This sad tale of 'sin and cigars' turns out well in the end.
John Rowe is, perhaps, pivotal in our Rowe story. She was one of at least thirteen children of George Rowe and Ann Crawshaw and was born in 1821. George was a tailor, probably born in Bradford but moved to Huddersfield after getting married in Halifax. Quite a mobile man for those days! But then his mother, Sindonia Graham, had migrated from Settle and Giggleswick down to Bradford.
Jane found herself with a child, Thomas Rowe, four years before she married Solomon Barrett. We assume Thomas wasn't Solomon's son but we can't be sure. The assumption is backed up by the fact that Thomas was brought up by grandparents, uncles and aunts. If he had been their natural son, one would think he would have lived with them.
Jane and Solomon, a cotton spinner, went on to have two daughters, one born in Huddersfield and one born in Oldham where they moved to. Sadly, both died in infancy. Solomon, it seems, also had itchy feet. He was born in Ripponden, moved to Huddersfield, then Oldham, Castleton and finally died in 1861 in Liverpool after Jane had died in 1856.
It appears Thomas was brought up by extended family and gained an apprenticeship as a tobacconist by the time of his late teens. Tobacco was then the family's trade for three generations. There was a tobacconist called Swallow in John William Street in Huddersfield. On 3 April 1867 the shop caught fire from sparks created when a Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway warehouse across the road went up in flames. If Thomas worked there, it may have put him out of a job and prompted his move to Halifax. Thomas moved back to Huddersfield after getting married - he was there during the 1871 census - but eventually settled in Halifax.
The company he went to was established by William Hutchinson, himself a native of Huddersfield. They had a manufacturing premises at West Parade and a shop at 22 Southgate, Halifax. They later moved to 2 Southgate and then to Hopwood Lane.
When William Hutchinson retired to Southport, sometime around 1905, the Rowe family bought the business and ran it until Edward Rowe, a third generation tobacconist, retired from the struggling business in the 1960s.