Henry Leigh Trotman.
Chairman of Aspull Urban District
Elected April 1909, resigned October 1909
b 1867 Burscome, Wiltshire
Parents: Edward F Trotman, Vicar of Wimborne Minster (1881 Census)
M: Probably unmarried
children: None
d 1964 Bournemouth, aged 96 (unconfirmed)
Henry L Trotman came to Aspull sometime before 1901, the census that year found him living at Moorland House, Aspull, aged 33, unmarried, a colliery manager. Also at that address was his housekeeper, Annie Townsend, aged 36, born in Halburton in Devon.
At the annual meeting of Aspull Urban District Council on 21 April 1909 he was proposed as Chairman for the coming year. A second motion proposed Joseph Moore continue as Chairman (he had held the position since 1904). This proposal was defeated and Henry L Trotman was elected Chairman.
The Council minutes of 1st September record a letter from Councillor Trotman apologising for being unable to attend at that meeting and on 5th October he wrote tendering his resignation as chairman and from the Council as he had been appointed to a position in India. John Hope (Vice-chairman) was elected to the Chair for the remainder of the Council year.
A reception was held at the Royal Hotel on Monday 25 October 1909 were he was presented with a purse of gold from the officials and workmen of the Haigh and Aspull District of Wigan Coal and Iron Company Ltd. on the occasion of his leaving for India.
Several speakers paid tribute to Mr Trotman, one describing him as “hail fellow well met amongst every section of society”. Replying Mr Trotman thanked those present and all the men of the pits over which he had been in charge. He was sorry to be leaving but “thought it was a natural process that a man should not stand still, but endeavour to go forward, and he hoped that the help he had received from many of those present and from his present employers would secure him a successful career in the future”.
It is thought that H L Trotman travelled to India in late 1909 or 1910 as he has not been found in the 1911 UK census.
He has not been found in the lists of passengers leaving the UK around that time but he arrived back in England from Bombay on 21 March 1921 on the ship Neuralia disembarking at Plymouth.
Henry Leigh Trotman died in April 1964 in Bournemouth, aged 96.
Sources:
Aspull Urban District Council minutes
Wigan Observer 30 October 1909 p5g
Ancestry.com
Findmypast.co.uk (Subscription required)