Who were Thomas & Lizzie Sykes?💒

You don’t see too many Wedding photos on CDVs, so I took a chance on buying this one as it also had the names on the back, ‘Thomas & Lizzie Sykes.’

Not much to go on, no dates or even an area, and Sykes is not particularly rare.

I thought that the Wedding looked to be about the early 1900s, according to my reference books.

Thomas & Lizzie Sykes on their wedding day in the summer of 1904.

So I searched on free BMD marriages, between 1899 and 1906, with the name Thomas Sykes and spouse Lizzie. Just two came up, and they were both registered in Huddersfield. One in 1904 and the other in 1905. Reversing the search gave me spouses’ surnames of Lizzie Sykes in 1904 and Lizzie Ford in 1905.

Who is Mrs Lunn? In very faint writing in the centre of the back.

I decided to research the earlier one first and see where that took me. Having the registration district of Huddersfield in Yorkshire was a huge help.

As I researched the family of Thomas and Lizzie, adding more family members, I just had the feeling this was the correct couple. Then, on a public tree on Ancestry, a photo hint came up, and I couldn’t believe I was actually looking at a photo of Thomas Sykes, matching my Thomas. I went to the tree, and they also had a photo of Lizzie! Both the photos below were taken in the early 1900s I think.

Thomas Sykes from a public tree on Ancestry.

Were Thomas and Lizzie related before their marriage? Maybe cousins? Or Sykes from different families?

The Story of Thomas and Lizzie Sykes

In the closing days of 1873, in the village of Lockwood near Huddersfield, Thomas Sykes was born into a hardworking Yorkshire family. His father, Benjamin Beaumont Sykes, 1840-1889, who was a Master Joiner, and his mother, Dorothy Heywood, 1843-1907, were already building a life shaped by industry, resilience, and close family ties. Thomas grew up with siblings, Ada, Heywood, and Richard, and like many boys of his time, he balanced schooling with the realities of working-class life.

But Thomas’s childhood was not without hardship. At just sixteen, he lost his father in 1889. This loss would have marked a turning point, bringing early responsibility and a deeper reliance on family. Through his late teens and twenties, he remained in Lockwood, steadily growing into his trade and identity. In 1891, he was following his father’s profession as an apprentice Joiner.

Not far away, in Crosland Moor, Lizzie Sykes was born in 1875 to William Henry Sykes, 1842-1894, a Woollen Spinner, and Hannah Rhodes, 1846-1901, who was also a Woollen Spinner before she had children. She, too, grew up in a large and lively household, with eight siblings filling the home with noise and companionship. Like Thomas, her early life was shaped by both love and loss; her father died when she was just nineteen, and her mother followed a few years later in 1901. By her mid-twenties, Lizzie had already known the weight of grief and independence.

In July 1904, in Huddersfield, Thomas and Lizzie came together in marriage. They brought with them shared experiences and strong Yorkshire roots.

They settled in Lockwood, at Thomas’s family home, 35 Swan Lane, Lockwood, Huddersfield, grounded in steady work and family life. Thomas became a skilled joiner, eventually rising to the level of a master craftsman. His work, likely involving woodwork for homes and businesses, would have been both practical and respected, an essential trade in a growing industrial town.

Lizzie, like many women of her time, devoted herself to the home. Census records later describe her work simply as “home duties,” but her role would have been anything but simple, managing the household, raising children, and holding the family together.

Their first son, George, was born in 1906, followed by Arnold in 1910. The boys grew up in a household shaped by their father’s craftsmanship and their mother’s care.

By 1911, Thomas was recorded as the head of the household and a “Master Joiner,” a sign that his skills and reputation had grown. The family continued to live in Lockwood at 35 Swan Lane, deeply rooted in the same community where both Thomas and Lizzie had spent their childhoods.

1921, the Sykes family was now at 37 Swan Lane, maybe it was larger than 35?

By 1921, Thomas was still working as a joiner, an employer now with his own business, B.B. & Sons at 37 Swan Lane, a connection to his own family name, Benjamin Beaumont. Life would have been steady but not without challenges, especially through the years surrounding the First World War and its aftermath.

As the decades passed, Thomas continued working well into later life, recorded in 1939 as a “working master joiner.” This speaks to both necessity and dedication; he remained active in his trade into his sixties. As you can see on the record below, there is no 37 Swan Lane now, so they hadn’t moved, but obviously made the two properties into one to live and work.

Both their sons were well educated and had very good jobs. I haven’t found a marriage for eldest son George at all, but Arnold married in 1946 to Mavis Doreen Sykes, and the couple had two children, a son who died last year and a daughter.

But time inevitably brought loss. Lizzie experienced the deaths of several siblings in the 1930s and 1940s, reminders of a generation passing.

In February 1944, after nearly 40 years of marriage, Thomas died in Huddersfield at the age of 70. His passing marked the end of a long partnership built on shared history, quiet endurance, and family devotion.

Lizzie lived on for another twelve years after Thomas’s death. These later years would have been filled with memories of their life together.

She witnessed more family losses, including the deaths of her sisters, before she herself passed away in July 1956 at the age of 81.

Thomas and Lizzie Sykes lived lives that might seem ordinary at first glance, but theirs was a story shared by many Yorkshire families of their time:
a story of hard work, early loss, strong community ties, and enduring commitment.

Their legacy lived on through their sons, George, 1906-1983, and Arnold, 1910-1993, and through the generations that followed, carrying forward the story of a Yorkshire family shaped by resilience and love.

Here’s the public family tree on Ancestry for the Sykes family: Lizzie & Thomas Sykes Family

Skyes.

I haven’t been able to find a family connection between Thomas and Lizzie before they married. I have also found two other family members: one was their son, Arnold, who also married a Sykes! I wanted to know more.

The surname Sykes is English and strongly associated with Yorkshire. Someone who lived by a small stream or ditch would be described as living “at the syke,” which eventually became Sykes.

In the early 19th century, Huddersfield was expanding rapidly due to the woollen textile industry. Large local families (including many Sykes households) appear repeatedly in parish registers, tax lists, and early census records.

Parish records from Almondbury, Huddersfield, and surrounding villages show numerous Sykes baptisms and marriages in the 1700s and early 1800s.

The 1841 Census (the first detailed census) shows many Sykes households clustered in Huddersfield and nearby townships.

The surname was particularly strong across West Yorkshire compared to most other parts of England.