A Family Headstone
Posted in Curiosities, Events dear boy. Events, Trips at 12:00 on 30 August 2021
I can trace part of my ancestry back to my grandmother’s family in Tyneside. She was born Margery Besford in Hebburn, now South Tyneside, but a book I inherited through her from her father suggested he had once lived in Cramlington, Northumberland. There in May 2021 I found this headstone relating to an even earlier generation of Besfords.
The gravestone tells of the unfortunate fate of John Besford. He was run over by a train on Stannington viaduct. How devastating that must have been for the family. His young wee daughter followed him just a year later. Annie was obviously a bad luck name for the Besfords as the Annie in the following generation, my granny’s older sister, also died very young, of Scarlet Fever I think.
Tags: Cramlington, Family, graves, Hebburn, Stannington viaduct
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Andrew
5 June 2026 at 09:44
There is more information on the Besfords here, which traces the family line all the way back to James Besford and Margaret Robson, who were married at All Saints Parish Church, Rothbury, on 17th August 1679.
https://besfords.com/posts/john-besford-1820-1875/
jackdeighton
5 June 2026 at 17:39
Andrew,
Thanks for this. We have a photograph of a Martha Besford (the one mentioned on the gravestone?) dating from Edwardian or Victorian times by a Newcastle photographer and other photos of possible – but unnamed – Besford women by the same photographer.