James Clegg

1774 – ?

✓ Validated against records · 2026-07-07

James Clegg was baptised on 20 June 1774 at St Chad's, the parish church of Rochdale, the son of Isaac Clegg and his wife Joannah. He is the furthest back the Clegg line stands on its own records — a Rochdale man of the generation before the mills, when the town's weaving was still a handloom trade.

In August 1796 he married Sarah Butterworth at St Chad's, and their children were baptised there across the turn of the century — Isaac, then Edmund in 1800, then Mary, Sally and Hannah. It is his son Edmund, the weaver, whose 1800 baptism names James as father, that fixes him in the line.

Beyond his baptism the record thins. His parents are known — Isaac Clegg and Joannah, whose own burial Mum traced to St Chad's in 1812 — but James's own death has not been found, and above Isaac the line has not yet been carried further. Here, in the Rochdale of the 1770s, among a townful of Cleggs, the documented line presently ends.

Composed from validated records · 2026-07-07

Baptism: June 20th 1774 St. chads, Rochdale
Marriage: August 23rd 1796 to Sarah Butterworth in St. Chad, Rochdale
Parents: Isaac Clegg and Joannah
Siblings: James Clegg baptised June 20th 1774 St. Chads, Rochdale Mally Clegg baptised August 10 1776 St. Chads, Rochdale Charles Clegg baptised August 18th 1782 St. Chads, Rochdale Sarah Clegg baptised January 19 1786 St. Chads, Rochdale
Children: Isaac Clegg baptised February 18th 1798 St Chad, Rochdale Edmund Clegg baptised May 4th 1800 St Chad, Rochdale Mary Clegg baptised September 1801 St Chad, Rochdale Sally Clegg baptised August 19 1802 St Chad, Rochdale Hannah Clegg baptised August 19th 1804 St Chad, Rochdale

In your grandmother’s words · from her notebook

Family

Marriage

Children

ECChild · the line continuesEdmund Cleggmain line1800–1841

Life

Confirmed — anchored to a recordEstimated — inferred

1774

Baptised — St Chad's, Rochdale

20 June 1774 at Rochdale

James Clegg — father Isaac Clegg — baptised 20 June 1774 — Rochdale, St Chad, Lancashire.— Baptism — St Chad's, Rochdale, 1774

Confirmed in index record Evidence

Found in an index or transcript — the original page not yet read:

Baptism — St Chad's, Rochdale, 1774 — Rochdale parish (St Chad's) register / Bishop's Transcript, 1774; indexed in Ancestry's Lancashire (and Manchester) Church of England Baptisms collections. Confirmed at the index 7 July 2026; the register image is a round-two read. Names his father, Isaac Clegg. index entry — original not yet seen

1796

Married Sarah Butterworth

23 August 1796 at St Chad

August 23rd 1796 to Sarah Butterworth in St. Chad, Rochdale— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

Our research

James Clegg — the wall, and the ground beyond it

Research · Rochdale, the 1770s

James is confirmed at the parish index — baptised 20 June 1774, father Isaac Clegg — and his son Edmund's 1800 baptism, read at the image, names him as father. The generation beyond, Isaac Clegg and Joannah, is Mum's find (Joannah's 1812 burial at St Chad's). His own death is the wall: not yet found. Rochdale is dense with Cleggs, so every step here needs a father-named record, not a name alone.

His 1774 baptism register image — St Chad's — a round-two upgrade from the index, to read the entry and confirm the mother (Joannah). Round two.
His 1796 marriage to Sarah Butterworth — St Chad's, 23 August 1796 — read at the image, to confirm the marriage that makes Edmund's mother a Butterworth. Round two.
Isaac Clegg's own baptism and marriage — to test whether the line can be carried past James into the early 18th century, and Joannah's 1812 burial to confirm the couple. Round two — the deep pass.
James's death or burial — unfound; the true wall. Worth a targeted St Chad's burial search once the earlier images are in hand.