Notes Research for the Butterworths can be confusing. According to a family researcher, Lyn:
"John and Benjamin's father was Lewis Benjamin Butterworth Liddell (or Liddle). After he married, he dropped the Liddell. We found that Lewis' father had been illegitimate. Liddell was his grandmother's maiden name and Butterworth was his grandfather's name. His grandmother, Mary, went on to marry Louis Butterworth, but their son, Lewis, remained a Liddell. When Lewis married [Emma Elizabeth Crocker], he must have decided that in fact he was a Butterworth and dropped the Liddell and all his children were registered as Butterworths."
A birth registration was found for John Butterworth Liddle: Registration: Mar 1881; District: Maidstone; County: Kent; Volume: 2a; Page: 720. Parents: Lewis B. Liddle and Emma E Crockett, married 1866, in Bethnal Green, London, England.
John Liddle Butterworth was baptized on March 6, 1881, at St. Peter, Maidstone, Kent, England.
In 1893, John Butterworth, 12 (along with brother, Benj Butterworth, 9) arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in a group of 59 Barnardo children accompanied by Mr. Hicks and en route to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
"RUN DOWN BY AN ENGINE
A Barnardo Boy Steps Out of a Train's Way in Front of a Locomotive.
SEVERE CONDUCT OF A HOME.
The Lad's Brother Refused the Privilege of Supporting Him in England.
At the Pape avenue crossing of the Brand Trunk Rallwy [sic], Saturday night, John Butterworth, a Barnardo boy employed by Richard Wiggins, a daryman at Chester, stepped out of the road of a freight train, directly in front of a yard engine and was struck and thrown against a telegraph pole. His skull was fractured and his hip broken. He died in the General Hospital twelve hours later.
Buterworth was 15 years of age. he was a son of a master printer in Kent County, England. Soon after his father died his mother, stricken with grief at the loss of her husband, was taken to an asylum where she died, leaving Butterworth, his five brothers and sisters, alone in the world. The elder brother was a printer, and was able to care for himself. The two smaller boys were placed in the Barnardo Home. When teh Home authorities proposed to send the boys to Canada, the elder brother protested, and said that he could then support them himself. The Home denied his right to interfere, saying that when he gave them in charge of the Home he had forfeited all claim upon them, and the brothers were sent to Canada. Since then the elder brother several times demanded the address of the children. The Home management not only refused to return the children to him, but denied him their addresses. The brother wrote to friends in Canada, asking them to search for the lads, but they were unable to find any trace of the boys.
Some time ago the elder of the two boys in Canada managed to get back to England, leaving the lad who was killed Saturday night here alone.
Mr. E. S. Jackson, a friend of the Butterworth family will look after the interests of th relatives at the inquest which is to be held at the General Hospital."