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Continued...
It is interesting to note that Spring Bank Terrace was only a few hundred yards from Bourne Street where Ben's future daughter-in-law, Ann Armitage, and her family had lived from at least 1877.
The family only stayed in Spring Bank Terrace for a few years though, as by early April 1881, Ben had moved his family to 60, Tudor Street in Oldham. At this time he was working as a labourer. Tudor Street is also located in the Werneth area of Oldham, just to the south-west of the city centre, lying between the A627 and the A62 south of the Oldham Way ring road. Unfortunately, Tudor Street itself has since been demolished to make way for a grassed recreational area, and although none of the houses survive, the two extreme ends of the street still exist.
By 1883, Ben had apparently changed jobs again, and was now employed as an iron worker. Nevertheless, it is possible that since giving up his job as a cotton weaver, Ben had kept the same job throughout. He is sometimes reported as a labourer, at other times as an iron works labourer, and at yet others as an iron worker, so it is possible that he was not too precise in detailing the nature of his employment, but remained as a labourer in an iron works.
By this time, the family was living at 1, Ashton Road in Oldham, so Ben had not stayed long in Tudor Street, moving out before May 1883. Just over a year later, in May 1884, he was widowed when his wife Betty died. They were still livng in Ashton Road at the time, and Ben was still there a year later, in December 1885, when his daughter Sarah Jane was married.
By 1891 though, at the age of 69, Ben had moved out of Ashton Road, and gone to live with his youngest daughter, Sarah Jane, her new husband John Sutcliffe and their young family at 29, Wellington Road.
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