W. T. L. Smithies
In the Census (1851), William Thomas Lawley Smithies (1831-1881) was a 20-year-old, living in Glossop Road with Mary Littlewood (a widow and boarding house keeper) and her mother Elizabeth Smithies (also a widow). Apparently, Elizabeth Smithies had been a dealer in hats and millinery. William was described as a nephew and a cutlery manufacturer’s clerk. Possibly he was illegitimate, because the parish baptismal register recorded that his mother was Harriet, a ‘spinster’, but no father was ....
