Matthew Twite Dack
who had 25 children
Matthew Twite Dack was born in Beetley, Norfolk, in 1819 and died in Holt in 1900. He married twice - first to Mary Ann Brown in 1840 and he had ten children from that marriage. His second marriage in 1879 in Holt, Norfolk, was to Sarah Ann Bone-Steward of Holt and he had fifteen children from that marriage! (for the list of children from both of his marriages - click here)
Mathew Dack (who came to live in Salthouse c.1880) was the second son of Matthew Twite Dack's first marriage. He was born in Whissonsett, Norfolk, in 1848.He was apprenticed into the shoemaker's trade. As a journeyman shoemaker he travelled up to Tynemouth in search of work and married a local girl, Mary Alice Taylor, in 1871 in Orsden.
Their first child George William Dack was born in Tynemouth in 1873. The family then moved to Loftus Heights in Yorkshire (a Methodist stronghold) to join a cousin of Mathew's - Benjamin Dack, son of Mary Dack, sister to Mathew's father - who was already living there with his family.
Mathew Dack
By 1880 Mathew and his family had moved to Salthouse in Norfolk to live in the house in Cross Street now called The Seven Whistlers
Mathew was a strict Methodist and probably a part time preacher. He lived by the Bible and the words of scripture. His son Alfred (known as Joe) was born with a club foot but his father, though a shoe-maker, refused to make him a special boot to help him walk, believing that it was God's decision that Alfred had been born with this disability. Mathew died in Salthouse 22nd March 1933.
Above: Early 1900's, Mathew and Mary Dack in the back garden of their house in Cross Street (now 'The Seven Whistlers')
and (below) the bottom of Cross Street with their house on the left of the picture.
