I am trying to discover why some of my Dorset ancestors (including the Coxs and the Skillers) chose to start a new life in Saddleworth, Yorkshire, in the 1870s. In Saddleworth's 1871 census, only one resident had been born in Dorset; by the 1881 census, there were 49 – many of whom had married local people and begun to produce large families. Did some
