YEARS of frustrating work on his family tree has persuaded Mike Harwood to write a 740-page history of one of Darwen’s most prominent families.

The dad-of-two started researching his own family roots 20 years ago, but found there were ‘too many John Harwoods’ and struggled to establish definite links.

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Instead, he decided to research ‘all’ the Harwoods in Darwen, starting with those documented by historian Jeremy Hunt in 1888, in a book about the town’s main families.

The Harwoods of Darwen, which Mike has self-published, includes details about William Gladstone Harwood, born in 1895, who went on to become headmaster of Rotorua High School in New Zealand, as well as Moses Harwood, who began working in a cotton mill at the age of eight, before being thrown out of the police force on two occasions for being drunk on duty and fighting.

There are also tragic stories, such as that of Peter Harwood, who committed suicide in 1902 after losing his job.

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Mike, who is retired after running a builders’ hardware firm, also plans a second volume, which will feature the John Harwood who was instrumental in founding the Accrington Pals when he was mayor of Accrington during the First World War, and whose great-grandson married the daughter of the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.

Two Gates Mill owner Joseph Harwood will also feature in a further volume.

Mike, who lived in Darwen for 30 years before moving to Meins Road in Blackburn, said: “After I retired some 20 years ago, I started to fill my time researching my family tree as a hobby. Unfortunately, there was very little information online and most of the research revolved around microfilm in Darwen and Blackburn Libraries. I found the whole exercise unfulfilling as there were too many John Harwoods and other common Christian names to tie down who was who, and the early part of the tree was purely guess work.

“By this time I had begun to purchase vast amounts of birth, marriage and death certificates and in the end had every birth, marriage and death certificate of Harwoods from 1837 to 2005 in the Blackburn Registration District. So armed with this information I decided to begin to write the history of all the Harwoods rather than my own family line.”

Neil Sayer, access manager at the Lancashire Archives, said “the book is what genealogy should result in”, adding: “The sheer numbers of documents illustrated show both their value as evidence and the breadth of Mike’s research.

“There are fruitful and informative diversions into work, leisure, and religion, with excursions into the history of education, nonconformity, and workhouses, among many other things.

“It’s a story of Lancashire, and a Lancashire in the world.”