In the early 1900s, a couple moved from Blackburn to Valleyfield in Canada. Grandson Ken Dolphin tells how his relatives and many others took a piece of Blackburn with them across the Atlantic.

The Montreal Cottons Company is responsible for many English families putting down roots in Valleyfield, about 35 miles south west of Montreal.

Imagine working in a cotton mill in Lancashire at the turn of the last century: grimy, sooty with smoke emanating from the coal-fired boilers.

My grandmother would tell us about working alongside her mother when she was three years old. She would help change the spindles and carry the full baskets of twine back and forth so that her mother could work faster and make a few more pennies.

Children would go to school half days so that they could help in the mill. A 60-hour work week was the norm.

Sundays were for mass in the morning and some leisure activities in the afternoon. Playing cards, dancing and other leisure activities were frowned upon as it was the Lord’s day.

When my grandparents decided to move to Valleyfield, they had seen a publication put out by the mill called: Valleyfield, Canada, The cotton factory town of Canada.

This booklet was filled with pictures of the town around 1905. It depicts a town that is centred around the mill.

A town where wages are good and the cost of living low. A town surrounded by lakes and rivers teeming with fish. A town already populated by English-speaking people from the same area as them.

The mills in Valleyfield are well built, kept scrupulously clean, well lighted, and well ventilated. The surroundings are charming, being beautified by trimly kept lawns and flower beds. The mills are lighted by electric lamp, enabling the air to be kept pure and wholesome at all times. No live steam is used in the weave rooms.

The mill recruited people from Blackburn because the looms that they operated here were manufactured in Blackburn by Henry Livesey Ltd.

This small neighbourhood had its own churches, of many denominations, a new school with free education, a sports and leisure club and a co-operative society (general store) organised by employees who have been members of a similar society in England, selling boots and shoes, groceries, and all manner of useful commodities. In fact, it was a small enclave of Lancashire life transplanted here.

My grandmother, Mary Sharp, came over in 1910 with her mother, Ellen Addison and younger brother John. By then, her older brother, Richard was already here with his wife.

My grandfather, Ralph Dolphin, arrived in 1912. His ship arrived in Quebec city, after a mandatory stop at Grosse Ile for the usual medical check-up. From there he took a train to Montreal, then onto the Valleyfield Grand Trunk station located in Bellerive, the English neighbourhood of Valleyfield. The town was and still is predominantly French speaking.

He went to work at the Montreal Cotton Mill, having secured a contract in Blackburn. He boarded with the Earle family for a few months, then moved in with the Rigbys on Tin Row. These two families were also from Blackburn and acquaintances of his parents. Ralph’s family lived on Whalley Range in Blackburn.

In 1913 he met Mary and they were wed in July of that same year.

They moved in with Mary’s family which consisted of John, Richard, his wife Nellie Sutcliffe, and Mary’s mother Ellen Addison. This small semi-detached house in Cousineau Street, then called West Park, had no running water and no indoor privy.

In 1915, the mill was running only at half its capacity and Ralph was laid off. He used to say that they ate only beans that winter and he never wanted to see one again. By this time, they had two daughters, Philomene and Lilian.

At that time, The Canadian Bronze was adding to their installations and were hiring. Ralph went to inquire. If he did not find employment he said to Mary, they were packing it up and moving back to England. He got a job at the Bronze and worked there till 1960.

By then he was 69 and I remember meeting him in the morning when I was going to school and he returning from his job as night watchman. He would open his black lunchbox and give me a Hershey’s chocolate, wrapped in tin foil.

In the 1920s, Mary, May to her friends, was working at the mill. This gave her the right to live in one of the company houses. These had hot and cold running water and an indoor privy. Luxury.

They moved to Stevenson Street and lived there until 1940. Then they built a small bungalow on Joron Street, then called Cottage Lane. This street was once the cow pasture for the dairy farm that the mill owned.

I can remember my grandfather, pipe in mouth, sitting on the front porch, with his cap, watering the lawn; this small piece of land was always well kept and continuously improved upon.

Grandpa also kept canaries, which is an English tradition going back to the times when miners used them for detecting poison gas.

My grandmother, whom we called nanny, was as sociable as they come. She played cards artfully, was known to be a fine dart player and was a member of the Canadian Legion.

They spent 50 years together working and living besides the mill. The family grew over the years to 25 members.

A few years ago, I posted an add in Ancestry.com, asking for information about my family. I received a response from Tom Dolphin. Tom and I had great grandfathers that were brothers.

He acted as a guide when I went over for a visit. He drove me to Ribchester, a small rural community about five miles north of Blackburn. "This is where the family comes from’’, he said.

When we went to the cemetery, the first four stones had DOLPHIN inscribed on them. I was home.

I would appreciate any information concerning the Sharp or Dolphin family.

Email ken_dolphin@hotmail.com