Eliza Matthews (nee Hunt)
Chairman of Aspull Urban District Council 1970/71
Elected Chair 21 May 1970
b 1907 Higher Ince
Parents: John Hunt, coal miner and Elizabeth Jane (formerly Daniel)
m 1954 Ince to Alfred Matthews b. 1905, Colliery explosive process worker
children: None
d 1997
Eliza Hunt was born in 1907 in Heber Street, off Ince Green Lane, Ince near Wigan, later moving to Bird Street were she was still living, with her parents, in 1939. Her father, John, and grandfather, James, were both coal miners. Her mother Elizabeth Jane was a daughter of John Daniel, a blacksmith.
Eliza had an older brother, a younger sister and another brother who died in infancy. She started work in the cotton mill aged 13 and later became an official of the Wigan Weavers Association.
In 1954 she married Alfred Matthews, a widower, of Bolton Road, Aspull, whose first wife, Ellen, had died in 1950. In 1940 Alfred Matthews appeared as a witness at the inquest into the death of William Henry Hawtin. Matthews was foreman in the mixing shop at the Colliery Explosive Works in Poolstock. Hawtin, aged 32, was a well known player with Wigan and Nottinghamshire County Cricket Clubs. Hawtin had been left alone in the mixing shop when there was an explosion that killed him. Matthews gave evidence that it was normal procedure to leave one man on duty in the shop whilst the others went to lunch. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death.
Eliza and Alfred moved to Leigh Street Aspull and in 1962 Eliza was appointed to the Wigan County Magistrate’s bench. In April 1965 she was elected to represent East Ward on Aspull Urban District Council for labour and in May 1970 was elected to the Chair.
Alfred died in April 1980 and was buried with his first wife in St Elizabeth’s churchyard, Aspull.
Eliza died in 1997 and her ashes were interred with her sister Lily in St Elizabeth’s churchyard.
Author: Peter Walker
Sources:
Aspull Urban District Council Minutes
Wigan Almanac
Liverpool Echo 10 April 1940 (British Newspaper Archive on Findymypast – subscription required) – Alfred Matthews
Liverpool Echo 1 August 1962 Biographical cuttings Book 7 p132 Appointed Magistrate (Photo)
Wigan Observer 30 April 1965 p12d – Election.
Ancestry.Com (Free at Museum of Wigan Life)
Findmypast.co.uk (Subscription required)