I have several ancestors named Joseph Stirland. This post concerns my 2 x great grandfather, son of William Stirland and Dinah Hofton. He was born into a coalmining family in June 1816 in Cotmanhay, Derbyshire and, like his father, became a coalminer. He was born at a time and place when men were transitioning from the increasingly mechanised industry of framework knitting to the rapidly developing coalmining industry. The Stirlands and related families were non-conformist and this perhaps explains why … Continue reading