one who told her in May 2002 that her mother Lily was adopted. Another daughter learnt of Lily’s adoption when she asked about the letter written to the North West Evening Mail which stated Lily was not Daniel Crellin’s daughter. This letter had been provoked by an article remembering Daniel and published in that newspaper some years after his death.

Lily retained some feeling for the Isle of Man, although Daniel Crellin had many unhappy memories of a childhood spent there in extreme poverty. Her daughter Marion remembered Laxey as the place where Lily took the family on holidays. It is on the opposite coast to Glenmaye where Daniel Crellin was born, and in 1990 Lily asked a grandson who had visited the Isle of Man to send her some Manx kippers.

When Frank Penny died in 1956, Lily and William took in her widowed daughter Kathleen and her two sons. When her son Gordon Picthall died in 1977 his employer made over to Lily the widow’s pension to which the wife he never had would have been entitled.