PENTNEY, John Thomas
John Thomas Pentney, sometimes known as Thomas John Pentney, was born at 24 Mustow Street, Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk in 1855, son of John Pentney (1829-26 September 1865), a brush maker, and his wife Harriet née Laws (c1828-1915), who married at Bury St Edmund's in 1854. In 1861, young John was a 5-year-old, living at Mustow Street, Bury St Edmund's with his parents, 29-year-old John and 30-year-old Harriet with his sibling sister Harriet Emma 3. His 35-year-old father committed suicide by drowning on 26 September 1865. In 1871, John Thomas was a 15-year-old printer's apprentice, still living at Mustow Street, Bury St Edmund's with his 38[sic] widowed mother 'a tailoress', and his 13-year-old sister Emma. John married at West Stow Church, Suffolk on 8 October 1878, Rose Ann Jolly (1855-1945), eldest daughter of William Jolly/Jolley, and they had three children. Thomas exhibited at the Bury St Edmund's Fine Art Society in 1881, an oil 'Before the Storm'. In 1891, the 35-year-old manager of printing & newspaper publishing business 'The Bury Free Press', living at 16 Risbygate Street, Bury St Edmund's with his 34-year-old wife Rose Ann, born West Stow, Suffolk and two children, Cecil 3 and Oliver 1, both born in Bury St Edmund's. In 1892 the family moved to Huddersfield, Yorkshire where John Thomas established a photography studio at 6 South Parade. In 1911, still at 6 South Parade, Huddersfield where 55-year-old John Thomas was a photographer with his 54-year-old wife Rose Ann and children Florence May (1881-1952), Cecil Claud (1888-1945) and Oliver Gordon (1889-1940), and they took in two boarders and were still there in 1921 but just with 40-year-old unmarried daughter Florence, but with three boarders. John Thomas Pentney, owing to failing eyesight, retired from business around 1927 but continued to live at 6 South Parade until around 1935 when they moved to Thornton Lodge, 51 Springdale Street, Huddersfield where he died on Sunday 18 April 1937, aged 81.